The Trail to Women’s Ordination in the NPUC Started in Oregon

Naomi Pepper 

September 3, 2026

The historic vote on women’s ordination at the 2026 North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) constituency session was driven by Adventists in Oregon. The motion was voted onto the agenda after delegates successfully navigated complex internal union bylaws to secure a direct vote. The efforts of these delegates resulted in a major victory for women in ministry and longtime advocates of ordination equality across the region.

Kessia Reyne Bennett, lead pastor of the Pleasant Valley Adventist Church in Oregon and a delegate at large, offered support that was characteristic of the careful way in which the Oregon Conference constituents presented the proposal. Noting that the move was not oppositional toward either the General Conference (GC) or “the establishment,” Bennett said, “I appreciate the motion for recognizing the authority of of the unions to administer ministerial credentials,” and added that the motion was careful not to compel conferences to put forward candidates who would not align with the conference’s “convictions or the qualifications of the candidate.” Kessia Reyne Bennett praised the motion for recognizing unions’ authority to approve ordinations. Video NPUC

But it wasn’t only Oregonians who spoke out in favor of ordination. José Haroldo Alomia, pastor of the Kirkland Adventist Church in the Washington Conference, said in support of the motion, “As a Hispanic man growing up in Latin America, I used to be of the opinion that women could not be ordained, nor lead in the church as I could.” He added that in over two decades of ministry, he changed his position because “Scripture doesn’t explicitly prohibit it,” and because his ministry “has been blessed and amplified by all the women that have worked with me,” including his current associate.José Haroldo Alomia noted that the Mid-America Union had already implemented the same measure proposed by the NPUC with no adverse effects to the Adventist Church or its mission. Video: NPUC

During more than an hour of discussion on the motion, of the 26 delegates who commented on the motion, seventeen spoke in favor, six in opposition, and three raised questions or declined to state a position. Nine of the seventeen delegates who voiced support are Oregon Conference pastors; one is an administrator in the conference.

The road to getting the motion to the floor was far from simple. Organizers had to navigate significant administrative hurdles to ensure the union leadership heard what a majority—62 percent—of delegates wanted for the women working in their churches.

The question of women’s ordination remains one of the most debated issues within the Adventist Church. Notably, the issue was brought to delegates at the 2015 GC Session in San Antonio, Texas. Out of 2,358 voters representing the world church, that motion fell just 203 votes short of allowing each world division to decide whether to permit the ordaining of women within their territory. There has not been a GC vote about whether unions can decide.

Increasingly, Adventists have pushed back against this stance, advocating more flexibility for unions and conferences to do what they believe is best for their congregations and pastors in their local contexts. With their awareness of how biblical values need to be communicated to increasingly diverse communities, they note how inviting people to join a church that officially discriminates on the basis of gender impedes Adventist mission. Walla Walla, Washington resident Jack Hoehn, author of Adventist Tomorrow: Fresh Ideas While Waiting for Jesus, stated in an interview, “‘Not now’ to female pastors is just another way of men saying ‘no!’”

In 2012, well before the 2015 GC vote, the Pacific Union and the Columbia Union successfully voted bylaw amendments approving “ordination to the gospel ministry without regard to gender” in their respective territories.

In 2021, the Mid-America Union followed, stating in their motion that it,“recognizes the right and responsibility of each local conference to prepare and recommend names for ordination, and will consider all recommended persons for ordination as submitted by the respective local conference executive committees.”

This was the exact language that members of the Oregon Conference executive committee used when submitting their proposed motion for the constituency session agenda. Though this does not compel conferences within the union to take any particular action, it gives each conference the flexibility to follow its own convictions on employment gender equality.

Cascadia Rising 2016

Cascadia Rising 2016





A 9.0 magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) and the resulting tsunami is the most complex disaster scenario that emergency management and public safety officials in the Pacific Northwest could face. Cascadia Rising is an exercise to address that disaster.

June 7-10, 2016 Emergency Operations and Coordination Centers (EOC/ECCs) at all levels of government and the private sector will activate to conduct a simulated field response operation within their jurisdictions and with neighboring communities, state EOCs, FEMA, and major military commands.

Conducting successful life-saving and life-sustaining response operations in the aftermath of a Cascadia Subduction Zone disaster will hinge on the effective coordination and integration of governments at all levels – cities, counties, state agencies, federal officials, the military, tribal nations – as well as non-government organizations and the private sector. One of the primary goals of Cascadia Rising is to train and test this whole community approach to complex disaster operations together as a joint team.

