Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

Potomac Conference

“These ministry leaders are working tirelessly in their local churches to reach out and engage their youth and young adults,” said Frank Bondurant, Columbia Union vice president for Ministries Development. “To retain and enlist these youth and young adults in our local church ministries is one of the greatest challenges we as a church are facing, and I am grateful that [we] could support and assist these leaders in this important ministry.”

“Sometimes as young adults, especially those who are single, we go our own way on Friday nights. But with this ministry, we can open the Sabbath together,” says Anthony Barnes, a member of Allegheny East Conference’s First church in Washington, D.C. It was at his church that young adults from around the region recently met for the “First Fridays” worship service.

After 20 years of meeting for worship in places they could not call home, last weekend members of the Potomac Conference’s Virginia Beach (Va.) church celebrated the purchase of their own church building. Visitors from the community and over 10 sister churches in California, West Virginia, Maryland, Florida and North Carolina joined them for the grand opening ceremony. The sanctuary, lobby and hallways were standing-room-only when attendance soared to over 400 during the divine hour of worship.

Ester Bacud, RN, a member of Potomac Conference’s Filipino Capitol church in Beltsville, Md., was recently awarded Washington Adventist Hospital’s (WAH) first Compassionate Care Award. The new annual honor is presented to a member of the hospital community (staff, physicians, contract employees, volunteers, etc.) who best embodies the hospital’s mission to “demonstrate God’s care.”