Duty and Service

In Acts 14, we actually read this a couple of weeks ago in the last sermon I gave here, but I want to call attention to it. It is the story again of the church of Antioch. And when Paul and Silas returned from their first trip of establishing churches, baptizing believers throughout the area of Asia Minor, they had been commissioned and sent by the church in Antioch. And they came back to Antioch. It tells us in verse 26, they sailed to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had completed. Now, when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. So they stayed there a long time with the disciples. So what I'm going to do today in my message is to weave in a message in and amongst a report of the last week's activities at the General Conference of Elders, Council of Elders Meetings, and Council of Elders Retreat that we just completed yesterday and bring you up today on a number of items, and hopefully give you a report on all that God has done with us, with you, and with all of us within the United Church of God. So that's the scriptural precedent for what I would like to do here with you.

It's been a very long period at the home office that began actually about 10 days ago, with two days of orientation and training for some of the new men that we have just recently hired in the church as pastors. They came in for a couple of days of classes on everything from reporting, expense reporting, things like that, to sermon preparation, visiting, and just a lot of basic orientation that a lot of men who had been thrust into the role of pastoring needed to have. And so they spent two days doing that, I think, on Wednesday and Thursday prior to the beginning of the General Conference.

I was not a part of that, but Debbie and I did go down on Friday, a week past, and we're there for the international – the day of international meetings that are traditionally held before the General Conference meetings. And I wanted to be present with a number of individuals from around the world and hear their firsthand reports on what is taking place in some of these international areas and get a report firsthand because I had not had a complete report.

And being a council member, I wanted to kind of hear things and talk to some of them firsthand. And so President Dennis Luecker, Chairman of the Council of Melbourne Roads, chaired the meetings, and it was kind of a very informal give-and-take of reports and discussion, and we were able to sit on most of those, and they were very interesting, very enlightening in many ways. And I'll give you just some of the highlights. Recently, Melbourne Roads has made a number of trips to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and to Benin and Togo in West Africa to visit with our members in these areas that have elected to remain with the United Church of God, and there are considerable individuals who have, particularly in Benin and Togo.

Now, if I mention these two West African nations, if you're like me, you would have to say, we're in the world are Benin and Togo. And when you go home tonight, you can look them up on your map. I'm sure Laurie already knows where they are, being a schoolteacher and everything. But they are in West Africa, kind of where Africa curls over, and right next to Ghana, Nigeria and Ghana, Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast, and a lot of these nations are small West African-speaking countries where we have had members for a number of years. Benin and Togo have been administered within what we had as a French-speaking area because Benin and Togo were formerly French colonies.

Africa, after the colonial period, still kept much of their language, cultural things, in relation to whether they had been colonized by Great Britain, France, Belgium, as in the Congo, and Germany, I mentioned Germany, I believe, was also involved in that cutting up of Africa during the 19th century. And then, of course, all that broke apart after World War II. Benin and Togo were French colonies, and at least in the United Church of God, they had been visited by French-speaking ministry and administered there.

Melvin went over to make contact with quite a number of those who were part of the United Church of God. Since Melvin does not speak French, he took with him an 80-year-old member from Oakland, California, who speaks French. And so he was speaking through his translator with some of our members over there. We also have, as many of you may realize, we also have quite a sizable congregation of presidents in Nigeria. And we do have a Nigerian elder resident in Nigeria, Oladeri Okimbo, who was able to make it to the conference this year for the first time ever. He finally got a visa to come into the United States.

And Dari, as they call him, was there, and is quite an interesting and very energetic individual. But he also was able to come over and visit with Melvin and Mr. Scruggs, his interpreter, while they were there a few weeks ago. For Dari to come from Nigeria into Togonbini was no problem. For Melvin and Mr. Scruggs to have left and gone into Nigeria would have been problematic because they didn't have proper visas and all of these things. And it's not like going from Illinois to Indiana over there.

You take your life in your hands when you cross borders, and whether or not you'll be able to get back, get out, get in, or do a lot of things. And so Oladeri came into Togo where they were and was with them as they were talking with the members.

They discovered that the members, though French-speaking, had not had a visit for one or, in some cases, up to two years. They had not had a visit from a French-speaking minister. And in talking with them, and talking through the interpreter, in Africa they speak English, they'll speak French, but there are hundreds of individual tribal dialects, which, to you and I, are incomprehensible, but to the people there, they interchange a lot of those. And in the course of the sermons and discussions there, the translation got somewhat cumbersome, and as Melva was explaining it, somebody shouted out from the audience, Speakiwe, or whatever the tribal dialect is. I'm just kind of making that up because I forgot what it was. And it happened to be that that tribal dialect in Togo was one that the Nigerian elder, Oladeri, happens to speak.

So bingo! He got a connection. And he's only an hour and a half flight from Nigeria into this area, instead of 14 hours or whatever across the Atlantic into Africa, not to speak of the expense and the frequency with which then now they can be serviced. So essentially we discovered that you don't have to be French to go to some of these areas formerly administered in the French-speaking area of the United Church of God. That in fact the local dialects are spoken by other ministers that can facilitate service to those members. And so kind of the light began to be going on in some of these things. And as Melvin was relating this, we realized that we are going to be able to administer and serve these people quite adequately, even though the French speakers may not be that plentiful within the Church, although there are in terms of membership, but people who can go to these areas and even want to go in the ministry. So I'm happy to report that a majority of the people with the United Church of God in those areas have elected to remain with the United Church of God, and they will be serviced in a very efficient and effective manner by a minister both in Africa and from time to time, as Melvin or others will need to make trips through that area to work with them. And so that was a very encouraging report. We've also had a number of ministers out of Australia and even from the United States visiting with some of our scattered members in India and Sri Lanka. And during the Feast of Tabernacles, David and Jelinda Schreiber went over there. Ken Murray from Australia had made a couple of trips up from there to those areas. We have quite a number of members who are electing to remain with the United Church of God in those areas. In fact, in India, they're going to be moving the fisight to an area, a location that will serve the members in India far better than previous fisights in India have done.

