Patricia Marruffo Elected as Executive Secretary of Southeastern California Conference
- Patricia Marruffo was elected as one of the top administrative officials of Southeastern California Conference (SECC).
- The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists vote in 2015 restricted ordination to men only, and typically, senior leadership positions require ordination credentials.
- The SECC territory has more than 70,000 members and contains two Adventist universities: Loma Linda University and La Sierra University.
04 October 2021 | The Southeastern California Conference Executive Committee voted to elect Patricia Marruffo as the next Executive Secretary of the SECC following a recommendation from the nominating committee.on Sept. 30, 2021. The Executive Secretary is one of the top three administrative position in the conference, the other two being President and Treasurer, as seen from the SECC website
Before being elected as the Executive Secretary, Marruffo served as the Associate Youth Director at SECC. She also served as the Young Life Pastor at OC Grace, the Children and Family Pastor at Azure Hills and the Children’s Pastor at Loma Linda University Church.
In 2015, delegates at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists session voted against allowing regions to decide whether or not to ordain women in their regions. The result of this vote was the continuation of church policy that restricted ordination to men only. Typically, senior leadership positions require ordination credentials.
The SECC was the first conference in the Adventist denomination to appoint a female president, Sandra E. Roberts, according to a previous Adventist Today article. Roberts is now serving as the Executive Secretary of the Pacific Union Conference. The Pacific Union Conference is one of nine unions that make up the North American Division of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. The Pacific Union consists of seven conferences with more than 211,000 members in 700 congregations.
The SECC has more than 70,000 members and 176 churches and companies. These congregations are found throughout five counties south and east of Los Angeles: Imperial, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego.
The Loma Linda University Church, with nearly 6,000 members, is the largest Adventist congregation in North America and is part of the SECC.
The SECC enrolls about 5,000 students in 23 schools and child development centers (child care and education for pre-schoolers). Eight schools provide K-12 education, including Loma Linda Academy, with an enrollment of approximately 1,500 students.
Two Adventist universities are located within the conference territory. La Sierra University in Riverside is operated by the Pacific Union Conference. Approximately 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students enroll in liberal arts, business, education, and religion programs. Loma Linda University, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2005, is an educational health-science institution operated by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. About 3,000 students enroll in allied health programs, dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, public health, science and technology, and the graduate school.
(Photo caption: Patricia Marruffo was elected as the Executive Secretary of the Southeastern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists on Sept. 30, 2021. Photo via Facebook)
