Who We Are, How We Serve
The Columbia Union Conference coordinates the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s work in the Mid-Atlantic United States, where 145,000 members worship in 863 congregations. We provide administrative support to eight conferences; two healthcare networks; 101 early childhood, elementary and secondary schools; a liberal arts university; a health sciences college; a dozen community services centers; 8 camps; 5 book and health food stores and a radio station.
We Believe
God is love, power, and splendor—and God is a mystery. His ways are far beyond us, but He still reaches out to us. God is infinite yet intimate, three yet one,
all-knowing yet all-forgiving.
A MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT DAVE WEIGLEY
As we transition from 2022 to 2023, what will be our support as we go into the future?
All of us have areas in life we would like to improve, and as we reflect on 2022, maybe we have some regrets, in a relationship with God, or with others, or maybe there’s something else in your life you want to address.
Why not think of the Bible as a bridge to transition from the past to the new--from what was to what could be?
Story by Sam Belony/ Photos by Krystal Irrgang
Union administrators team with Pastor Tara VinCross to start the REACH Columbia Union Urban Evangelism School, where young adults are not only staying in the church, they are transforming it—as well as the many lives they touch through boots-on-the-ground ministry.
The unprecedented venture was born like so many God-inspired projects—thoughts planted in the minds of those seeking to be used by the Lord in ministry. This particular idea started developing in 2010 when Tara VinCross, then pastor of Pennsylvania Conference’s Chestnut Hill church, wrote a ministry development plan as part of her doctorate in ministry. She hoped it would result in an urban evangelism school in Philadelphia.
Unbeknownst to her, Columbia Union Conference leaders had hatched a similar idea and were also planning to launch an evangelism school. Eventually, the plans coalesced. “After completing my doctoral program, I thought, ‘Well, that’s the only piece that hasn’t been completed,’” VinCross recalls. Then one day, the union called to discuss a collaboration, and together in 2013 they formed a task force.
A symposium discusses violence carried out under the banner of faith.
Story by Bettina Krause / Originally published on adventistreview.com / Image courtesy PARL
We pastors care deeply for our church members. We think about you during the week, pray for you, and want to do whatever we can to give you spiritual comfort. But one pastor serves many parishioners, and not all of you are equally sensitive to your pastor’s feelings and needs.
Story by Loren Seibold / This article is reprinted with permission from the 1st quarter 2016 Elder’s Digest
What follows applies to only a small number of people in a congregation, but that small number can do a great deal of damage and may help to account for why only one out of 10 pastors will last to the end of his or her career. Your pastor probably won’t say these things to you—church relationships are too delicate—but, on occasion, they wish they could.
So here are 10 things, in no particular order, we pastors would sometimes like to say to a few of our church members:
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