We found out that some of the members in India had not been able to attend the feast for several years because the location in the hotel in which it was located was far beyond their means to afford. A five-star hotel is far beyond the means of the typical member in India. And that's where the feast had been held. And so the decision was made to move it closer to the members and at a hotel in which the members could afford to attend and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And we'll be sending ministers over there in India and Sri Lanka for the feast of tabernacles. So, again, a number of things began to have begun to come to our attention once the lid has been lifted off of some of these areas. And these parts of the world were either through because of language, culture, and distance. We were, you know, they just did not facilitate reporting and some of the reporting was just not there. In Latin America, there is continued movement of members to the United Church of God.

The Church in Mexico, for instance, has about doubled in size in recent months. We also approved the ordination of an elder in the country of Bolivia to serve the members there. And we continue to send Spanish-speaking ministers, of which we have several, into Latin America to serve the needs of the brethren. And some of their stories are quite interesting to hear about just as they travel through the area. We were in Colombia. We do have some enterprising members who have taken to Beyond Today. And they are doing voiceovers in Spanish and airing Beyond Today in Spanish throughout Central America on some of the programming there. And this past year at ABC, there was a young man from Colombia attending ABC. And he's going back for the summer and he wanted to take a video recording along with him. So he had Gary Petty and Steve Myers and I stand up and kind of just do a little hello to all of them. And they found out they have a – there is a member for each of the presenters. So we have an assigned voice to us. The guy who does me is named Leonardo. So I thought, oh, Leonardo, that's a good name. So we sent a video greeting to the people that are doing that down in Colombia. And I hope that encourages them. We do appreciate what they are doing. But the other areas of the church – Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy – have been very solid, very stable, and supportive in many ways. In fact, Australia has picked up the administration of the church in Singapore, in New Zealand, and sending ministers up to India and Sri Lanka as well. And we do appreciate the stability there and the help that they have been able to give.

I had mentioned this – and I'll just turn over quickly to Luke 16. Some months back, I think I had mentioned this. Because within the last year, with the crisis that we've gone through, a lot of questions have been asked, what happened in Latin America, for one? What really happened in Latin America was one question. And as the time has gone by, as the dust has settled, as in any type of situation, things become much, much clearer. And you begin to get a different perspective. You don't always understand why things happened the way they did, sometimes in the heat of battle. But then time has a way of clarifying the perspective. I think I had turned to this and mentioned it some time back.

You know, a lot of these areas I've mentioned – West Africa, Sri Lanka, India, other areas – have had to be administered by a senior pastor structure that we set up that sent ministers over on a regular basis to speak, visit, anoint council, run camps, run Feast of Tabernacle sites and everything else. And along with that comes a – you know, you're basically sending someone in a stewardship role to these areas. In all of these areas – Latin America, Canada, whatever – and the United States, even our local congregations right here in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne – there's always a level of stewardship that has an accountability to it.

And Luke 16 tells the parable of the unjust steward. And I just won't read all of it, but the first two verses of this parable that Christ gave is a very destructive one, where he says, There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. So he called him and said to him, What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.

And it goes on. I'm not going to go through a whole parable here. But, as I said, everyone who's in a position of stewardship, whether you're an office manager, church pastor, foreman, you know, if you're running someone else's property or a state for them, as in the case of a steward like this, you must give account. You must be a faithful, diligent individual. Accounting for everything – the people, material, goods, services, money – everything is involved in stewardship and giving and accounting. And as we – as I said, as the dust has settled and as the lid has been lifted off in some of these areas and as events have transpired, we have discovered that in some areas there have been some interesting irregularities.

And that's all I'll say. And we have been working through those. And we will continue to work through those so that there is a proper stewardship of people and goods and services, money and everything else, in order to make sure that the work of the church is done well, people are served, and the resources of the United Church of God are adequately handled and accounted for in all areas.

And so I can tell you that as far as the Council of Elders is concerned and the Administration, we are endeavoring to set up processes to ensure that that happens and that is taken into account and transpires going forward. About two years ago, after I'd been on the Council of Elders for a year, Bill Eddington, our Australian International Member, had unveiled and pushed through a reporting process for the Council from all international areas, asking, I think it started out just on an annual basis for an accounting of what's the circulation of the good news, how many booklets are going out, what's the membership numbers, and whatever. And from some areas, we were given very detailed accountings.

From other areas, we had little cooperation. And those matters are being dealt with so that going forward, we will, the Council and the Administration, will have accurate reportings of the affairs of all of these international areas. And many others have done so as they've received subsidies from the Church or been administered by the Home Office. But we found that there have been a few other irregularities.

And so, your prayers for that going forward will be appreciated. And I can assure you that the Council and the Administration in place now will ensure that those things are done in a proper fashion at all levels. But those were part of the discussions that even the Council had as we went through the week, after we had the international reports that were made into the business of the Church on Sunday. One other matter I'm happy to announce. This was done on Sunday, not during the Sabbath telecast.

