Legacy, Service, Faith

Good afternoon to all of you assembled here, elders, members, ABC members, and then all around the world where churches are connected to this special event. Welcome to all of you to the 30th anniversary of the founding of the United Church of God. It was actually 30 years ago this weekend. The dates are off by a couple of days, but it was this weekend, 30 years ago, that the founding meeting of the United Church of God was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. And it's fitting that the GCE Planning Committee has chosen, as our theme for this year, UCG 30 years, a legacy of service and faith. You know, themes are often lofty-sounding, grand, and sometimes even somewhat detached. But today, there's a real-life practical reason to commemorate the terms embedded in this year's theme. Legacy. Service. Faith.

Why are you here in this room? For those of you who are connected by some form of media, why are you there where you're viewing today's service?

Faith. I came to Indianapolis 30 years ago for one reason only. Faith.

In our historical archive are at least 35 letters of resignation from pastors and elders. Passionate, respectful, humble, and yet unbending.

All of them declared that they had made a commitment, a commitment to what they had been taught, and they had expressed their unwillingness to abandon the calling that God had given them in a very special way to be a part of this way of life. Some of those authors are here in the room today. I noticed in the program that was passed out in the welcoming package that there were an excerpt from three or four, maybe five, I didn't count precisely, excerpts from at least four or five of those letters. The remainder of them are all in our historical archive. Faith was the driving force that founded the Indianapolis meeting. 155 elders assembled in Indianapolis the first week of May because of their faith.

By May 20th, and we're talking the weekend of the third, fourth, fifth, by May the 20th, 15 days after the Indianapolis meeting, 8,000 members were meeting in 75 congregations in the United States alone. Our inability at that time, because we were so new, was such that we couldn't track those that were meeting in Australia, those that were meeting in England, those who were meeting on the European continent, those that were meeting possibly in the Philippines. But by May the 20th, already in the U.S., 8,000 members and 75 congregations had sprung up in 15 days.

By July 15th of that same year, 1,500 Spanish members had joined United because of their faith. And seven months after the Indianapolis conference here in Cincinnati, Ohio at the Royal Hotel, 402 elders were present to confirm the governing documents, to establish a council of elders, and to officially ratify and form the United Church of God. 402 elders and their wives present because of their faith. And so when I see faith as a part of this year's title, it is a very real, a very practical part of our celebration. We realized at Indianapolis that the commitment to our faith went far beyond the events of the elders who were there.

We were well aware that there were elders, there were members of faculty, there were members of administration who are on exactly the same page as we were, but who were not at that time able to detach themselves from responsibilities and attend. We also understood, even though we had no way of numbering them, that there were members literally around the world who were every bit as committed as were that particular group who were able to make the time to be at Indianapolis.

The pastor of the Seattle congregation upon returning to Seattle was informed of where the meetings would be and that he was expected to speak. And as he took the podium, he looked down at the front row, and in the very front was a 100-year-old widow. And when services were over, he walked off the stage straight to her and said, Mrs.

Kopp, I'm thrilled to see you here. And she looked at him with a Scandinavian stoical look, and she said, where else would I be? We had no way of counting around the world how many thousands of members there were who were Ethel Kopps, who just simply said, where else would I be? There is no other place to be. Some were familiar with the saying that I didn't buy a round-trip ticket when God called me.

And therefore, there is no place to go. All came regardless of timing for one reason. We realized at that point in time, it was very easy, it was a sensitive time, and those at Indianapolis were privileged to be there, but they didn't represent the whole body. And they realized that some of the body would come later. In fact, it even became a part of the thinking of the transitional board, everyone in his or her own time. There was no badge that came along with, I was there at the first meeting.

The only badge was continuing the calling that God had given, and that would come to full maturity in the mind of the individual at some time. Then, a few weeks, a few months, a few years, it didn't matter. Colossians chapter 2 verses 6 and 7 speak to where we were then, at that point in time. And it speaks to where we are now, this point of time, 30 years later, and where we wish to continue to be forever onward from here. Colossians chapter 2 verses 6 and 7 read as follows, As for you, Paul speaking to the church at Colossae, as for you, therefore, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Rooted, established, built up. How many ways could you say that this was the only place to be? This was the right place to be. And you were here, as He said, because you were established in the faith. Legacy. Legacy is one of those words that some people immediately attach their mind to the meeting, and others say, I'm very familiar with the word, but if you demand a precise meaning, I can give you the gist, but I don't know the precise meaning.

