Prison Ministries meeting to be held – Sunday, August 12th , 10:00 AM at the Minneapolis First Church, located at 2315 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55404.
Any Seventh Day Adventist who is currently in any type of prison ministry in Minnesota and those who have any interest in getting involved in prison ministry work are invited to the meeting. If you have any questions, please contact Debbie Coklas 763-441-6440 or email: dcoklas@charter.net.

The North Pacific Union has created a YouTube-like site for sharing ministry-related videos. They’d love to receive short clips from your churches, particularly those that feature various ministries. Like YouTube, you create and load your own videos, which should be around 3 minutes long (give or take).

Visit the site at http://www.spiritflash.org

Kids in your church would love producing some short video clips.

St. Paul First New Members

Six people joined the St. Paul First Church as the evangelistic meetings led by Byron Corbett, from Amazing Facts, came to an end.  The Hour of Power on Sabbath afternoon included four of these baptisms and the inspirational stories and testimonies from members and potential members.

Pathways Church Officially Organized
Elder Tom Lemon presided over the official organization of the Pathways Church of Maple Grove, five years after being organized as a church plant  The joyous celebration took place on Sabbath, May 6.

New Pastors Join Minnesota Team
Pastor Bill Bossart, from the Wisconsin Conference, has accepted the call to come to Minnesota as the pastor of The Edge Christian Worship Center in Brooklyn Park.  Currently Bill is the pastor of the Antigo and Merrill churches as well as the church in Wausau which has the name “The Shepherd’s House.”  Bill, and his wife Michelle, have led the Wausau Church through many transitions, including the name change, and have brought this congregation back from  a downward decline to become a growing, healthy congregation by using post-modern approaches to ministry.  Bill and Michelle will be making the transition to Minnesota in early June. 

Ronald Booth has accepted the invitation from Minnesota to pastor the Blackberry, Grand Rapids, Hibing, and Northome church district.  Currently Ronald is a teacher in Iowa for the Iowa-Missouri conference; he, too, will be joining our Minnesota team in early June.

Open districts:

• Bemidji, Park Rapids, and Hackensack
• Pathways
• Hutchinson, Redwood Falls

With Sympathy
Deepest condolences to our friend and team member Rayleen Hansen, head teacher at the Southview Christian School, at the sudden death of her mother.  Our thoughts and prayers go to her and her family during this sad time.  If you wish to send Rayleen a card please do so at 10130 Oak Shore Dr., Lakeville, MN 55044-9442

Pathfinder coordinators and leaders just completed the advanced Pathfinder Leadership Award training at North Star Camp. Elder Van Hurst, Mid America Union youth director with Ken and Carol Ellstrom provided the instruction. This equipping will take the Pathfinder ministry to a new level of skill and service.

Attention Church Communication Directors
The North American Division's newsletter Practicing Communicating is available online. Click here to download it.

11 a.m. CST Fridays
on LifeTalk Radio

The Collapse of the I35W Bridge
Several have contacted us asking what, if anything, we’re doing as a conference to help the victims of this event. It is sort of awkward to do much as the scope of the impact was very small (very few people were directly affected), and the city has received help from so many agencies and municipalities that they are not in need of assistance such as what ADRA or ACS could offer. Below is the official text from the Mid-America Union communication dept.

Mid-America leaders,

I've been trying to keep you updated about the situation in Minnesota. Here is the official joint statement of the NAD and the Mid-America Union that is being released from Silver Spring. Use it as however you deem appropriate:

According to authorities, the death toll from the collapsed interstate bridge in Minneapolis is four and up to 30 are still missing. There are three Seventh-day Adventist conference offices (Central States, Lake Region, and Minnesota as well as their governing office, the Mid-America Union) that have members in the Minneapolis territory. At this time, there is no information that has been received that any of the people affected by this tragedy are members of the Church.

Kymone Hinds, communication director of the Central States Conference, which includes Minneapolis, has been in contact with local Adventist lay leaders and it appears that no Seventh-day Adventist members have been directly involved with this tragedy.

Ray Young, communication director of the Lake region Conference, which also has members in the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas, has not heard of any Seventh-day Adventist members involved in the tragedy.

Claudio Consuegra, Minnesota Conference communication director, has contacted Minneapolis city officials regarding disaster response. He belongs to the Metro Critical Incident Stress Management Team, which is preparing to deploy on behalf of rescue and recovery personnel. Consuegra, a law enforcement chaplain and family life counselor, has had extensive training in crisis defusing and debriefing. Tom Lemon, Minnesota Conference president adds: “I am in the process of assessing the impact this may have had on our churches.”

