A Written Tribute: Dr. Erich Baumgartner

Dr. Erich Baumgartner, a native of Austria, has been serving as a professor, pastor, missiologist, and church-growth specialist. He is valued and respected by our world church as a global leader, speaker, and lecturer. Very few have demonstrated his level of energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to scholarship and mentoring. 

An authentic scholar, Erich has published on cross-cultural transitions, leadership and change, and organizational growth. Thanks to his remarkable multilingual abilities, he has translated several works related to church growth. Besides, The General Conference Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research gratefully acknowledges his creativity and spirit of initiative in the planning and development of adventiststatistics.org, an online database about the Seventh-day Adventist church worldwide.

Erich is also the senior editor of the Journal of Applied Christian Leadership which has made a significant impact, over the last decade, well beyond the sphere of the Adventist Church. JACL is designed to encourage ongoing conversation between scholars and practitioners in applied Christina leadership theory.   It is indexed by ProQuest, EBSCO, and the American Theological Library Association Religion Database.

Erich’s guidance and encouragement have helped colleagues and students and colleagues thrive in research, publications and scholarship. He has served a chair of countless dissertation committees.  He is rigorous and demands quality. We have been so fortunate to have his expertise to rely on for the past 25 years.

Currently, serving as the director of the PhD in Leadership program, he will continue to excel as he broadens his focus to include co-leading the Global Leadership Institute. He is passionate about leadership training in the Adventist Church.  His audiences love his lively presentations, speckled with Socratic questions, that forces the participants to deeply reflect on critical issues and confront grave challenges

Polite and respectful, refined in his manners, he is known for his desire to help and support others.  He exemplified a true spirit of service.  Erich and his lovely wife, Sylvie, are an affectionate couple, who enjoy having lunch together every day at the cafeteria.  They are an inspiration for younger couples on campus.

We are delighted to congratulate our colleague and friend, Dr. Erich Baumgartner, as he receives today this award for 25 years of distinguished service at Andrews University!