Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

Chesapeake Conference

The Chesapeake Conference has over 13,924 members in 74 congregations (64 churches, 10 companies) in Delaware, Maryland, and on the edges of Virginia and West Virginia. It has a pastoral workforce of 65, and its largest congregation, Spencerville (Silver Spring, Md.) has a membership in excess of 1,719. The Chesapeake Conference operates a strong Christian educational program that includes nearly 100 teachers and more than 1,050 students in 11 schools including one high school, a Pre-K - 12 grade academy, a Pre-K - 10 grade academy and eight elementary schools. It also operates an Adventist Book Center and four Adventist Community Services centers in Maryland and Delaware.

Mt. Aetna Camp and Retreat Center, outside Hagerstown, Md., is a fully-accredited camping and retreat center that hosts more than 700 youth during the conference's annual summer camp program. The site, which houses a nature center with a collection of stuffed animals, birds, insects, and reptiles from around the world, is used for field trips, outdoor learning programs, church retreats, spiritual seminars, and camping and hiking excursions.

Columbia Union team participation in the annual test of Bible knowledge has more than doubled over the past year.

Story by Columbia Union Staff; Photos by Jeff Cooley

Story by Samantha Young

At its January 28 meeting, the Chesapeake Conference Committee elected Jerry Lutz, MDiv, to the position of conference executive secretary. He replaces Kleyton Feitosa who accepted a call to serve as president of the Egypt-Sudan Field.

As the 22-year-old mother of two tried to get her friendly, rambunctious, four-year-old daughter to sit still at the dinner table, her five-year-old son sat counting. He was doing pretty well. He almost made it to 100, when Luritz Parker, a member of Chesapeake Conference’s Atholton church in Columbia, Md., interrupted to hand them three clear sandwich bags filled with soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and wash cloths.