But Peter Eddington reported that we did just recently sign a two-year extension or two-year contract for our WGN television program, The Beyond Today on WGN. So we will – the current year's contract was to expire in July. And we extended that at a very small increase, about 2 percent. The next 2 percent of each of the two years will be the increase and very nominal in that regard. So we have a two-year extension on that contract on WGN. They are working very hard to try to secure a quality West Coast outlet to cover the West Coast, because WGN at 8 o'clock – our time is 5 o'clock on the West Coast – and that's not the best time there.

As Peter puts it, we are looking for a miracle to take place, something to open up on the lines of what WGN was. So I ask you to be praying about that so that we can find a – that we have it in the budget and that we can find the proper outlet to put the – beyond today on television on the West Coast that will cover everything from Oregon down to Southern California on an outlet that would be of a quality that we can expect to reach a good audience for the money that is spent.

So that was one of the factors. Our own Aaron Booth presented an update on the ucg.org site, the new site that has been launched in a beta forum. And he did such a good job that I asked Aaron to come over here on Pentecost and make the presentation to you so you'll be able to see it.

And he finally found out he was planning to be here anyway. And so he's going to be making that presentation when he's here on Pentecost. So we went through the – those reports and events. I think the council elections, they were reported. I'll just quickly mention those. Robin Weber and I were returned to the council for a three-year term.

Dr. Don Ward was elected to a three-year term. Gary Antion was elected to fill out a two-year term on the council. And Bill Bradford was elected to a three-year term as the international representative. He's in Australia. And John Elliott, minister – or pastor in Phoenix and also Kenya, was elected to a two-year term. And because of an anomaly that was created because we passed an amendment that will not allow from this point forward an operations manager or the president of the United Church of God to be on the council at the same time.

This is kind of the third attempt at this, and it passed overwhelmingly this time. So the president of the United Church of God and the operations managers, which today are three, treasurer, ministerial services, and media, cannot – are not eligible for election to the council of elders while they serve in those roles. So we have the administration separated from the executive board, the council of elders, and I think that is a good thing.

And as a result of that, Aaron Dean had to go off the council as well as Victor Kubik. That midnight when it was – the day after it was passed. So what it did – long story short – it created a six-week term because one of those men – Aaron Dean's term had six weeks to run to the 1st of July.

So we had to go down to another level on the list and pull Pastor Rock Corbett out in Salt Lake City and Grand Junction, Colorado, to serve a six-week term on the council of elders to fill that out. So he will – he was glad to do so. He – for the experience – and I wish – you know, wish he had a full term to serve because he would make a good council member.

But he will have the distinction of being the shortest-served member of the council of elders come July 1st when he has to vacate. And then Don Ward will take that seat, which was the seat firmly held by Aaron Dean. It got quite complicated. We had to kind of have a late-night council session to sort all of that out and make sure we had it all – it's all by the rules. It is all legal and whatever, but we filled in all of the slots. We have a 12-member council of elders today, and we'll have to July 1st when the council – new council will take its place.

So I think that takes care of a lot of the details. The theme of the conference this year was, Serving as Christ Serves. Serving as Christ Serves. This was an appropriate theme for us to take since we have made an initiative of emphasizing Christlike service throughout the entire church. This was not a coincidence when we chose this theme. I hope we keep it for a year or two or three.

For a long time, we felt that we change themes every year, but we don't learn the themes every year. And this is one we need to learn. So if we have it again next year and the year after, I may bring that forth. I don't know if it will happen, but it would take us, frankly, a lifetime to learn it, so we can't overemphasize too much.

We have turned a new chapter in the story of the United Church of God. We are a church with Jesus Christ as our head. And it is our intent, our determination, that we will pay more than lip service to this reality. And from now forward, it is our desire and our intent to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the living head of His church and to conduct ourselves accordingly, to be spiritually centered, spiritually focused, and spiritually minded. I personally feel that for the ministry gathered in Cincinnati and those that were attending via hookup, this was a conference to rededicate ourselves.

I feel that the ministry has rededicated itself to serving as Christ serves. We are not perfect on that. We have many, many gaps to fill and a long way to go to rise to the example of Jesus Christ. But I think that the intent, the heart, the sincere desire of the ministry is to do that. And I think we dedicated ourselves to the ministry of service. And as keynote speakers, we went through this topic throughout the weekend and on into the meetings of the Council on Tuesday and Wednesday in our own Council retreat on Thursday and Friday.

We continue to talk about this and to emphasize the fact that we are a church. We understand we have to run the church on business principles in terms of compliance with laws and regulations that impact organized activities in the United States and wherever we do our business. But even though we organize ourselves in that way, we are at heart a church and we must never forget that. And though we can create a strategic plan, though we would create bylaws or all of these legal instruments, nothing replaces the Bible, nothing replaces the scriptural principles that are here.

And every bylaw we may have or every policy we may develop to make sure things are done decently and in order and in a godly manner, they must be based upon the principles of God, the law of God. And we are a church at heart and Jesus Christ, according to this book, is the head of the church. And we in the United Church of God have come to a point where we intend to do more than just paid lip service to that.

By the grace of God and by our continued active diligence. One of the keynote presentations was made by Mario Segley, our pastor in Garden Grove, California, and Mr. Luecker's agent in Latin America. Though I might just mention, Mr. Luecker is the de facto regional director. We've never made a change in that for the last year. But certainly Mario Segley is his primary agent in that area in administering the churches and the services to the membership in Latin America. And though he has himself come under a great deal of fire and his family under the shining spotlight of the last year, they have weathered that.