Recent subduction zone earthquakes around the world underscore the catastrophic impacts we will face when the next CSZ earthquake and tsunami occurs in our region:

Indonesia (2004): M9.1 --- 228,000 fatalities
Chile (2010): M8.8 --- 500 fatalities
Japan (2011): M9.0 --- 18,000 fatalities





The Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of North America spans from northern California to southern British Columbia. This subduction zone can produce earthquakes as large as magnitude 9 and corresponding tsunamis. Scientific evidence indicates that a magnitude 8.0-9.0 earthquake occurs along the 800-mile long fault on average once every 200 to 500 years. The last major earthquake and tsunami along the fault occurred over 300 years ago in 1700. Download Original




Last Updated:
04/18/2016 - 07:52


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End Time Preparedness - Autumn 2013 Seminars

Itinerary


We have not yet scheduled our 2014 Spring Seminar trip. If you are interested in having us present seminars in your area, please send us an email through the “Contact Us” form. For details on the seminars, please visit our ‘About Our Seminars‘ page!


Here is our current list of seminars schedule for this summer and fall:

August 3/4 Eugene SDA Church, 1275 Polk St., Eugene, OR 97402
Starting times: Aug. 3 ~ 2:30 pm; Aug. 4 ~ 10:00 am (bring a sack lunch)
Contact: TBA
Directions: Click here for a map

September 22, 2013- Spokane Sustainable Preparedness EXPO- Spokane County Fair and Expo Center Don’t miss this exciting event in Spokane Valley, WA! Come hear up to 20+ different seminars, meet lots of vendors with their areas of expertise, and network with many other like-minded individuals! For more info visit: www.SustainablePreparedness.com.

September 29, 2013- Seattle Sustainable Preparedness EXPO- Evergreen State Fairgrounds Don’t miss this exciting event in Monroe, WA! Come hear up to 20+ different seminars, meet lots of vendors with their areas of expertise, and network with many other like-minded individuals! For more info visit: www.SustainablePreparedness.com.

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I believe this is what was once known as Mountain Media Minstries of The Meissners, Craig, Nancy and Nick. 

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Supremacist couple plead not guilty to two murders

By Laura L. Myers

EVERETT, Wash | Wed Oct 19, 2011 9:33pm EDT

(Reuters) - A white supremacist couple suspected of killing four people in a violent road trip across the Pacific Northwest pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to first-degree murder in two of the deaths.

Appearing separately in a Washington state court a day after their extradition from California, David Joseph Pedersen, 31, and Holly Grigsby, 24, also were ordered to remain held without bond.

Flanked by their lawyers, each said little during their five-minute arraignment, except to reply to procedural questions put to them by Judge Larry McKeeman of Snohomish County Superior Court.

Pedersen, his head shorn and bare arms and neck heavily tattooed, looked down and appeared fidgety during the proceedings. Grigsby, with bright, reddish-brown hair, looked comparatively calm and gazed straight ahead.

Each is charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Pedersen's stepmother, Leslie Mae "DeeDee" Pedersen, 69, and the shooting death of his father, David "Red" Pedersen, 56. Both were slain on September 26.

County Prosecutor Mark Roe said in a statement he had 30 days from the date of the arraignment to decide whether to seek the death penalty against the pair.

The couple were arrested October 5 in northern California, capping what authorities said was a two-week, three-state crime spree that began in the Puget Sound city of Everett, Washington, and ended with Grigsby telling police she and Pedersen were on their way to "kill more Jews" in Sacramento.

An affidavit filed with the charges said Grigsby had confessed to killing the stepmother by slashing her throat after binding her with duct tape.

The affidavit said Grigsby also told police during a five-hour videotaped statement that her companion shot his father in the back of the head while the elder Pedersen was driving the couple to a bus station. Authorities said the pair then drove his Jeep to their home state of Oregon and abandoned the father's body there in the vehicle.

According to the affidavit, the couple are suspected of later shooting to death a 19-year-old Oregon man, Cody Myers, who they singled out in the mistaken believe he was Jewish, then dumping his body and driving his car to California.

Myers' body was later found in a forest around the same time Pedersen and Grigsby were arrested near Yuba City, California. They have since been named as suspects in a fourth slaying, that of Reginald Clark, 53, a black man who was found shot to death in a car in Eureka, California.

