On Sabbath, 54 teams, comprised of at least 320 Pathfinders, gathered in Blue Mountain Academy’s gymnasium in Hamburg, Pa., to test their knowledge of the Bible during the Columbia Union Conference’s sixth Pathfinder Bible Experience (PBE), a competition that tests participants Bible knowledge. So far it is the largest Columbia Union PBE event in the union.
Story by Michele Joseph
The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting churches,” says Rubén Ramos, the Columbia Union’s vice president for Multilingual Ministries, quoting from C. Peter Wagner’s book Church Planting for a Greater Harvest: A Comprehensive Guide. Here are some tips Ramos and Peter Casillas, who most recently served as associate director for pastoral ministries in evangelism and church planting and volunteer lay pastors in Potomac Conference, say any leader can use in their ministries:
Story by Michele Joseph
When Juliana Marson received a call from a woman so depressed she was unable to leave her home, Marson did what she knew would work best—she prayed. Then she invited the woman to her two-week-old church plant, the New Jersey Conference’s Grace Place, in Lakewood.
Jacqueline Lewis didn’t come to church, but she arrived during fellowship dinner.
“I stopped what I was doing, ran and hugged her,” Marson says. But Lewis replied, “You can’t hug me. I’m ugly.”
Story by V. Michelle Bernard / Photo by Pieter Damsteegt, NAD Communication
This week church leaders, local pastors and institutional leaders from across the Seventh-day Adventist church in North America gathered to discuss ways to collaborate to reach, retain and reclaim the people of North America with Jesus’ message and mission.
Topics covered included church revitalization, the trend of aging churches, ministering to large people groups (such as single mothers and their families) and how to reach missing Adventist members.
Story by Tiffany Doss