And I think they have conducted themselves admirably, and having been involved in the most intimate of discussions with him and administration of that area, I can speak to his integrity of service and intent in that area. He gave a keynote address on service. And his main point was certainly drawn from Matthew 20, where we are all familiar with Jesus' statement on the heart and attitude of a servant. Matthew 20, verse 25, where Jesus called his disciples to himself, and he said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.

Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. His main point throughout his talk was that the greatest among us would be humble servants.

And Mario went through seven points, actually seven words, from the New Testament that talk about the different kinds of servants that you find mentioned in Scripture. To help us understand what they were, it was very enlightening for me, and I wouldn't share just two or three with you, not all of them. But there are a number of words that come out, and whether it's translated as servant, minister, deacon, or whatever in the New Testament, all point to an aspect of what Jesus is speaking to here of not exercising authority, but exercising servanthood, service among ourselves.

One of those words is a Greek word, doulos. And it's the word that is translated as a house servant, where you find in the Gospels a servant or someone does the act of washing the feet. It's speaking in this term. A doulos was a servant in the house who did the lowest of the service jobs in the house. The washing of the feet. In the ancient world, in those days, any sizable household had a servant who would do that for guests that would come in because people were open-toed sandals, the roads were dusty.

And you know how it is, there's nothing more uncomfortable than having gritty, grimy, dirty feet. And to have them washed, when you come in off the beach, some of the resorts we go to, there's always a little shower right there at the edge of the sand. You can wash off the sand and dirt from the beach. That's what a servant did in a house, and they didn't do it with a high-powered jet stream of water. They did it in the fashion that you and I do it at the Passover service, with a basin of water in a town.

And you would get down on their knees and do it in that fashion. That was a dulos. So that was the lowest form of a servant there in the New Testament. There's another word that we find it used, and that's diaconos. And from that word we get the word deacon. It's the word that is used in Acts 6, where they chose out seven men to be the first deacons in the church. Diaconos. And that was an individual, a servant in a house, who waited on the tables. Made sure the tables were set, the service was clean, food was served, taken, everything cleaned up afterwards. Just like, you know, kind of setting up for a potluck, or, you know, ladies, how much work it takes for you to prepare for someone coming over for a meal. You wish you had a servant. If you did, he'd be a diaconos in the Greek word. But we do it ourselves, so you and I are dioc- I become a diaconos every time we have someone into the house because I help set up and clean up and do all of those things. But it was a waiter of tables. Any of you that have done waiting at a restaurant as a waitress or a waiter, you know how much work that is. I've come to appreciate that more and more recently. I heard a radio discussion a few weeks ago driving one night of this Denny Smith who does financial talks on the local radio. He was having people call in about servers and tipping, the practice of tipping, and how people handle it. And whether 15%, 18%, 20%, or whatever. It's interesting stories. They have a lot of waiters and people who work in the service field call in and explain how the structure is. They don't make that much money. Base rate, as you know. They depend on tips. So it did help me to appreciate that, you know, at times if I want to fudge a dollar or two or percentage point or whatever on that, that take a second look at what's been done and err on the side of generosity, I guess. But it is work. Those of you that have done that know that. But a good waiter, a waitress, is certainly going to seek to serve in a proper fashion. But diaconos is that word. Mario went through another word, and it's found over here in Acts chapter 26, where the Apostle Paul was defending himself before a grip-up, and he recounted the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus.

In Acts 26, in verse 16, he uses the word minister in verse 16. As he said, Jesus said to him, Rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness, both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I shall, I will yet, reveal to you.

This word minister here is a different word. It's huperites. There won't be a test on any of this for Greek, so don't worry about getting it exactly right. But it's a word huperites, which literally means a minister who brings light. A minister who brings light. In the case of a minister of the gospel, light of the truth of salvation and God's way of life. The root of the word actually also is used to refer to a class of people in the ancient world that you and I are familiar with, if you've seen any of the old movies like Spartacus or Bin-Hur, those big dramatic Bible-type Roman stories, where they would have these large galley ships and rows and rows of people, normally as slaves, who would be rowing in the bottom of the ship because they didn't have sails, they didn't have steam, they moved those big galleys by dozens of men rowing. Hard, hard work. That individual was also referred to, or the title of the name of that rower, they were called an under-rower. And that is the root for this same word huperites used here in verse 26.

