Our greatest “mission fields” in North American are the large metro areas, called Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA).
The largest of these in the NPUC is the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett-Tacoma MSA (Population 3043k; SDA Churches 56; Membership 10,826). Recently the Washington Conference administration, led by Conference President John Freedman, studied the needs for major, multiple church planting. A special Conference Church Planting Committee is scheduled for November to examine a proposal to begin a twelve month “Focus Weekend Process” to identify, train and mobilize pastors and lay members for future church planting.
Also in October the Upper Columbia Conference Church Planting Committee, led by Conference Executive Secretary Gordon Pifher, focused on the need to plant multiple churches in their conference’s largest mission field, Spokane (Population 441.4k; SDA Churches 13; Membership 3,171)