STORY
Ohio Conference Celebrates Church Planting Festival
October 14, 2023
Francis Tuffour
Today, Ohio Conference celebrated its first church planting festival at Spring Valley Academy in Centerville, Ohio, in recognition of the new status of 25 churches. Following a welcome address from Peter Simpson, who doubles as Multilingual Ministries and Church Planting Director of the Ohio Conference, there was a series of songs from the praise team and sisters Harline and Denia Tucker.
There was a colorful congregation parade where all the 25 churches with their representative that took part in the event lined up and walked through the middle aisle of Fritzsche Center for Worship and Performing Arts. The churches, with a leader holding specially designed banners with the name of the church boldly inscribed on the banner, marched majestically to the main stage when Javier Santana and Wanda Lugo, who emceed and served as English and Spanish interpreters took turns to call the churches.
Today's event was the crowning celebration of a church planting caravan held on October 6 and 7, 2023, when a conference-wide mass of church plants and organization ceremonies for 25 churches were held simultaneously. During the caravan ceremony, six new groups officially became church plants, five churches attained mission church status, and 14 churches became organized churches.
The church planting festival drew special guests from the North American Division, Columbia Union Conference, and Ohio Conference.
José Cortes Jr., Associate Director of the North American Division Ministerial Association, said, "The Division has 1.2 million members. North American division is the largest division when it comes to geographic territory. Now, out of all this big territory, there is not one place where the church is multiplying faster than in Ohio Conference." On behalf of the North American Division, he thanked the members and the Ohio Conference leadership for contributing to church growth. He also commended Peter Simpson for his remarkable role in church planting.
Bob Cundiff, Ohio Conference president, delivered a sermon titled "You Will See Greater Things Than These" and shared how the conference exceeded its evangelism goal through God's leading. He reported that in 2021, the conference recorded 830 baptisms. The baptisms jumped to 907 in 2022; the current baptism was 944. He was optimistic that in 2023, the conference would witness its first 1,000 baptisms in a single year. He stressed, "When we rest in Jesus, when we commit our lives to Him, when we are faithful to Him, we have great things, but we will see greater things than these." He noted the conference's mission, "I believe this is only the beginning. As wonderful things as we have seen, there is more blessing, and there is more joy. We have 14,500 members in the Ohio Conference. So, there are many people around us who still need to experience salvation. They still need to have their hearts connected with their Heavenly Father."
There were short video testimonies and historical overviews of how some of the 25 churches started and the roles of key people. Some churches, lay church planters, mother churches, and pastors received certificates of recognition, medals, pins, and other awards for their unique contributions to church planting in the territory of the Ohio Conference.
In his speech, Frank Bondurant, vice president for Ministries Development of the Columbia Union Conference, thanked the Ohio Conference administration and Peter Simpson for their vision and what God has been doing through them. "Brothers and sisters in Ohio, this has been a great day, but the best is yet to come. Stay faithful. Keep moving forward. Jesus is coming soon," he added.
Pastor Rubén A. Ramos, Multilingual Ministries Director at Columbia Union Conference, talked about the need for a church on every corner, appealed, and invited people who would like to plant new churches. Those who responded to the appeal received replica church buildings.
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