Nearly 300 people from all over the Northwest traveled to the Spokane Valley Adventist Church Oct. 21–23 to attend the SEEDS Northwest Conference on church planting. Enthusiasm ran high as participants enjoyed inspirational sermons, educational presentations and a variety of seminars.

The conference was jointly sponsored by the Upper Columbia Conference (UCC), North American Division Evangelism Institute at Andrews University and the Global Mission office of the General Conference. Its purpose was to inspire participants to focus on the mission of the church and the exciting possibilities of starting new churches.

Max Torkelsen, UCC president, gave the keynote address and called on participants to aggressively reach out to those who don’t know Jesus. He pointed out that the church exists for one purpose, to share the gospel with the world.

Meetings and seminars were also conducted in Spanish, and a number of members from both new and more established Hispanic churches attended.

Bill McClendon, who serves as a church-planting pastor in Tulsa, Okla., presented a number of seminars on how his congregation went from 20 to an attendance of more than 400 in five years.

Russell Burrill, director of the North American Division Evangelism Institute and professor at the Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, was the primary speaker throughout the weekend. He urged SEEDS Northwest participants to completely commit themselves to the mission of the church and encouraged those not involved in a church plant to seriously consider the possibility of such an adventure.