Click through a collection of leadership and ministry blog posts!
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A Totally Involved Family
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Does your family ever have annual reunions? My family traditionally gathers together in July. Every second weekend of July, we would visit with one side of my grandparents’ family and the third weekend we would visit with the other side of my grandparents’ family! This was a pretty…
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Eclipsed by God’s Glory
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Do you remember the first time you saw an eclipse? Maybe you have recent vivid memories of the total solar eclipse that we experienced in 2017 (total, that is, depending on where you lived and/or traveled to witness the eclipse). The news will tell you the times it…
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A Few Minutes a Day
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have you ever visited a church with acoustics that made you stop and listen in awe? A few years ago, I had the chance to visit a church in Jerusalem that made any singing group sound amazing. The group I was traveling with had no claims of being…
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God’s Miracle Grow
By Craig Carr, Washington Conference vice president Have you ever wondered how we can be farmers for God in today’s world? While spending time with Jesus one morning, I was struck by the thought of our role in sharing the gospel with those around us and the role of God’s Spirit. As in the…
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The Best Education
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Do you remember sending your kids off to the first day of school? Some parents sending their children off for the first time may have been teary eyed as they reflected on how fast their children had grown up. Other parents may have had that sense of relief…
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Eagerly Listening
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Thousands of Adventist teachers listened to a worship presentation at the National Teachers’ Convention as the speaker challenged them to walk with God and let God work through them to bring the joy of God to the lives of their students. As I glanced around the large room…
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Representing Jesus in Troubled Times
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Last week I watched a news article about a young African American woman who had been caught in a sudden downpour. She took shelter in a porch like area of an apartment building and called an Uber to take her the rest of the way home. While she…
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Ancient Words
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have your kids ever kept singing a song so much that it gets stuck in your head? I remember when my children were younger, they would pester me at times by singing songs that they knew would get stuck in my head! While attending church last week, the…
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When “I Sight” Became “Jesus’ Eye Sight
By Heidi Baumgartner, Washington Conference communication director It was a week that started with averted eyes and ended up with Jesus’ eyes. Recently, I was one of four representatives from Washington Conference (plus two others in our national delegation) at a convention that focused on helping businesses and organizations make better decisions based on…
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God’s Protected Species
By Pam Scott, Washington Conference associate treasurer One warm August night my husband and I were walking along the waterfront in Tacoma, Wash. The sun had set and the fishermen were lined up with their poles out on the pier. As we walked closer, I saw a couple of small dogfish sharks about twelve…
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Believe in the Ultimate Stumbling Block
By Eric Davis, Washington Conference associate treasurer Like most cats, Oliver is an expert in getting into anything and everything possible. Unfortunately, he often does not understand his limits or always listen to directions. One morning the young tabby kitten spotted a squirrel outside the window. Oliver just knew he needed to play with…
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A Highlight of Their Summer!
By Katie Henderson, communication intern What if camp was the only place you could really reconnect with your friends? What if you made lifelong friends with your fellow campers during that one week of camp? This is what it’s like for the 13 campers during a special week of blind camp at Sunset Lake…
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My Freedom Prayer
By Heidi Baumgartner, Washington Conference communication director My Facebook feed was full of patriotic celebration photos and posts for the Fourth of July. I always enjoy seeing people’s life experiences and the moments in time that they want to remember. Yet there was one post with a lady’s essay on freedom that caused me…
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In Rythym with Christ
By Dustin Serns, Port Orchard pastor and Washington Adventist Camp Meeting youth division team member 14-year-old Logan was disconnected from the Adventist church and school in his hometown. He had felt judged by adults and bullied by some of his peers. The few friends that accepted him were not positive influences. His parents had…
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Fishing Off the Map
By Colette Newer, Washington Conference Outreach Ministries associate director I encountered a story recently on This American Life that captured my attention. The story took place in 1980 in Damascus, Arkansas, where a nuclear missile silo was housed. In the vividly recounted story, two technicians were preparing for routine maintenance on one of the…
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Listening to Hear
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have you noticed that there is a difference between listening to hear and listening to respond? Most of us are really good at listening to respond. We start formulating our response while the other person is talking and many times we don’t really hear what is being said.…
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Living Architecture
By Colette Newer, outreach ministries associate director There’s a Girl Scout troop that meets at my church on Wednesday evenings. They’ve met there for a number of years and their familiarity has led them to refer to it as “The Church.” For example, they announce to parents that they will meet at “The Church”…
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Refocusing Prayer
By Heidi Baumgartner, Washington Conference communication director I’ve gone through many dry periods in my life when my prayers sounded the same, felt the same, and seemed to give the same results. You’ve likely had a similar chapter of life, or maybe multiple chapters like this. I thought as a writerly type that…
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Faith in a Time of Stress
By Eric Davis, Washington Conference associate treasurer Have you ever been extremely stressed about a problem in your life, only to find out later that there was no need to worry at all? My wife, Ashley, is currently going back to school full-time to become a nurse practitioner, but has also decided to work…
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An Impossible Task Made Simple
By Tyler Long, Washington Conference evangelism coordinator In Acts 1:8 we read: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Here we have…