toward Paul as he was to be a minister to bear witness of the things that he had seen and would yet have revealed to him. And if you think about the life of Paul, he had a very, he had a tough, hard job traveling, arrested, persecutions, in and out of jail. It was tough and it was hard to be this type of minister. There was no glory to it. There was no exalted position. He was in danger of mobs in places like Ephesus and arrest in Jerusalem. And the whole story, as you know, he had a very tough, hard job, much like one who was in the bottom of a ship having to row. And the ship didn't move unless they kept doing their job. It's a very interesting study that Mario took us through. No matter how the concept of servant comes out in Scripture, it means the word servant in its context throughout Scripture means one who is under authority. One who is under authority and works to advance the kingdom of God. It's not one who's in authority so much. The emphasis is not on them exercising authority so much. When it comes to service, it's used to refer to someone who is working to advance the kingdom of God, is always under some authority. Ultimately, Jesus Christ. If it was the Apostle Paul, he recognized that he was under Christ, and a bondservant, and a slave, as he wrote. So he never looked at himself as some highfalutin individual with privileges, perks that he was entitled to. That's not the proper exercise of servant leadership, servicehood, Christlike service, however you want to phrase it, from the Scriptures. It is the concept of someone who is under authority. A few years ago, I was attending a feast of tabernacles, and the speaker got up and gave a sermon about the fact that the kingdom of God would be built on two primary foundations. The love of God, and the government of God. And then he proceeded to give the whole sermon on the government of God, and he didn't talk any more about the love of God. And I was quite surprised at the exposition. While the government of God certainly is there, I would tend to look and understand from the Bible that the foundation, the primary foundation, is love rather than government. But this particular individual was intent on proclaiming the fact that there is government and authority. And that's not service. That's not the heart of a servant. The heart of a servant is understanding that no matter where we serve, as an under-rower, as a waiter of tables, as a spiritual overseer, which is another form, we are all under authority. And as stewards, must give account for what we do and how we handle the Word of God, the people of God, and all the resources of the Church of God. Melvin Rhodes gave his chairman's address, and he talked about duty and gave some very interesting illustrations about that. Melvin, being the British subject that he is, I always accuse him of being a closet monarchist because he always manages to talk about some aspect of the king or the queen and the royal family. Of course, at any time, I guess the royal family of Great Britain is an interesting story and study, but Melvin had a point that politicians come and go, but kings rule for their whole life. You know, we don't have too many kings or queens in today's world. There is a king of Belgium, or is she a queen? I can't remember what the… she may be the queen over there. There's a king of Sweden, and of course, there's a king of Thailand that some of us will remember, and he still sits on the throne of a much revered and loved monarch in Thailand. There's also, of course, Queen Elizabeth, who comes most readily to mind about monarchy and her long-lived life.

Her sense of duty is one that is really underappreciated in today's world. The recent royal wedding of William and Kate brought the royal family back into world prominence once again and captured our imagination and our attention for that period of time. None of us can deny that the royal family of modern times has not been without its problems.

We certainly hope and wish William and Kate happy and long marriage. They're going against the grain of royal marriages if they do last, and we hope they do because many of them have been divorced. The queen, of course, is an exception. She's been married to Prince Philip for a number of years. What is not always appreciated is that when she became queen after the death of her father, King George, she pledged herself to service and duty to all the members of the Commonwealth, all the citizens of the British Commonwealth, not just in Great Britain but around the world. And she truly lived her life that way. She's 85, 86. She has no intentions of stepping down, and I would expect she'll go out with her boots on.

She'll go out in a horizontal position unless she becomes incapacitated and has to sign over control or abdicate to her son, Charles. But she's going to endure on. One of the reasons is that she learned that from her father and her mother. And they learned it because her father's brother, King Edward, remember the one who was king for a short time and left it, abdicated for the woman that he loved, made such a poor rotten example of service that fell upon her father, which they did quite well during World War II, and Queen Elizabeth has carried on with that. There was a documentary a couple of years ago that I was watching on her that showed a remarkable story of how she was at a reception at Buckingham Palace one day. It was one of these annual receptions they have for people who serve in non-profit ways throughout Great Britain. And they bring in hundreds of them for an afternoon tea on the back lawn at Buckingham Palace. It's always held in the summer, so it's hot. And the Queen comes out and she mingles with everyone. They're having their tea and crumpets and everything on the back lawn. And they usually pick about a hundred of these individuals to stand in line to be received by the Queen. And they get about a minute each of small talk with the Queen. And they showed her talking with some of them, and there was one lady that came from some place, some lady, and I forgot what she did. Let's just say she had distinguished herself by carrying Meals on Wheels to shut-ins and had done that for 30 years or whatever. And she was the one that was there. She was with her husband. And she was introduced to Queen Elizabeth, and the Queen said hello. And then the lady said, and this is my husband, Ronald. Well, the Queen acknowledged him, at least, with a nod of her head. And then she talked with the lady for 30 seconds or whatever about what she did and why she was there. And then she turned to her, the husband, and said, and Ronald, what do you do? And I remember thinking, she actually remembered the guy's name. Unbelievable! A hundred people standing in line, the uppers of 200 total, that she would have to make small talk with, and she remembered their name. I can't remember after talking 30 minutes to somebody sometimes. I won't forget their name. Some of you, please nod your head. You know what I'm talking about, okay? And I thought, this woman, she was probably 80 at the time that this was made. That's duty. And she does this multiple hours a day, drags herself around the globe, keeps up at a rigorous pace that most politicians, half her age, could not do.

So, she is a remarkable example of duty, and she recognizes that it's her job to remember those names. It's her job to be there, to stand in the hot sun, to do these things, because she is a queen. Politicians come and go, but monarchs, kings, queens, rule for their whole life.

This has not been a good week for politicians, has it? Not a good week at all. It's pathetic what some men with power do, whether it's the power of a governor or head of an international monetary fund or the momentary power over someone who's weaker and helpless in the form of a woman, a maid, a servant. It's just unbelievably pathetic that these things that come out, that politicians come and go. And many of them don't even need to be there in the first place.

Duty and service are at the hallmark of anyone who has a responsibility of authority and political, religious, business, whatever it may be.

Dennis Luecker gave a short talk about his role in the staff, the administration, and some of my comments about what Mr. Luecker was saying will carry on over to comments that were made through the week with him as he met with the council and his administration met with us as well. But he was talking about the present harmony of our relationships among the home office staff, which is quite high, quite strong. The morale is very, very good. It is a pleasure and a joy to go into the home office.

