Story by Samantha Young / Photos by Andre Hastick
At the Fourth Quinquennial Constituency Session of the Chesapeake Conference, held on Sunday, May 21, at the Spencerville church in Silver Spring, Md., a quorum of the 327 regular delegates and 227 delegates-at-large met to elect officers for the 2017-2021 quinquennial term and conduct church business. Rick Remmers, president; Eduardo Muñoz, treasurer; and Jerry Lutz, executive secretary were re-elected.
Story by LaTasha Hewitt
Allegheny East Conference's Baltimore Junior Academy (BJA), located in the Park Heights community of Baltimore, recently received a call from the mayor’s office requesting use of their gymnasium as a cold weather shelter for the homeless. Initially school leadership was hesitant because the school would soon be holding a program in their gym. Staff and students had already prepared the space with lights and decorations, purchased costumes and set up chairs for the crowd.
Story by Betty Klinck
Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville, Md., and Adventist HealthCare Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Md., each received two awards from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association for life-saving, high-quality stroke care. This comes during National Stroke Month, when we raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of stroke, which affects 800,000 Americans a year.
Graduation season is starting! See a list of all the Columbia Union Conference academy graduation times and livestream links below:
May 26 - 28
Story by V. Michelle Bernard
Rubén Ramos, the Columbia Union Conference’s vice president for Multilingual Ministries, regularly hears stories of immigrant members afraid of deportation. One local church leader from Alexandria, Va., recently approached him, asking for prayer after her husband, a legal resident of the United States, was arrested and threatened with deportation. Ramos says she was also worried about her status, but said, “If they deport me. I’ll go to El Salvador and plant another church.”
Henry J. Fordham (pictured speaking above), president of the Allegheny East Conference, shared a story of two members from an Indonesian congregation who were recently arrested after submitting immigration applications. “People are living in fear,” he said. “Our members need to know that we care.”
Story by Tiffany Doss
One year we spent $40,000 on evangelism and community outreach—and zero relationships were built,” recalls Jennifer Deans, pastor of the Living Faith church in Dulles, Va. After attending a church planting conference, Deans realized the church didn’t need a better discipleship program; it needed a paradigm shift. “It’s God’s job to grow the church, and it’s ours to make disciples,” she says. “I came across Generate One, a discipleship program that teaches these biblical principles.”
Editorial by Rick Remmers
Sharing is a special concept. It is similar to giving but with a very different outcome. I enjoy reading and collecting books. If I give a book away, then it belongs to someone else, and I no longer have it. But if I share a book with my wife, then it is something that we can both treasure. We not only enjoy reading the book, but we have the joy of spending time together and the memories of conversations that were sparked by the stories we read.
The Columbia Union Conference recently hosted the Rise Up Young Adult Summit in Arlington, Va., where church leaders encouraged young adults to be leaders in the church today and now. Watch videos from that weekend here.
Read more about it here.
More videos coming soon!
Story by Bryant Smith
Allegheny West Conference recently held its 17th Annual Constituency Meeting with 300+ delegates from the following states of Ohio, West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
In favor with the majority, William T. Cox (President), Marvin C. Brown (Secretary), and H. Candance Nurse (Treasurer) were re-elected for another term. President Cox mentioned how blessed he was to have formed a bond with his team and thanked every delegate who attended and made this possible.