Local Leaders Converge to Focus on Planting New Churches

“There’s no better time than now to plant churches in Chesapeake.”

Last weekend, local church leaders convened for two church planting training events where they learned more about planting churches and how they can effectively reach unentered areas in Chesapeake Conference territory. 

“Seeds Vision” was held Friday and Sabbath at the DoubleTree hotel in Columbia, Md., for Chesapeake’s English-speaking churches and focused on presenting the church planting vision to individuals interested in learning more about the process. “Seeds Core Groups” was held Sabbath afternoon at the Ellicott City (Md.) church for Spanish-speaking groups already in the planting process.

Participants at both events listened to engaging presentations from experienced church planters and evangelists. Following each presentation, attendees participated in roundtable discussions with their teams, where they talked about applying what they’d learned to their local context. 

“There’s no better time than now to plant churches in Chesapeake,” says Jerry Lutz, president. “It’s exciting to see how the Lord is moving upon the hearts and minds of men and women around this conference to plant churches in places where the gospel is needed…The Lord has promised that He will give us the tools and necessary resources to do the work that He has commissioned us to do.”

The training provided at the two “Seeds” events is part of Chesapeake’s ongoing commitment to plant 35 new churches by 2025. 

“Church planting is important because there are 50 places within the Chesapeake Conference that have a population of 50,000 or more people, and there is absolutely no Adventist church there,” says David Klinedinst, evangelism and church growth director. “We are called as a remnant movement to plant churches in those areas.”

The English-speaking “Seeds Vision” conference featured a Sabbath sermon from retired General Conference vice president and former It Is Written speaker/director Mark Finley. Other weekend speakers included Lutz, Klinedinst, Boyan Levterov, and Hugo Villalobos. 

“It has been awesome; it has been uplifting, and it has been powerful,” said Deron Buggan, member of the Prince Emmanuel All Nations church in Bowie, Md.

The “Seeds Core Groups” event for active Hispanic church plants in Chesapeake featured presentations from Ruben Ramos, Columbia Union vice president for multilingual ministries, Walter Cardenas, Mountain View Conference Hispanic ministries coordinator, and Orlando Rosales, Chesapeake Hispanic ministries director.