Update from the President
What a joy to meet the Class of 2017 students at Ambassador Bible College as the academic year began a few days ago. On Sunday, a picnic was held on the home office grounds to help everyone get acquainted. On Monday, we conducted orientation. This class is especially very enthusiastic and this adds so much to the atmosphere here at the home office, which tends to get quiet here during the summer.
The class was given tours on Monday, as well, and we found that they are not shy! In my orientation message, I invited students to join with our staff workers at lunch. We were not disappointed, as class members were outgoing and not afraid to mix and converse with us. We look forward to a very positive year.
This coming weekend, we'll be holding our traditional Labor Day Leadership Workshop. A total of 31 are coming in Friday, and the seminar will run until mid-day Monday. We really enjoy getting to meet the various church leaders who come from all over the United States and Canada for a weekend of training.
Then this coming week we will be producing three more Beyond Today television programs. The following week we will hold a Camp Directors conference here at the home office.
The week after that, we go on the road for three "America: The Time is Now" personal appearances in Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte, North Carolina. We thank our pastors Craig Scott and Scott Hoefker for their on-the-ground support and promotion of our campaign to reach the public with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Not Ashamed of the Gospel": Two Ways to Help Starting Right Now
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16). So said the apostle Paul as he went into new territory, far from where the gospel started its outward journey. He went with boldness and openness.
Our Beyond Today Live presentation campaign, America: The Time is Now! is proclaiming the same authoritative message--telling what God is doing in our dangerous and confused world. God does have a plan, and He will not be one day late in fulfilling it and saving the world from itself. Further, God is offering to direct your life because He has a great personal purpose for all of us. God is calling on all mankind to repent for salvation--both now and for all eternity.
Those who hear the Beyond Today message are struck by its straightforward tone, and they are moved by the passion of the presenters. Several Church members in attendance told me they wished they had also invited people they knew to come and hear this message. After they heard it they thought of others who would have appreciated hearing it too.
We have encouraged our members to invite people they know to come, but our culture through the years has not been open to personally reaching out to those outside of us. Typically, Church members have not had much involvement in public events and have taken the role of passive spectator, along with their pastor. But these personal appearance events are a very safe environment in which to invite our friends, family and coworkers who have inquired about our beliefs.
I truly believe that we can greatly enhance our visibility and engagement with the public. We need to apply directives we have already made for the mutual responsibility that all in the Church have for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ and bringing it to the public. We should not rely solely on home office media and national presenters. While they do have their role, they are certainly not the only ones responsible for the proclamation work.
Note the vision statement of the Church:
The vision of the United Church of God is "a Church led by God's Holy Spirit, joined and knit together by what every member supplies, with all doing their share and growing in love to fulfill God's great purpose for humanity to bring many children to glory (Ephesians 4:16; Hebrews 2:10)."
Even in our Media Guiding Principles the following statement encourages us all to take part: "Endeavor to energize and involve the entire Church in its mission of proclaiming the gospel (Matthew 28:19-20)."
What can you effectively do to make this happen? Is there something practical and immediate? Is there anything that you can start doing to move this process along for you, your congregation and our mission?
We are certainly not asking for our brethren to preach to their communities. However, there is much that they can do to promote the message. I have two starter things you can do to increase awareness of the proclamation efforts of the United Church of God.
1. Beyond Today static window clings.
For several months we have been asking all of our brethren to affix a window cling on the back of their automobiles. All it has are two easy-to-remember words. In our digital society, people can easily Google Beyond Today, and they can immediately be brought into a wealth of articles and videos about many subjects of immediate interest ranging from prophecy to baptism.
People may also ask you, "What does Beyond Today mean?" Peter Eddington was engaged in a conversation about our message as he was pumping gasoline at a convenience store. Peter told him who we were and encouraged him to look further on the Web. Gayle Hoefker, while waiting at a traffic signal, had someone pull up alongside her and tell her that he watched the Beyond Today program regularly and thought it was great. Seeing her window cling was reinforcing.
What if everyone did this? I believe it would increase awareness of our message as people look it up. All the impressions will add up and have a compounding effect.
Your pastor should have a supply of window clings and make them available to you. If not, write to me directly and I'll make sure that you get one right away. At the annual leadership weekend that we will hold at the home office this coming weekend, we will make them available to attendees to take back to their local church areas.
2. Sharing material from our website, Facebook or Twitter pages.
This, again, is a very easy thing to do, but is not done by the majority of our brethren. If you are reading this on the Internet, you may very well have a Facebook account.
You may already be sharing interesting news tidbits from others on your timeline. It may be some news item, a funny video clip, almost anything. But did you realize that you can use the power of Facebook, which has over one billion accounts worldwide, to easily share with others an article, blog, video or an entire Beyond Today television program that greatly interests you?
I regularly share my weekly podcast, featuring someone doing something interesting in the Church, both on Facebook and Twitter. I also do this for the weekly "Update From the President" section of our website. I also share blogs that I think would be interesting and helpful--such as a recent one on suicide. While many of the people who see the shares are members, I have former classmates, community leaders and people from other fellowships who regularly follow my postings. Who knows where this could lead?
On Facebook, good material can be found on these pages (just to name a few):
United Church of God, an International Association
On our own websites at www.ucg.org and www.beyondtoday.tv almost every posting is easy to share with Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. While looking at the posting, you can add your own comments and approval and pass it on to all those who see you on social media.
People too often post nonsense and inappropriate statements through social media. How about being a light and endorsing content that is holy, righteous and good? We need much more of that groundswell in the Church. See if you can share or retweet at least one item from our ucg.org website for starters this week on your timeline. No doubt you have more than just other brethren as friends who would see what interests you and what you can briefly comment on.
Don't have a car or a Facebook account? Neither did Anna the prophetess in the second chapter of Luke. But just by how she is named we see she was a promoter of the gospel. When Jesus was first presented in the temple to the Lord after His circumcision and days of purification, the elderly Anna witnessed this. Here's a description of what she did:
"Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:36-38, emphasis added).
As we await the second coming of Jesus Christ, can we not do the same by praising God, praying for His coming Kingdom and for His will to be done?
There is much, much more I'd like to write about on this subject, and I will in future columns. For now, I want to leave you with the above two very simple ways (plus the example of Anna the prophetess)--ways in which we can increase our visibility and all be unashamedly involved in an all-Church effort of preaching the gospel.
