United Church of God, an International Association
Council of Elders Meeting Report

Quarterly Meeting Videoconference
August 6-9, 2012

Part 1 of 3

Note: The Council decided at an earlier meeting to commence using videoconferences in place of two quarterly meetings per year. This will save the Church between $20,000 and $25,000 in travel and lodging costs per meeting.

Monday, August 6, 2012

The Council began its first quarterly meeting via videoconference at just after 4:00 p.m. EDT. After a few minutes of making the necessary connections for audio and visual connection, Council Chairman Melvin Rhodes called the first session of the quarterly meeting to order by taking the roll. With all 12 Council members present, he then asked Bill Bradford to open with prayer.

Mr. Rhodes asked for any additions or corrections to the minutes of the last meeting, but none were offered. He then called for approval of the current agenda, which was approved unanimously. At that point Mr. Rhodes gave president Dennis Luker the floor to deliver the administration updates.

President's Update—Dennis Luker

Mr. Luker spoke briefly about the fact that although United is smaller, it is stronger and is moving forward in unity. There is harmony and peace at the home office that makes it a great joy to come in to work. He commented on the successful employee meetings that take place each Monday morning at which the men and ladies each have their turn over the months speak about their personal backgrounds and what it is that they do in their jobs for the work.

He commented on the upcoming Ambassador Bible Center class, which now numbers just under 40 for the start in two weeks of the 2012-2013 school year. He described how pleasant it is to serve as president and see the doors that God is opening for us to preach the gospel on television, in print and on the Internet.

After listing these positives, he commented on the challenges we face—which he explained are opportunities for us to grow. The list included rising healthcare costs for Church employees that could eat into our reserves. The next challenge is effective communication, especially when considering alterations in our processes. The media proposal is also highlights the challenge of finding more effective ways to preach the gospel. We face the challenge of an aging ministry—although we simultaneously benefit from its increased wisdom. The next challenge is providing trained and talented pastors for our churches in the field. The last challenge is the assessment of our Kingdom of God Bible Seminars to see how best to continue reaching the public in person.

Ministerial and Member Services Update—Victor Kubik

Vic Kubik expressed his appreciation that we are using videoconferencing to do Council work because it also prepares us for using it for our online ministerial training program. Currently we have 337 elders around the world, with six ordained since the last meeting and one resignation. We have hired three part-time pastors since the last Council meeting. In June we held a successful online training workshop with Don Ward and Ken Graham. Dr. Ward provided the professional insight into syllabus development, and Ken Graham will be coordinating the program. The classes will be two-hour, two-semester courses that a comparable university system would require.

The United Youth Camp program has gone very well this summer. We have begun a more standardized reporting system for our international congregations. The next area conference in the U.S. will begin in Big Sandy, Texas, Aug. 12-14, for about 70 elders and wives.

The challenge we face comes from the bell-weather figures that we gather. Our actual average Sabbath attendance has stayed right at 7,400 for the last 18 months. We have had 88 baptisms for the year so far. He also mentioned the concern about health-related issues of the ministry.

Media and Communication Services Update—Peter Eddington

For the month of July, the start of our fiscal year, Beyond Today television has brought in 4,000 responses. The Word Network is giving us the best cost-per-response value at $8 to $9 per response. Overall total TV program response average cost is $17.90 for the month of July. Our goal is to get the cost below $15 per response. Our direct mail print advertising will reach 13.2 million households in the U.S. between July 2012 and March 2013. We've also launched a new search bar module for UCG.org. It's a Google product that we pay for, but many positive responses have come in from users.

The short-form "Jelly" video recently produced by Jamie Schreiber, Rudy Rangel and Jonathon Magee is now on UCG.org. It was played at many of our preteen camps, where it was appreciated very much by the young campers as they sang along to learn the Ten Commandments.

Jorge De Campos recently completed translating our 20th booklet (Is God a Trinity?) into Portuguese. It is the first non-English translation of that booklet. A few in the department made a trip to New England to shoot some footage for Beyond Today and especially to interview brethren for the upcoming Feast video. Mr. Luker's sermon for the video was shot just last week.

So far 154 congregations signed up for the fourth round of KoG Bible Seminars with about 500 attendees registered. The Internet advertising will start in a few days, and the number of registrants will increase. After concluding round four, we will have a broad discussion about how to proceed with the program.

Financial Services Update—Aaron Dean

Aaron Dean stated that our goals are preaching the gospel and feeding the flock. This year is the bottoming out of the transition from the trouble and beginning of rebuilding our reserves. He expressed his concern about our flat attendance, hoping that it is due to aging members who can't physically attend as often, rather than members who are simply staying home and watching the webcast.

