Six hundred and fifty-three delegates traveled to the Georgia-Cumberland Academy gymnasium for the 30th Regular Constituency Session of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference of Seventh-day Adventists April 22. Delegates at the Constituency Session, which takes place every five years, met to discuss the business of the conference, vote in the administrative team, including directors, and share their votes and opinions on how the conference should operate.

Voted into office were all of the top administration of the conference, including Ed Wright, president; Steve Haley, vice president for administration/secretary; Kevin Costello, vice president for finance/treasurer; Jerry Fore, general vice president; Cynthia Gettys, vice president for education; and Stan Patterson, vice president for pastoral ministries and evangelism.

Seventeen new churches were voted into the Georgia-Cumberland Conference. Twenty-seven new companies were added as well “with a lot of growth in Hispanic areas,” says Patterson. The Georgia-Cumberland Conference membership has grown to 32, 213 members in 2007.

“We are blessed with an outstanding group with unique gifts here at the Georgia-Cumberland Conference,” says Ed Wright, president of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference. “We don’t take lightly the trust you place in us.”

Costello shared with the delegates that the financial position for the conference is strong, with healthy tithe reserves and 126% of required working capital in 2006. Each year of the quenquenium, the conference operated with a gain to the bottom line. Costello also reported that during 2006, GCC had the highest tithe per capita of any conference in the United States ($1,196 per member), with only Bermuda Conference reporting a higher tithe ($1,419) in the North American Division. The 2006 Division average was $851.

This team has stood up to the challenge of the plane crash of 2004 that killed several top conference administrators, added Gordon Retzer, president of the Southern Union of Seventh-day Adventists. “Thanks go to this team for the last several years. The Georgia-Cumberland Conference members maintained trust in God and focus on mission through traumatic events during the past five years. One of the highlights of the session was to vote 17 new churches into the conference. Praise the Lord for this evidence of the commitment of church members to be about church growth.”

“The very reason for our existence as a church is to let people know that we are all looking for a day very soon when indeed, We shall behold Him,” says Costello.

by Tammy Fisher