Allegheny East Conference

Allegheny East Conference's Mizpah church in Philadelphia, recently celebrated its first Adventist Recovery Ministries (ARMin) Day. “By our work in the community, we’re trying to help people experience the life that God intends for them to enjoy,” says Donald McKinnie, pastor.

You don’t need any special gifts or abilities,” says Tamyra Horst, on being a prayer warrior. “You just need a willingness, an honest heart and a tenacity to not give up.” Here are a few tips from Horst and other prayer warriors in the Columbia Union.

Saundra Austin’s prayer life changed the day she got baptized in the late 1970s. On that day, she felt too sick to leave home. “I called my Bible worker,” says Austin, now prayer coordinator for the Allegheny East Conference (AEC). “She said to just go back and lay down, and we’ll pray for you.”

Roland Hill’s wife, Susie, was tired of hearing Hill complaining that there wasn’t a deep Christian book about success, so she encouraged the stewardship guru to write his own book.

“[The church] is supposed to be a hospital, but we’re not all ready to address the sick,” says James Jackson, AEC’s coordinator for Adventist Recovery Ministry (ARMin), and a member of the Mount Olivet church in Camden, N.J., who spent 20 years under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.

The opioid and heroin epidemic is crippling communities across the nation, leaving health officials and providers, coroners, law enforcement and churches scrambling to respond to and combat this widespread crisis. Read how Adventists are helping addicts recover

Minnie McNeil, longtime Allegheny East Conference (AEC) and Columbia Union Conference Adventist Community Services (ACS)/Disaster Response director, recently retired.

During the Allegheny East Conference’s (AEC) 21st Regular Constituency Meeting, delegates celebrated the conference’s accomplishments and also elected a new officer to the leadership team.

Over the past five years, the number of women in pastoral ministry within the Columbia Union Conference has grown to 40. Meet six women pastors who reflect on their call to ministry, as well as their challenges, successes and blessings.

Fourteen Columbia Union Conference members, including 11 sponsored by the union’s Adventist Community Services/Disaster Response (ACS/DR) Department, spent up to two weeks sorting supplies, distributing water and praying with residents impacted by Hurricane Harvey.