Gaylord Hanson, Adventist Community Services Disaster Response director for the Mid-America Union, is coordinating with Minnesota Conference officials regarding denominational services and resources and is standing by if needed by civic leaders.
“Mid-America Adventists are praying for the people of Minneapolis regarding this tragedy and have offered our denominational services to help in any way needed,” said Dennis N. Carlson, president of the Mid-America Union. “As a former president of the Minnesota Conference, I have driven many times over the bridge that fell and can only imagine the trauma of the survivors and the relatives of those who are deceased and missing.”

Submitted by Martin Weber, communication director for Mid-America Union and George Johnson Jr., associate director of Office of Communication, Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.

New Vice President and Youth Director Comes to Minnesota
Doug Hardt has accepted the invitation of the executive committee to become the vice-president for administration as well as the youth director for Minnesota.  Currently Doug is the health, children’s ministries, and global mission director for the Middle East Union in Cyprus.  Previously, Doug has pastored churches in the Rocky Mountain and Northern California conferences and has also served as the global mission coordinator, accountant, pastor, treasurer, and secretary in the Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Georgia Adventist Missions.

Doug is married to Tatiana Selivanova, and together they have two children, Nicole Elizabeth and Michael Stanley (not pictured).  Doug and his family will be in Minnesota at the beginning of June. 

SAGE at North Star Camp
Seventeen people gathered recently for a SAGE (Seniors in Action for God with Excellence) work project at North Star Camp (NSC).  The group of volunteers took on a list of maintenance projects created in counsel with Keith Schauer (camp ranger) and the recently formed NSC vision committee.

The Minnesota chapter of SAGE has been restructuring this year with the hope of doing effective ministry by and/or for seniors.  A tentative calendar of events was created in January.  Besides social activities, outreach and work projects were also included in the calendar.  NSC was chosen as a project site primarily because of the seniors’ love for the youth of the church.

Some projects completed by SAGE at NSC in May 2007 included  extensive maintenance on the diving dock and diving platform, repairing all damaged cabin screens, replacing numerous broken toilet seats, dry-rotted cabin siding, straightening and reinforcing beach fence, and countless other repairs needed to make the camp safer and more comfortable.

A second SAGE work project at NSC is under consideration for this autumn. 

The next event for SAGE members is the camp meeting breakfast on Sunday, June 10 at 7:30 a.m. in the Maplewood Academy Cafeteria.  SAGE membership is open to individuals 50 plus years of age.  (Please call 763-424-8923 to register for the breakfast or to become a SAGE member.)

Evangelism in Dodge Center
May 19 was a big day in Dodge Center.  The church just finished a prophecy seminar featuring Eric Flickenger, evangelist from Amazing Facts. The 11 o'clock hour began with an Amazing Facts Bible School graduation with eight people finishing all 24 study guides.  The highlight of the morning service was the baptism of five precious souls. Erick Flickenger reviewed the baptismal vows with the candidates and then they were baptized by pastor Tom Bentley.  Those baptized were Dennis Tucker, Palmer Rohwer, Alex Schwemmer, Kristy Hollenbach, and Bryan Hollenbach.  After the unanimous vote for membership they were all offered the hand of fellowship by the elders present.  We rejoice for each and every new child of the Kingdom of God.

Maplewood Academy Graduation
On Sunday May 27 Maplewood Academy held it's commencement program. The graduating class had a total of 32 seniors. Elder Bill Miller, Potomac Conference president and former president of the Minnesota Conference, gave the commencement address. The title of his talk was "Completing the Mission." Elder Miller challenged the seniors to complete the mission of spreading the gospel of Christ to all the world.

Pastor Mark Luckiesh gave the baccalaureate address on Sabbath morning and Pastor Mark Smith gave the consecration address Friday night in the Hutchinson church.

The senior class gave two swinging benches as their class gift to the school. Most of the graduates will be attending Union College this coming fall. Nathan Shields, who is a recruiter for Union College, presented many of the graduates will scholarship awards to attend Union. National Honor Society Merit Medals were awarded to Tescia Veldhouse and Jonathan Carlson.

The Caring Heart Award, which is given  for character and service, was given to Nyabuay Chut and Eric Garrett. In addition, Jamye Anderson, who is a Junior, received a citizenship medal from the Minnesota Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Maplewood Academy finished the school year with 100 students.

MCA Gymnastics Home Show
On Saturday night we were treated to a most enjoyable presentation by the Minnetonka Royals gymnastics team under the direction of coach Joe Perrone.  It’s always amazing to me to see how these young people twist, jump, run, and do so many exercises with precision and fun.  There were kids from both the elementary grades and the academy working together to accomplish what they have been practicing for months to present to the gathered audience; it was a well-rehearsed and choreographed program.

One of the things we appreciate about Mr. Perrone’s approach to physical education and the gymnastics team is his spiritual emphasis.  Part of the program included a skit that teaches others about the dangers of smoking, drinking alcohol, or  using drugs,  and the evening concluded with a very moving service during which Chelsea Glass sang “People Need the Lord,” and the members of the team lit candles and gathered around a cross with people from the audience.