Council Sees Stable, Calm and Growing Church

by Don Henson

UCG Council chairman Robert Dick opened the session at 1 p.m. Dec. 8, calling on Leon Walker to open with prayer. Mr. Dick commented that this session continues a trend in recent meetings—the agenda has fewer items on it, but they will require more depth of thought and deliberation.

Mr. Dick reviewed portions of the agenda cover letter he sent to the elders prior to the meetings. He recounted the three stages of the development of a new organization, citing his view that United started at "Stage One," in which the Transitional Board of Directors served as both the board and the administration; progressed through "Stage Two," in which the Council worked in concert with a small staff, finding itself both governing and managing; and is now in the initial phase of "Stage Three," where we as an organization have established most policies, and the administrative staff is in place to care for the operation of the organization. This puts the Council, he concluded, in a position to emphasize its appropriate role of governance, rather than administration.

He commented that the President's Unified Report would give evidence of a stable, calm and growing Church—prepared to move forward with energy, focused on doing the work that is before us.

President's Unified Report

Mr. Kilough used the 2006-2007 Operation Plan as the outline for his presentation, highlighting the efforts in each of the operational areas since the last Council meetings. He commented that not only is the Operation Plan being achieved, but more has been added to it, since the income has been greater than what was anticipated.

He pointed out that the recent Feast of Tabernacles provided an accurate measure of the overall state of the Church. Attendance increased, Holy Day offerings were strong and messages were solid. Overall, the reports of the Feast were very positive. Mr. Kilough pointed out that the Church is now in a building mode, focusing outward and on growth rather than having to deal with internal issues. The strong level of income provides the luxury of creativity and the responsibility to invest the resources carefully, and the Council is in a position to make plans for short-term and long-term growth.

His financial report and plans for additional expenses this year are covered on page 1.

Ministerial Services

Mr. Kilough turned the Council's attention to Ministerial Services. Using the 2006-2007 Operation Plan as an outline, he described the progress and accomplishments in each area.

• The Ministerial Services Newsletter and Journal, which replaced the Ministerial Quarterly, has been in monthly production since March 2006 and has already proven to be a helpful monthly communication to the elders.

• Three men have been hired into the full-time ministry. Ron Kelley, Jon Pinelli and Paul Carter are currently being trained by pastors in their church areas.

• Six to eight ministerial transfers are likely and will be finalized in the spring of 2007.

• The hardback hymnal project is progressing under the direction of Steve Myers.

• A meeting was held at the home office on Nov. 1 and 2 with the senior pastors and associates assigned to work in international areas. The purpose of the meeting was to plan how the Church can best serve scattered brethren in these areas. He mentioned that Tim Waddle will now be assisting John Elliott in East Africa.

• A project is underway to produce a manual containing all policies and resolutions approved by the Council of Elders that are relevant to the ministry.

• A plan for coordinating personal correspondence (including e-mail and regular postal mail) has been developed and will soon be implemented.

• The recent visit to the Living Church of God headquarters by Clyde Kilough and Jim Franks was a proactive effort to develop a better relationship. Representatives of Living accepted an invitation to visit the UCG home office. The importance of the contact is that it helps to establish better communications between the two organizations.

• U.S. church attendance (from monthly church reports) in September 2006 was 11,687—up from 11,235 reported in September 2005.

• Feast of Tabernacles attendance worldwide in 2006 was 20,436 (not including shut-ins), compared to 19,765 (not including shut-ins) in 2005. The increase in attendance in 2006 over 2005 was 3.4 percent. Discussion about the special seminars offered at seven U.S. Festival sites in 2006 and plans for future seminars will be included on the agenda for the Festival coordinators meeting in February 2007.

Ministerial Development

The Ministerial Development Program, under the direction of Richard Pinelli, was in its fledgling stages when the current Operation Plan was written, but has since been fleshed out and is well underway.

There are currently five programs for leadership training:

1. Basic level. An extensive five-day program, such as was offered in the Philippines and United Kingdom . There are plans for conferences in Chile in June 2007 and in South Africa in November.

2. Advanced program. The annual leadership workshop offered over the Labor Day weekend. Over five years, 84 couples have participated. Of those, 12 men have been ordained as elders and 12 have been hired into the full-time ministry.

3. The "Find, Train, Ordain" seminar offered to UCG pastors, focusing on engaging the field ministry in the process of training new church pastors.

4. A two-day orientation provided for those newly hired into the full-time ministry and their wives.

5. A six-week training program (given in three two-week blocks in January, March and May 2007) for newly hired full-time ministers and their wives, to help equip them for the responsibility of pastoring. At this point 11 men hired over the last three years are scheduled to participate and receive over 150 hours of instruction.

Two additional leadership-training modules are in development—mentoring classes for pastors and leadership training programs that pastors can use in working with their congregations.

For information on Church education programs, see the article on the Education Advisory Task Force on page 1, and the article about ABC in the December issue.

Media and Communications

A meeting will be held in January 2007 for the managing editors of UCG print publications to brainstorm ways to make our efforts more effective.

Use of the UCG Web sites continues to grow. There are six sites in addition to the main UCG site (ucg.org). In November there were 111,899 total visits by users (sessions) on the ucg.org site. There were 145,202 sessions on the Good News site (gnmagazine.org), 5,999 sessions on the World News and Prophecy site (wnponline.org), 11,608 sessions on the Vertical Thought site (verticalthought.org), 1,471 sessions on the "This Is the Way" e-mail site (thisistheway.org) and 27,581 sessions on the Beyond Today program site (BeyondToday.tv). The November issue of Virtual Christian Magazine has received 3,754 hits (vcmagazine.org).

