[see also Council of Elders Continues Strategic Planning Process and Council OKs New Education Focus]

Council of Elders Reviews and Looks Ahead

by Don Henson

The Council of Elders met Aug. 4 to 9 for its regular quarterly meeting.

President's Unified Report

Clyde Kilough opened his fiscal year-end report by commenting that overall it was a very successful year. Even though some adjustments were necessary due to new personnel, all the major goals established for 2005-2006 were accomplished. He described the overall condition of the Church as stable and settled, and he said that membership is continuing to grow at a modest rate.

He mentioned that this year's Ambassador Bible Center class of 53 students is the largest ever and will bring the total number of graduates to 374. And 45 have already been accepted for 2007.

Mr. Kilough also mentioned that in the past four years, some 70 elders and potential leaders have completed the Leadership Workshop.

Mr. Kilough also described a training program provided for men newly hired into the full-time ministry. It begins with a two-day orientation and then will be followed up with a series of three two-week sessions of classes over a period of six months, designed to further train the men to pastor in all areas of the ministry (church organization, visiting, counseling, speaking, etc.).

In addition, Roy Holladay has been asked to compile leadership training programs that have been developed by individual pastors. Then Dave Register will use the information to help develop a comprehensive leadership program to be used in local congregations.

Mr. Kilough commented on the care that is taken in the hiring process, which includes a comprehensive personal interview of the candidate and his wife by two representatives from Ministerial Services. He emphasized the importance of having a thorough working knowledge of the candidate and being certain to answer any of his questions too. Mr. Kilough gave the Council a copy of the questions and topics included in the interview and commented that the process has worked well.

In a written report sent to the Council the previous week, Ministerial Services operation manager Jim Franks cited some basic statistics. U.S. church attendance as of July 1, 2006, was 15,800, compared to 15,500 on Oct. 31, 2005. Attendance on Pentecost of this year showed a modest gain of 2 to 3 percent. Through May 2006 there were 103 baptisms in the United States , compared to 109 the previous year. There are currently 216 congregations in the United States served by 87 pastors, two associate pastors and one pastor assigned solely to overseas work.

Media

Mr. Kilough then moved on to report on the 2005-2006 efforts in the area of Media and Communications Services, under the direction of operation manager Peter Eddington.

He pointed out the steady growth in the number of coworkers (3,251, a 14.6 percent increase) and donors (7,905, an 18.5 percent increase) during the year.

The newly formed media steering group (which consists of Mr. Kilough, Bob Dick, Victor Kubik, Larry Salyer, Peter Eddington, Joel Meeker, Roger Foster and Jason Lovelady) met for three days in June in Indianapolis, Indiana. Since then the group has had four two-hour teleconferences and conducted a series of face-to-face meetings after the Council meetings. The value of the discussions to date has been in verifying the value of the Church's Media Philosophy Statement and helping to identify the Church's core issues in the media efforts.

After answering about 40 foundational questions, the group's agenda includes discussion of the Beyond Today program in particular and the effective use of Internet video in general as tools to preach the gospel effectively. Over time each area of media will be discussed, each generating its own list of questions, issues and decisions.

Statistical highlights from Mr. Eddington's 2005-2006 report include:

• Answered 16,946 questions left on the Church's Web sites.

• Total Good News magazines printed—3,001,616 (21.9 percent increase over last year).

• Visitors to the Good News Web site (www.gnmagazine.org)—1,154,806 (207 percent increase).

• Literature requests generated by Yahoo Internet advertisements—48,144 (8.7 percent increase).

• Pieces of literature mailed from the home office mail center—494,452 (0.7 percent increase (does not include the millions of pieces mailed directly by printing companies).

Financial Report

At the start of calendar year 2006, income started to increase steadily. The fiscal year ended on June 30 with income settling at 5 percent over what had been projected in the budget. Income in the first five weeks of the current fiscal year (July 2006) is 17 percent above the same period last year. As a result of the strong income levels, the Church has already met the reserve amount budgeted for 2006-2007, and has an income surplus on-hand.

Mr. Kilough summarized that his focus for the upcoming year will be to:

• Continue to stay in touch with members and ministers, doing what is possible to keep us collectively focused on our calling, mission, growth, unity and spiritual development.

• Develop an effective education program.

• Develop manpower to meet the future needs of the Church.

• Develop the most-effective media program we can possibly have.

Online Donation Proposal

In the May 2006 meetings, the Council directed Tom Kirkpatrick to prepare a proposal for using online means of receiving donations to the Church.

Dr. Kirkpatrick emphasized that the motivation for accepting electronic donations is to provide a service to members, coworkers and donors who already are using electronic means to make other payments. The proposal included details on the security of the system, potential costs and the process for accounting for and receipting of electronic donations.

With the help of Paul Wasilkoff, Dr. Kirkpatrick gave a hands-on example of exactly how the proposed method will work. Council members asked questions and offered comments and suggestions as they viewed the demonstration.

Mr. Kilough proposed a resolution for the Council to authorize the home office administration to take the steps necessary to provide for the acceptance of electronic donations. The Council voted 10-0 in favor, Les McCullough abstaining.

Further effort will be put into preparing a system, which will be formally introduced by the president when ready.

2007 Feast Sermon Video

After some discussion, Council members unanimously agreed that Europe would probably be the focus for the 2007 Feast sermon video. One suggested theme was to emphasize prophesied events that will occur in Europe and how the Kingdom of God will finally bring peace to a region that has seen so much war in its history. We will begin gathering footage from the Feast this year.

