Columbia Union News

Pop quiz. When you think of how your school or church treasurer adds value to the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, what phrase comes to mind? (Pick one answer from below).

A. Accounting
B. Providing timely information
C. Being a spiritual leader
D. Providing creative strategies
E. All of the above

“Last year we baptized 42,000 Hispanics, which represents about a third of the entire baptisms done in all of the North American Division,” shares Ricardo Norton, DMin, director of the Institute of Hispanic Ministries at Andrews University (Mich.). Norton is sitting in front of a class at the Columbia Union Conference’s headquarters in Columbia, Md., which just finished covering the ins and outs of developing and implementing small group ministries. In front of him are 29 Spanish-speaking students, most pastors of churches throughout the union, who have just completed one class toward their Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry. 

On Sunday Seventh-day Adventists from all around the North American Division (NAD) joined 50 other faith and community organizations in responding to First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! national health and fitness campaign.

On Sunday morning, September 11, 2011, the Spring Valley Academy High School Band from Centerville, Ohio, under the direction of Donald Huff, joined the Kettering Praise Orchestra and Oakwood Brass for a 9/11 anniversary concert at 10 a.m. at the Kettering church in Dayton, Ohio.

Frank Hale Jr., PhD, (84) a beloved member of the Allegheny West Conference’s (AWC) Ephesus church in Columbus, Ohio, died last Wednesday after an extended illness.

Don A. Roth, long considered the “PR person” for the Seventh-day Adventist church for the past 60 years and a former Visitor editor, passed away on Tuesday evening at his home in Loma Linda, Calif. “I spent 15 happy years in the Columbia Union Conference,” Roth wrote last year in a letter to the current Visitor editor. “We had a great team at the union office and I thoroughly enjoyed those years.”

This month Ileana Espinosa joins the Columbia Union Conference’s Office of Education as associate director for elementary education. Espinosa hails from the Central California Conference where she served 14 years as associate superintendent. Prior to joining that conference, she taught high school English and Spanish for seven years at Madison Academy (Tenn.). She also taught on the elementary school level. She starts work at the union July 18 and fills the vacancy left when LaVona Gillham retired earlier this year.

The Columbia Union Conference Executive Committee today elected Robert T. Vandeman executive secretary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the eight-state, mid-Atlantic region.

At “Engaging Meaningful Ministry From the Margins,” a Fourth Street Friendship church event held last weekend in Washington, D.C., community leaders tackled tough questions about how to reach local communities. Approximately 500 people attended the event, and viewers from as far away as California and Dubai tuned in via the Internet.