I will tell you a few years ago when I would go over to New Beyond today, I would get done with my job after taping and I would go out the back door. I would slip down the back staircase and go out the back door to get on home because I didn't want to go by any of the offices and go out the front door. I just didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to go to my job.

It was just not a happy place to be. I don't do that anymore. I go out the front door and I go out the front door now. There is a very high morale.

The Council and the administration are all working together. I will say we're working together quite hard to ensure that we win the peace, we win the love, we win the unity. Because those things don't happen and even though we have a moment, Satan is very much at work and will sow seeds of disunity, discord, ego, jealousy, vanity.

Even as I'm speaking, he's sowing those. And we will have to work very, very hard to win the peace. It's one thing to wage war, but once peace or a settlement has come by whatever means, maintaining peace and unity is sometimes even harder. And we will have to work hard. By saying that, I'm saying that we do have a level of harmonious relationships right now.

And we thank God for that. But we do not take it for granted. Our days of fasting are not over and our days of prayer are not over as well. We did evaluate the President this week and he gave a very, very favorable evaluation by the Council. And he and Mr. Luecker and the administration came in while we had a two-day Council retreat. And I should mention the retreat that the Council had was a day and a half on Thursday and Friday. This was a long planned retreat. Actually, for several years the Council has had it on the books to do something like this.

Just as an annual evaluation. We did not conduct any business. There were no notes taken other than action items for us to work on. So we did not conduct any business whatsoever. We discussed matters of roles and rules, communication, relationships, relationships between the Council and the administration. We had a whole list of items that we were to discuss. We discussed media and we had ample time for our own reflections on what we had been through and what we need to do.

And I can tell you that we were brutally honest with ourselves about ourselves. And recognize where we need to tighten up, things we need to do different. Make sure that we are working together as a Council, not going off in groups of eight or four or seven or five or whatever. We intend to work hard at that and make sure that we communicate with one another. One of the things I brought to the table was something that had been mentioned in our own board here a few meetings back that I felt very, very good was brought up by Frieda Carlson actually brought it up.

And she brought up the fact that we need to, you know, when a group of people acting as a board or a Council meet that there needs to be a complete transparency of business and matters. And everyone needs to be up to date every minute about what is taking place so that there are no surprises when business is brought to the table to keep from creating factions, creating blocks of people that you have.

So we intend to work very, very hard at that. And Mr. Luecker understands his role in the administration and the Council understands its role. And we're intent on giving the administration everything that they need to do their job and to advance the work of the Church. 1 Peter 3 is a very good Scripture in this regard.

1 Peter 3. Mr. Luecker brought this out to us. It's a marriage Scripture. It's one of these Scriptures dealing with husband and wife relationships, but it involves all relationships. 1 Peter 3. You're very familiar with this. In verse 7, Peter writes, he says, Husbands, likewise, dwell with them, meaning your wives, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered.

Now, husbands dwell with them with understanding, is the operative phrase. With understanding. How do you understand someone, husbands? How do you understand your wife? Well, you understand by listening.

And you know, turning off the TV, putting down the phone or iPhone or iPad or whatever. But you listen, and you listen with your heart more than you listen with your ears. You listen with your heart. Same with wives. How do you understand your husband? You listen. How do you understand each other in a relationship anywhere, anybody? We have to listen. We have to spend time. We have to hear an issue out. If you want to get to happy marriage, you want to get to consensus, if you want to build unity, if you want to build teamwork, you have to have understanding.

Understanding of what makes that person tick. Where are they coming from on this particular issue? Why do they say it the way they say it? Why is this their particular pet project or issue? Why? And you have the love to get to the bottom of it. So many things. I mean, a successful marriage depends on two people dwelling together with understanding. We in the church, between the Council of the Administration, among each other in the Council, those of us within our congregations, to have a measure of unity, teamwork, cooperation.

We must dwell or live together, work together with understanding, because we understand each other. And we accept the differences of opinion, even if we may have, we do not agree. And we are able to work through various issues and situations without compromising, certainly with God's way and God's law. But the soft things of life. Well, this was something that was brought out to us by Mr. Luecker, and it is extremely important, extremely valuable. I want to tell you that I felt this was the first time Mr. Luecker was evaluated by the Council. And as I said, it went very well. I had to reflect that, again, I've said this before, Mr.

Luecker was one of my instructors at Ambassador College 41 years ago. He taught speech. He was an administrator in the administrative services. And here I am now 41 years later, sitting at a table with him, and I'm giving an evaluation of him. If you live long enough, anything can happen, I guess, is the lesson, the moral of that story. All kinds of things can happen. But it was a very, very good evaluation. And again, there's a good relationship that we are all working to maintain and even improve on as we move ahead.

I can tell you that as one Councilmember, brethren, I promise you I will be working to do what I can to keep those seeds of distrust from being sown and taking any route where I have any influence, certainly in my life and among those where I interact. I promise you that. That's all I can say. I think that all the other members certainly intend to work that way as well, but I will make you that promise. And I ask you to ask your prayers that I can fulfill that promise. That's my intent. Aaron Dean gave a brief report on the income, the financial aspect of the church.

And we won't go into all of that. He made a comment. He says, We will not be a worrying work. We will be a work of faith. And that is our intent as we move ahead as well. I think God has been very, very merciful and very gracious. And we have the means to continue on. We've lost about a third of the income of the church that we had a year or more ago. And yet we will continue to work with what we have. We have, I've already recounted some of the steps we've made as a council with some of the various funds and all to do.