Proposed Amendments

Leon Walker, chairman of the Doctrine Committee, presented three proposed amendments to the Fundamental Beliefs section of the UCG Constitution for Council consideration.

In this case, the Doctrine Committee recommended against support of any of the three proposed amendments. After discussion, the Council voted unanimously to not support any of the proposals.

The Council met in executive session to discuss potential ordinations, annual General Conference of Elders meeting suggestions and various Ministerial Services matters.

GCE Planning

Aug. 7 Chairman Bob Dick read portions of a letter by Ken Giese, chairman of the 2006 GCE planning committee, who expressed his preference that former chairman Dave Register resume his chairmanship. Mr. Dick proposed a resolution that Mr. Register be named the chairman of the GCE planning committee and that under his direction, the committee would be responsible for the physical planning and coordination of the annual meeting. The Council passed the resolution unanimously.

At the conclusion of Council discussion of future GCE plans, Mr. Dick asked Richard Pinelli to coordinate the effort of creating a broad-based task force to explore the options and make recommendations to the Council for future meetings of the GCE.

Tuesday, Aug. 8, the open session included discussion of the education program proposal (see article, page 1) and the establishing of a task force to review Council committee structure.

According to Bylaw 9.1, "At the regularly scheduled Council meeting prior to the anniversary of each third year of service for each officer, the Council must reaffirm, with at least a simple majority, the continuance of each officer on an individual basis." In executive session Aug. 9, the Council chose not to reaffirm the position of the secretary, Gerald Seelig. Mr. Seelig, at the Council's request, will serve through May 10, 2007, and the secretary to be named will begin duties following the end of the May 2007 Council meeting.

The Council approved the new members' committee choices: Richard Pinelli chose the Doctrine and Education and Ministerial Services committees and Bill Eddington chose the Media and Communications, Strategic Planning and Finance and Ethics, Roles and Rules committees.

For complete Council reports, see www.ucg.org/about/council/updates.htm. UN

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Council of Elders Continues Strategic Planning Process

by Don Henson

Aug. 7 Chairman Bob Dick directed the Council in a discussion on the topic of strategic planning. This discussion was a follow-up to the brainstorming session on this topic in the Council meeting held on May 11.

Mr. Dick reminded the Council of the previous discussion. The strategic question is: "What are the biggest issues we face as an organization?" He summarized that the comments in the previous strategic planning discussion focused on four fundamental areas:

1. The internal, spiritual health of the organization.

2. Developing manpower and using existing manpower.

3. Preaching the gospel, fulfilling the commission—with passion, focus, determination, urgency, etc.

4. Relationships among Sabbatarian groups.

The Council confirmed that it still believes these are the most important strategic issues the Church faces now.

The discussion of specific strategic priorities continued, resulting in the following expansion of the first three strategic areas, with specific action items included.

1. Internal spiritual health of the organization.

Here are the issues/conditions:

• Commitment—develop a higher level.

• Not falling into the cares of the world—less materialism.

• Working in harmony, doctrinal cohesiveness.

• Doctrinal drift in real-life application—Christian living.

Suggestions for what we can do about them:

• Promotion of the achievements of the Church—express zeal, energy.

• The president and administration can convey to the ministry the issues we have talked about—what is involved in developing the spiritual health of the Church and how to do so.

• Strengthen understanding of basic doctrines in the minds of young people (which the proposed education program will be specifically tackling).

• Identify areas of doctrinal drift and suggest ways to deal with them.

• Identify areas of societal drift and suggest ways to deal with them.

• Identify ways to be a success by following God's way—promote the positive of aspects of godliness.

• Understand patterns of behavior identified in the pastors' monthly church reports to identify trends that either currently exist or are developing (the positive as well as negative).

2. Developing new manpower and utilizing existing manpower.

Here are the issues/conditions:

• Aging ministry.

• Needs in international areas.

What we are already doing about it through the ministerial development program:

• Four levels of development:

1. Basic leadership training.

2. Advanced leadership training.

3. Training pastors to "find, train, ordain."

4. Training new hires.

• In the future, provide mentoring programs for pastors to implement at multiple levels in local areas.

• Restoring honor to the office and calling of the ministry.

"Utilizing existing manpower":

• We will have more pastors entering retirement who will still have much to offer and will desire to contribute to God's work.

• Finding viable ways the "elder statesmen" can still be used in a way that will draw on their experience (e.g., mentoring).

3. Preaching the gospel, fulfilling the commission—with passion, focus, determination, urgency, etc.

• The media steering group has been formed and is already at work identifying and addressing broad principles and specific issues.

• Translate concepts from the media steering group to application in all areas of media.

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Council OKs New Education Focus

by David Register

On Aug. 8, UCG president Clyde Kilough, Ministerial Services operation manager Jim Franks and education programs director David Register presented a new focus for education programs to the Council of Elders. The proposal was unanimously adopted by the Council.

The new education model will build upon current success of the more than 37 education programs in the Church and place emphasis on desired “outcomes.” Once outcomes are established, tools and benchmarks will be put into place to measure effectiveness.

Some of the major benefits will include: providing better allocation of resources such as avoiding duplication of effort and making better use of volunteer efforts, staff time and finances; more focus on end results and benefits; a means to unify and rally Church members around the educational efforts; and a more linear approach that allows programs to be tied together and address educational needs as members enter different ages, stages or situations in life.

One Council member commented that one outstanding difference between current and new programs will be the emphasis on connecting curriculum and ensuring that education programs are part of a building-block approach.

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