Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

Potomac Conference

For the past year, pastors, such as Daniel Royo of the Piney Forest church in Danville, Va., along with teachers and staff, have been discussing what social justice means from a biblical perspective.

For many, social justice is a volatile subject. Some feel the time for open and honest, even painful, discussion has not yet arrived. As followers of Christ, our privilege is to create an environment where we can discuss and live out a biblical perspective of justice. As theologian Russell D. Moore says, “The gospel drives us to an understanding that the ultimate accounting of justice doesn’t rest with the state, or with ourselves, but with the Judgment Seat of the kingdom of God.”

Photo by James Ferry

Ministry is often a family affair. These dynamic, dedicated family duos—father-son, father-daughter, husband-wife and siblings—have dedicated their lives to working for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. How are they alike? Different? What blessings and challenges have they experienced? And what have they learned along the way?

For one special Sabbath, the doors of some 40 Seventh-day Adventist churches in the Northern Virginia area were closed. Their members instead  gathered at the Hylton Memorial Chapel for a joint worship service, fellowship, training and a free concert.

After watching Rex Hugus, a quiet coworker read his Bible on lunch breaks, Larry Sutherland’s curiosity finally got the best of him. “I finally had to ask Rex some questions,” Sutherland said. “I was intrigued with his background and found his habits to be different from most [people] I worked with,” said Sutherland.