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

Wednesday, September 1, 1999 — Seattle, Washington

On its last day of the Seattle meetings, the Council finalized a number of proposals and decided other items of business needed further work before the next face to face Council meetings in Cincinnati December 1-7, 1999.

Clearing the Agenda

Leon Walker first brought a carefully constructed set of the Rules of Association of the United Church of God, an International Association to the Council for its approval. "No document produced by this Council has had more review, editing, or wordsmithing," he declared. The Council unanimously gave its approval to the document, which will now be sent to the General Conference of Elders for its acceptance.

Dennis Luker next asked the Council if it was prepared to give its final approval to two job descriptions. The first was to remove the word "provisional" from the presidentâs job description. With previous approval of the job description for Council chairman, there was no longer any possibility for conflict with overlapping responsibilities of the two offices. Approval was unanimous. Council quickly moved to unanimously approve a job description for the position of international Council member, concluding this area of business.

Gary Antion then turned the Councilâs attention to a proposed policy for member/affiliate appeal to the Council of Elders. This document was discussed on August 30, and although the Council expressed an opinion on it, there was no final approval.

Considerable discussion followed, as there were a number of areas of concern regarding both how to deal in a loving manner with all who fellowship with us, and how to guarantee the protection of the flock as a whole. In the end, the Council decided to send the document back to the committee level for more development before its December meetings. As Mr. Antion noted, there is a policy for appeal in place (which has been used in one instance since the inception of the church). This rewrite is an attempt to improve on that earlier policy.

In consultation with Gerald Seelig, secretary to the Council and General Conference, Chairman Bob Dick proposed setting dates for Council meetings in early 2000, and Council agreed to the proposal of February 2-8, 2000, in Cincinnati.

Finally, there was a brief discussion about instructors for the new Ambassador Bible Center, slated to open its doors to students on January 10, 2000. Mr. & Mrs. Antion will be returning to Toronto to make arrangements to move to Cincinnati later this fall. Mr. Antion has accepted the request to take up a full-time post as one of the instructors on the program. His replacement as Operations Manager in Canada has yet to be confirmed. Other instruction for the "ABC" has yet to be finalized.
 

-Doug Johnson

© 1999 United Church of God, an International Association