And that continues forward. That hasn't changed. We are a people under God's name. We are doing a work of faith. And anyone who comes to the United Church of God, be it a new person, be it someone who's coming back after a number of years of absence, everyone that comes needs to come to the United, if they come to the United Church of God, they need to come because they feel that we will offer them the greatest chance to be spiritually nurtured and become a part of the kingdom of God.

That's what we must understand as God gives us that growth. And there are many signs that that growth is hovering out there waiting to come. One of the things we're going to do, I didn't mention this, in terms of the Hispanic or the Spanish, Latin American work, we have never in our history, even going back 30 years to the WCG days, we have never actively created a strategy to target the Hispanic-speaking areas of the United States of America.

We've always had a presence in Mexico and Latin Central America and South America. But as we all know, the borders move north. And in South Florida, Southern California, certainly South Texas, Greenwood, Indiana, we've got large pockets of Hispanic citizens, non-citizens. And we need a strategy to target those in terms of the Spanish literature and whatever else we may come up with. We are working on plans for those. We have never done that. It's just never been done. It's amazing to realize that, but it's true. But we have that that is a field. I'll tell you, Fort Wayne, we had five Hispanics there this morning.

Over the last couple of years, we have had several Hispanic families filter in and out of the Fort Wayne congregation and visit with us. Some stay for a period of time. And we had five there this morning. There's a sizable Hispanic population in Fort Wayne, and there is a sizable Sabbath-keeping Hispanic group in Fort Wayne.

So I think that there is a ripe field, a fertile field, of that to be done throughout the United States. We are beginning to make some strategies to address that. And as God gives us the growth, we pray they will come and again can be part of the United Church of God as God is calling us. And it will take work to produce this unity. In 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12, Paul writes about the unity of the body. He says in verse 12, For as the body is one, and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit.

For in fact, the body is not one member, but many. And yet those many make up the one body, as he goes on to describe. Diversity of operations, individual parts of the whole body, and yet there is one body in Christ.

People of the same spirit will find a way to work together, to govern themselves by the Spirit of God. It doesn't matter what the system of governance may be. One man, 12 men, 3 men, 6 men, no men. Whatever it may be, it doesn't matter. We are all under some form of – we are under one ultimate form of governance or authority, and that's that of God.

And any system that an organization will create must not only be based on godly principles, but have people who are willing to work with each other based on those principles. It's not, again, the bylaws or any set of bylaws that create perfection. It's the Word of God. It's the Bible. And any system an organization must be based on that in the deepest spiritual way. People of the same spirit, God's spirit, will find a way to work together to govern themselves, to develop the unity that Scripture speaks of by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God.

God does have a perfect form of government, but only those who are living by its principles will be a part of that perfect system. And Scripture defines what that is, and that's beyond today's sermon. I will say that to go back to the story of the church at Antioch, and what has come out as a theme personally for me through the week and the experiences, is that for us to achieve that level of unity, for us to submit ourselves to one another and to God, we're going to have to, again, as I said, act as a church with Christ as the head, and pray and act and live according to that principle.

Spiritually centered, spiritually focused, spiritually minded. Back in Acts 13, again, this scene, the story of the church, this congregation in the city of Antioch, shows that they were a praying church when they determined that they were going to take two of their leading teachers and prophets among the group mentioned here in verse 1 of Acts 13, and separate them and send them out to preach the gospel.

Verse 2 tells us, they ministered to the Lord, they fasted, and the Holy Spirit said, Separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have been called. Then having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.

As I said a couple of weeks ago, this church was a praying church. On this very important issue, and you could bet, on any other major, less than major, even maybe insignificant issue that came up, it was a praying church. They were a praying body, and their prayers were translated into daily action. It was more than just putting in five minutes, fifteen minutes, heartfelt prayer, or halfway prayer, which is what sometimes we do. Sometimes we're very fervent in our prayers, sometimes we struggle, maybe a little bit less than fervent. Sometimes we may pray in the moment, which is fine too. They were a praying group of people, and their prayers got action. Brethren, we have to become a church, as I said, that does more than just pay lip service. The fact that Christ is the head of the church, and that we are a church, we are a church that prays. And we commit ourselves, we commit actions to prayer. And then we expect, and then we go and we live that way.

In our dialogue, in the way we think of one another, deal with one another, act, as when we get off our knees, as if that prayer has meant something, and it has anchored us in God, and what God is doing. And we live that way as we interact with people. That's how all parts of the body can work together, and we all have a ministry in doing that. And we begin to think, and we begin to look to see God in action in our lives, in the work of the church. And we begin to live our life as if, indeed, God is guiding us, day by day. I know we all pray that. I know that you and I pray fervently for God's wisdom, for understanding. Maybe there's a specific action that you're asking God's intervention on, healing, for you or for someone else.

Some of the most important conversations in our meetings, as in when we all come together on a Sabbath, or when we go to the Feast of Tabernacles, it's the fellowship time around meals, and the hotels, around the pool, and all those things, where we all talk and we share our lives and our stories, where really the real growth in fellowship, and at times even the insight spiritually comes as we build on maybe what has been said in a sermon, or we build on what we've read and studied in our own personal walk with God.

And those things happen as people talk about what they do.

I mean, I could recount individual conversations with some of my fellow ministers, and just listening to them, and at times they describe what's going on in their life, and you realize, wow, those are some of the things that have happened.