The couple's white supremacist leanings were evident in a white power tattoo visible on Pedersen's neck and through Facebook postings by Grigsby.

In a jailhouse interview published by the Marysville Appeal-Democrat newspaper after his arrest, Pedersen said he decided to kill his father because he believed his parent had molested a sister and a cousin. Police have said the stepmother was slain because the suspects believed she had known of the alleged sexual abuse but failed to stop it.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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Odds 1-in-3 for Northwest Mega-Quake Within 50 Years

By Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 24 May 2010 02:21 pm ET

A major earthquake, similar to what devastated Chile and Haiti, has more than a one-in-three chance of striking the U.S. Pacific Northwest within the next 50 years, scientists say.

Earlier estimates put the chance of such quakes at just once every 500 years. But new analyses by Oregon State University marine geologist Chris Goldfinger and his colleagues have revealed a more complex picture of the Cascadia Subduction zone, where the ocean floor steadily slips below the North American Plate – and where the region's earthquakes originate.

They found that Cascadia represents at least four separate segments, rather than one big subduction zone. Mega-quakes of magnitude-9 or greater occur less frequently in the northern segment and can rupture the entire fault, even as magnitude-8 earthquakes strike more often in the southern segment.

"It is not a question of if a major earthquake will strike, it is a matter of when," Goldfinger said, "And the 'when' is looking like it may not be that far in the future."

A magnitude-9 earthquake that struck the Cascadia region could rip apart highways, collapse bridges and even crumble buildings. A quake epicenter just offshore might give coastal residents as little as 15 minutes warning time before a tsunami swept ashore.

"The biggest offshore quake with a tsunami is certainly the worst case scenario for the coast, and it may be the worst case for inland cities also," Goldfinger told LiveScience. "But a shallower, more local earthquake near Portland or Seattle could be worse for those cities than a subduction earthquake."

That sense of urgency has compelled engineers and scientists to explore different ways of evacuating low-lying areas, including the construction of high-rise, tsunami-resistant facilities.

Rolling the dice

The southern end of the fault running from Newport, Ore., to northern California has a 37-percent chance of triggering a major earthquake in the next half century, with an average rate of roughly one quake every 240 years.

An even more devastating mega-quake has a 10 to 15 percent chance of hitting the northern segment, which stretches from Seaside, Ore., to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. A catastrophic event of that magnitude would come along about every 500 years.

Those revised estimates are based on the historical record, which shows that magnitude-8.2 or higher earthquakes took place 41 times in the Northwest during the past 10,000 years.

"At the southern end of the fault, the earthquakes tend to be a bit smaller, but more frequent," Goldfinger noted. "These are still magnitude-8 or greater events, which is similar to what took place in Chile, so the potential for damage is quite real."

As if following the motto that misery enjoys company, the northern segment may also experience earthquakes in clusters. A thousand years could pass without major incident, before a cluster of earthquakes strikes every 250 years or so, researchers found.

Still, scientists remain undecided about whether the clusters represent random statistical flukes, or if quakes do actually like to come in groups. They also want to discover the chances that the Northwest is currently in an earthquake cluster, if such clusters are significant.

Geological signs

The historical record for earthquakes comes from coarse sediments, called turbidites, which stream down from the continental margins into undersea canyons during ground-shaking from temblors. Those stand out from the finer particles that normally build up between major earthquakes.

Goldfinger and his colleagues used carbon-14 analysis and other methods to date the particles and pin down estimates of when major earthquakes took place. That allowed them to recreate a 10,000-year geological record of earthquakes in the Northwest.

Lower sea levels that existed beyond 10,000 years ago meant West Coast rivers regularly dumped storm debris into the offshore canyons, which made it difficult to distinguish the earthquake turbidites.

The last major earthquake to shake the Cascadia Subduction Zone took place in January of 1700. That event unleashed a 30-foot tsunami that struck Japan, and so scientists knew of the impact from historical records of the damage.

More indirect evidence came from huge physical changes in the coastlines of Oregon and Washington – a sobering reminder of what U.S. residents could face again sooner than later, just as in Chile and Haiti, the researchers say.

Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats

101 Amazing Earth Facts

Images: Deadly Earthquakes

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Source: http://www.livescience.com/environment/northwest-mega-quake-odds-100524.html

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