Laity Convention Highlights People Groups, Focused Evangelism, Discipleship

In the U.S., Atlantic Union Conference members forge ahead as part of Pentecost 2025.

April 1, 2025 | Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review

Worship songs in Spanish welcomed more than 400 participants to the U.S. Atlantic Union Conference (AUC) SEEDS Festival of the Laity on March 28. The three-day event in Stamford, Connecticut, brought together regional Seventh-day Adventist lay church members and ministry leaders to connect, get training, and be inspired to reach more people for Jesus, church leaders said.

“We are here to be empowered to serve,” acknowledged AUC Personal Ministries director Trevor Forbes. Ted A. Huskins, executive secretary of the AUC, agreed and highlighted the mission-drive motivation of the initiative. “We are here to think together, brainstorm together on how to get more people to [God’s] kingdom.”

A Multicultural, Multilanguage Church Region

The regional event took place against the background of Pentecost 2025, an initiative of the North American Division that invites Adventists across the NAD to collectively hold thousands of evangelism proclamation events throughout the year. To support these initiatives, the NAD is making intentional efforts to equip members and leaders with the tools, knowledge, and resources needed to perform effective evangelism, regional church leaders said.

As part of the efforts, regional evangelism leaders are strengthening the multiple people groups that make up a very diverse faith, they explained. Some congregational singing and special music items included performances in English, Spanish, and French, the three most-used languages across AUC congregations. Leaders and pastors also highlighted the efforts they are making to reach other people groups across the territory.

Samuel Nzoikorera pastors two churches and a church plant in the state of Maine. Originally from Burundi, he now pastors in an area comprising multiple language groups. “Where I serve, there are people groups who speak Kinyarwanda, Portuguese, Swahili, and other [languages],” he shared. “It is the reason, in 2025, we are [intentially] developing ways of doing targeted evangelism in all of those languages.”

Terry Saelee, NAD coordinator for Adventist Refugee and Immigrant Ministries and one of the presenters at the event, agreed. “If you want to overcome language and cultural barriers, the best course of action is often to connect interests to Adventist members within their own culture to give them Bible studies. These members can usually reach people in a way those from another culture could probably never do,” she explained.

The Reason the Church Exists

Tim Madding, director of the NAD Institute of Evangelism, was the keynote speaker on the opening night of the SEEDS Festival of the Laity. Madding called Adventists to ramp up their outreach efforts and focus on mission in these end-times. “It’s not that the church has a mission,” he emphasized. “The mission has a church. It is the reason the church exists—to be sent, to bring others into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Against that background, Madding emphasized that our job is to reach out, not to convert. That’s the role of God’s Spirit, he said, referencing the biblical example of the apostle Paul. “There is no one who is beyond the ability for the Spirit of God to convict.”

Shining Where You Are

To lead others to God is the reason it’s important for the church—every son and daughter of God—to shine, Madding said. “Every single person who is baptized into Jesus has been ordained as a minister of the gospel, to share that good news of Jesus with others,” he said.

When members accept their calling, the Spirit of God starts working in them and using them as lights where they are. “So when people see the believer who is sent, they see Christ in them,” Madding said. “They can see my light shining, which is the character of Jesus in me.”

To do that, the church must stop making its worship and initiatives about itself. “[We must] go into the community and develop relationships with the lost people, so they can see Christ in each one of us. . . . And when people see Christ in me, He will be glorified, and they will be drawn to Him.”