The most popular pages at the ucg.org site are: index, sermons, booklets and Teen Bible Study Discussion Guides.

Google, the popular online search tool, offers a video search feature where registered viewers can upload videos to the Google video Web site. This free service allows visitors to search for posted videos and either view them online or download them to their local computer. Yahoo now has a similar free service.

As of the end of November, there are 47 Beyond Today TV programs and booklet commercials posted on the Google Video Web site and 38 at Yahoo Video. At Google, these files had been viewed over 26,500 times. The most popular program—"Is There Life After Death?"—has generated over 3,533 views at Google Video alone. In early December, Beyond Today programs and commercials have also been posted on the YouTube site, which is very popular with the younger crowd. So far, these programs have been accessed at about the same rate as at Google.

The next mailing to Good News readers will invite some 200,000 to subscribe to the Bible Study Course.

Additional expenditures for advertising are being considered to boost circulation of The Good News, World News and Prophecy and Vertical Thought.

A planning meeting for Beyond Today production was held in October. The staff spent considerable time reviewing last year's programming, and plans were made for 40 programs to be produced in 2007 on a wide variety of topics. Two format changes are being integrated: about half of the programs will feature one guest instead of two, and the program host will be more involved in the dialogue rather than just asking questions.

The Bible Reading Program is nearing completion of the Old Testament. Much of the material on the New Testament has already been written, which should allow the program to continue smoothly to completion.

The subscription list for the monthly Good News e-letter continues to grow. Nearly 24,000 receive this letter, which provides a virtually free monthly follow-up and contact with readers.

The number of donors and coworkers continues to increase steadily. As of October there were 3,381 coworkers (a 15 percent increase over last October) and 8,339 donors (a 20 percent increase).

2006 and 2007 Feast Videos

Dec. 11, Mr. Kilough led the Council in a review of the 2006 Feast sermon video and preliminary plans for 2007.

Council members reported that the response to the 2006 video was very positive at the Feast sites they attended. Positive comments were made on content as well as technical quality. Mr. Kilough complimented video editor Clay Thornton for the results of his efforts.

Mr. Kilough provided the Council with a written overview of plans for the 2007 video, which will focus on Europe. The working title for the video is, "Europe, the Church and the Kingdom to Replace All Kingdoms."

The video will focus on three sections:

1. A sermon message about Europe, the Church of God and how prophecy and God's Kingdom will affect mankind.

2. A special focus about the brethren and the work in Europe.

3. A message from Mr. Kilough on the major accomplishments of the past year and goals for the future—looking forward to God's Kingdom.

A more complete draft will be presented at the February-March meetings.

Revised Study Paper Procedure

Mr. Walker, chairman of the Council's Doctrine Committee, introduced a new process for reviewing study papers submitted on doctrine and prophecy. He explained that there was a need early in UCG's history for doctrinal study papers to clearly establish the Church's teaching and position. While a few papers are still submitted from time to time by members and elders on various subjects, the essential study papers have now been completed, and we do not anticipate the need for many study papers in the future.

The new process makes the work of the Doctrine Committee an appellate function rather than an administrative function. The Council unanimously approved a resolution establishing the new process, which will be communicated in detail to the elders in an upcoming Ministerial Services Newsletter and Journal.

Committees Removed and Restructured

In the August 2006 meetings the Council established a task force consisting of Mr. Dick, Richard Thompson and Mr. Walker. They were assigned to review the current Council committees and to make recommendations on how these committees may work more effectively. The report started with a review of committee history since the inception of the Council in 1995-1996.

On Dec. 12, Mr. Dick commented that the Council of Elders has tracked the standard three-stage evolution of a start-up organization he had discussed the first day. He summarized that in 2003, when the topic of committees was last discussed, the Council was at Stage Two. Now, as we approach 2007, the Council has arrived at Stage Three—a mature board.

The following is quoted from the Committee Task Force Report, dated December 2006:

The task force was of one opinion when it came to the basis for our recommendations:

• We feel we are a mature board—a Stage Three Board, if we use such terminology to describe a board's evolution.

• We feel that committees existed in our first stage to handle administrative tasks, and rightly so.

• We feel committees existed in our second stage to address issues and give the Council control of organizational direction.

• We feel as a mature board that neither of these reasons for having a committee is still valid.

The second basis for the task force's conclusions comes from a statement in the December 2003 issue of Board Member. A sentence in a sidebar to an article titled "Confessions of a Committee Member" stated, "Don't create board committees that duplicate the staff's work."

With that in mind, the task force made five recommendations:

1. Disband the Media and Education Committees. The functions of both of these committees are now under the direction of the administration.

After discussion, the Council unanimously passed a resolution to dissolve both of these committees.

2. Restructure the Doctrine Committee. The Council took this step when it passed a resolution on Dec. 11 changing the process for the review of study papers.

3. Due to the wide range of its responsibilities, the task force recommends that the Ethics, Roles and Rules Committee be divided into two committees.

4. For similar reasons, the task force recommends that the Strategic Planning and Finance committee also be divided into two committees.

5. The task force urged the Council to clearly define the role of the newly designated Strategic Planning Committee, in order to more effectively provide strategic leadership for the Church.

The Council agreed with Mr. Dick's suggestion that time be set aside during the February-March 2007 meeting to consider recommendations 3, 4 and 5.

Anchor Resolution

Based on discussions in executive session, Mr. Kilough presented a resolution to end the Church's relationship with Anchor magazine and its related Web site. The resolution also stated the Church's intent to create and publish a new electronic magazine and related Web site to fit the master plan dealing with all areas of specialized education. The Council passed the resolution unanimously.

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