He stressed that we are doing all we can to keep our costs down and asking everyone to conserve wherever possible. He commented on our small number of part-time pastors hired since January of 2011, explaining how much they help by caring for the churches. They are paid $6,000 to $25,000 a year, varying in amount due to, in certain cases, how much retirement income they can receive without taking a higher tax hit. The net result has been providing wonderful service at an economical cost.

He spoke of the need to consider necessary changes to deal with rising employee healthcare costs, which will be covered in detail in executive session. John Elliott commented on which kind of financial reports to Council members have been the most helpful for tracking costs and income. Mr. Dean explained that he would adjust the reporting sequence to whatever frequency would be the most helpful for the Council. Gary Antion suggested that bi-monthly reports with analysis would be good. Mr. Dean said that he would send the bi-monthly reports, but if any on the Council would like to receive the daily reports, he can send that to them also.

Dr. Ward asked what the budget was for 2011 and how much was spent. Mr. Dean reported that the budget was a little over $17 million—a bit of a guess of what we would need since we didn't know where so many U.S. and international congregations stood in the recent conflict—but a little over $18 million was spent to do the work.

Dr. Ward also asked about how many co-workers we have and what percentage of our income comes from them. Peter Eddington commented that historically about 13 percent of our income comes from coworkers and donors. He suspects that with fewer members, the analysis will show a higher percentage of income from coworkers. He reported that our donors and coworkers numbers are holding steady right at 5,100. The good news is that their numbers were not affected by the recent division. Coworkers and donors drop from the active list when they cease donating. Scott Ashley asked about the numbers of new donors. In 2012 we got an average of 60 new coworkers every month and 300 to 400 donors every month. Thankfully, we are adding new donors and coworker to replace those who drop off the list, keeping the total number steady. A coworker must donate every six months and donors once a year to be considered active. These figures are from the U.S. only.

Several Council members requested more comprehensive donor, coworker and member figures for the Church around the world. We have approximately 12,000 members plus those who consider themselves associated with United in the U.S. and 4,000 in international areas. Our worldwide Feast attendance is 12,800. Mr. Kubik pointed out that the figures reported are not for promotional purposes, but to carefully report the truth. Mr. Antion suggested that quarterly reports would be a good sequence for Council monitoring. Mr. Bradford asked for inclusion of past figures for monitoring trends. Mr. Luker and Mr. Dean promised to swiftly accommodate the Council's request.

Executive Committee Report

The committee had one of its rare meetings in the last quarter for the purpose of renewing a modest line of credit that the Church has maintained for projects and emergencies for some years and requested Council ratification of the resolution. After discussion the executive committee minutes were approved and the corresponding resolution to renew the line of credit passed. Then the Council unanimously passed a resolution emphasizing Council oversight of any particular use of the line of credit.

The Council then balloted on the dates for the 2014 General Conference of Elders annual meeting on May 3-5, 2014, and unanimously passed the resolution.

Next the Council approved Council member John Elliott's request to shift his Council committee membership from the Education Committee to the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee.

Bob Berendt reported on the process of re-commissioning the Doctrine Advisory Committee and the Prophecy Advisory Committee as subcommittees of the Council's Doctrine Committee. He requested that rather than the Doctrine Committee appointing the committees, the Council as a whole should do it. The purpose of the advisory committees is to assist the main Doctrine Committee with its work. After considerable discussion about how the sub-committees were moved in 2006 from being overseen by the Council to being overseen by the administration the clear consensus was that the Council desires through the Doctrine Committee to once again oversee these much needed sub-committees. Mr. Berendt will provide an appropriate resolution for later consideration in this quarterly meeting.

Mr. Kubik explained the next item offered for Council input. Some have recently asked about the Church's policy of appropriate Sabbath wear for speakers, song leaders and for those giving opening and closing prayers. He asked for Council discussion. John Elliott and Dennis Luker commented on our long-standing practice for those men to wear for these Sabbath purposes what a leader of that region of the world would wear for addressing the public—in this case, a jacket and tie. More similar discussion ensued. Mr. Luker suggested that with the helpful feedback the administration will rework the statement they had submitted to the Council and resubmit it.

This first session of the quarterly meeting recessed a little early at 7:15 p.m. after a closing prayer by Mr. Berendt.

-end-

Randy Stiver

Council Reporter

© 2012 United Church of God, an International Association