Some deeply spiritual matters, and God is acting in your life, and that, you know, I can walk away from some of those conversations, and having been encouraged, having been taught, humbled by a conversation with a peer in that way, those are the things we should be doing, because in doing so we see God in action in our lives, and we see God in action in the church, and we're not afraid to talk about that.

We are a counsel and an administration today that we are not afraid to get on our knees and join our hands and pray together for a specific purpose as men.

Now, we don't get into a—we're not getting off into some, you know, hand-raising, Pentecostal, emotional type of situation, and that's not where we're headed at all in the church. So don't go running amuck in your mind.

But we're not afraid to do that when we need to.

We began to pray as one of the most—take an extra minute here— since being on the council, one of the most inspiring parts of the council service to me has always been when we consider the men who've been put forward for ordination.

And we do that in executive session, and it's just always been a very, very inspiring thing for me to realize what we're deciding, a man that has been put forward and we're approving their ordination.

And this time we always pray as we open every council meeting and we close every council session with prayer. This time we started praying even in advance of the actual session where we consider the men to be ordained. We asked one of the men to lead us in prayer.

Over that, Melvin Rhodes instituted that, and I hope we continue to do that as a tradition in the council so that we'd have that extra bit of wisdom, discernment, as we discuss among ourselves the men that have been put forth for ordination to the ministry so that we make the right decision. And we do talk long about those, and everyone shares what they may know about an individual and consider what has been put forward to us on paper because we recognize the importance of that act, that step.

But that is, by God's grace and will, what we are beginning to come to and develop in the ministry. And I think within the church, throughout the church, in our walk with God and with Jesus Christ. Something came in this morning, we were just getting ready to leave this morning to go to Fort Wayne, and I want to share something with you.

This was an email that came from Rock Corbett, our six-week wonder, who passed her out in Salt Lake and Grand Junction, Colorado. He was at our meetings in our... Let's see, got it right here.

He had a late flight out yesterday from the hotel in Cincinnati, and he wrote us a memo of an interesting experience that he had traveling to the airport with the hotel shuttle. Let me read it to you. I think you'll find it very compelling, very inspiring. He said, today, after the Council of Elders retreat, this was yesterday, after the retreat ended, a remarkable series of events unfolded.

After lunch with several friends, I was dropped off at the hotel where the meetings had been held. There were still several hours until I needed to leave for the airport. So I sat in the restaurant and wrote this week's letter to our congregations in Salt Lake City and Grand Junction. I enjoyed a great conversation by phone with a good friend in Montana and worked on a few email tasks and still had time left before my scheduled shuttle to the airport.

Feeling like getting to the airport early and having time to browse a shop or two, I inquired if I might be able to catch an earlier shuttle. The driver on duty, however, was on a run and could not take me any earlier. So I picked up a paper and sat in the lobby, catching up on some news. In a few minutes, the night driver arrived early and offered to take me.

Neither of us could have known what would happen between the hotel and the airport. I asked if I might sit up front in the van rather than in the back, since it was just the two of us. There was a friendly conversation between strangers in Sood, and it was very comfortable and personable as we began to speak. Ignatius, the driver, told me this was his night job. I inquired what his day job is. He's a schoolmaster for kindergarten through eighth grades and works from 4 p.m. to midnight as a shuttle driver for hotel guests. I mentioned that I felt like a student, having just spent 11 days in meetings, lasting six to eight hours a day.

Whatever business brought you here, I hope it went well. I told him that it had, that I had been attending meetings for our church. Ignatius then mentioned his church experience. He had come to his faith in the late 1970s, and over time began to serve in the ministry. Ultimately, he became the only black U.S.

pastor for a large Baptist denomination. As he continued his story, he said, I'll be transparent. Our church split. Those above me couldn't get along. With that, I mentioned that we had just come through a similar trial. Ignatius and I began to connect, sharing our experiences. I asked him how he worships now, not being part of the church that he once attended.

He mentioned that he and his wife and a few others meet together to worship on Saturday. I looked at him and told him that we worship on Saturday, that we hold to the seventh day. Ignatius began to cry as he drove the van. He told me that he and those with him have come to this understanding within the last year or so through their intensive study. He knew about the first century example of Christ and the apostles, about the Council of Nicaea three centuries later. He said, it's been so lonely out here. I then told Ignatius that we also observe the biblical Holy Days instead of the holidays of this world.

Tears rolled down his cheeks and he said, the Spirit in me wants to weep, but the flesh is driving the van. I mentioned that we have congregations in the area. We prayed together in the van, thanking God for bringing two strangers together in this miraculous way. As we neared the airport terminal, I asked if I might contact him again, and we exchanged email addresses and phone numbers.

We hugged his brothers with the expectation of seeing each other again some time and of knowing each other for a long, long time to come. I entered the airport wondering what was the most miraculous thing that had happened to me during these last 11 days in the area of the home office. I have no doubt it was meeting this new friend, this new brother, Ignatius. It was like riding in his chariot, almost like Philip did long ago when he met the Ethiopian. If Ignatius comes to the point of baptism, I pray that I may be there to share that day with him.

We serve an amazing God, your brother in Christ, Rock. He titled that my chariot, right? You never know. God is working in many ways far beyond our fellowship and our time and our place. And as I said, I hope and pray that God will bring those who feel that the United Church of God is a place where they can be nurtured in their journey toward His kingdom, as He is the one who ultimately calls.

So you never know what you're going to run into. Prayerfully, expectantly, spiritually, we need to be living our lives accordingly. So that's a report of what I hope God has done through us this past week.