Interesting thing about legacy, it's a two-sided coin. For an older generation, legacy is what we hope to pass on to those who follow us. To the younger generation, legacy is whatever you prize as a gift that has been passed on to you from parents, pastors, older members, mentors, it doesn't matter who, but something you treasure and that you won't let loose of. Legacy was the foremost thought on the mind of the men and the women who met to plan the Indianapolis Conference.

At the founding of Indianapolis, there was a week before the actual general meeting where regional pastors and some administrators and one field pastor met for a week to plan out the agenda for the Indianapolis Conference, and they were there with their wives. And as they met, they met with a motto. It was only this last week that Victor Kubik and I were comparing notes on his blog site and things that we had shared, and I said I had just found a piece of 8.5x11 paper and very neatly written across it was the motto for the planning portion of the Indianapolis Conference.

And the motto read, Continuing the Church of God, Psalm 119, verses 43 through 45. That was the motto of the planning group. Psalm 119, verses 43 through 45, I'd like to read to you from the NIV version. It flows a little more smoothly, and it places emphasis on key elements that we are remembering today. From the new international version, Psalm 119, verses 43 through 45, read, Never take your word of truth from my mouth. For I have put my hope in your laws. I will always obey your laws forever and ever.

I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts. In the bizarre lead-up to the founding of the United Church of God, laws were being abandoned, sabbaths were being abandoned. All of these things were seen as bondage, as yokes, as things that were fettering us, and if we could free ourselves from them, we would be free indeed. And yet, the psalmist said very simply, I will always obey your law forever and ever, for I walk about in freedom, for I have sought your precepts.

The calling of God gives us that special treasure of knowing that it is the law of God that frees us. It frees us from penalties, it frees us from injury, it frees us from harms.

It is something to be walked in and obeyed forever and ever.

As we can see from that motto, the intent of the Indianapolis Conference was to carry forward the legacy gifted us. We hope from Indianapolis that in these 30 years a legacy has been passed on. But as we met in Indianapolis, we were holding fast a legacy that had already been given to us.

It was recently in a conversation in Portland, Oregon, we have a new assistant pastor. We were discussing—I wasn't discussing with him—we were talking about him.

Only the him in this case was the her, his wife. Our new assistant pastor's wife is the granddaughter of the very first deacon Herbert Armstrong ever ordained.

Legacy. They recently enjoyed the addition to the family of their first grandchild, born to a son and a daughter-in-law in the church.

Legacy. The ability to look back two generations and see an anchor that you have been able to hold onto, and to look forward two generations and say, here's a treasure that I have that I hope to pass on, all that I stand for, all that I believe, and all that's important and precious to me.

Legacy.

There's a ladies' portion to the GCE meeting this year, and they have connected on teleconference probably four times, maybe five times— I know a number of times in lengthy discussion of their session. It falls, because the attendees are from the Eastern time zone to the Pacific time zone, it falls right at my breakfast time. And my wife is sitting at the breakfast table with her iPad up, talking. So I sneak into the refrigerator, I grab a thing or two, and I sneak out, but I hear a little bit of talking here and there. And in the course of listening, Lina Van Osdale, who was one of the attendees at the conference, had mentioned, as they were reminiscing, she said, I was one of the teenagers that attended the very first UCG summer camp in the summer of 1995. We came out of Indianapolis with less than two months to establish the very first of our summer camps. I think we had five that year. They ran from either late June or the very first of July into the middle of August, covering the entirety of the United States, five separate summer camps available for our teens. And Lina said, well, I attended one of those that year. After they hung up from the conference, I laughed with my wife, and I said, you know what? There are people who will be in Cincinnati to celebrate the 30th anniversary, who attended the very first radio church of God summer camp in 1961.

Legacy. Those who go all the way back to the establishment of the program itself, marching through 30-plus years, and then determining in a meeting in Indianapolis in the first week of May that our very first mandates is that we have to, in the summer, have up-and-running, staffed summer camps, and we have to have Feast of Tabernacle sites. And both, with a minimum of time to prepare, were fully there, fully operational, and fully enjoyed by both the members and the teens of the Church of God.

I'm an archivist by nature. I get rid of things as quick as I can to places that will keep them. But I was going through a series of documents, and I emailed a person, and I said, confirm for me what I think I saw on a particular document. And he wrote back, and he confirmed it. I was reading about the WIOU program in the worldwide Church of God, where they had national contests. And they ran the entire gamut. There was basketball, there was art, there was track, there was musical performance, both vocal and instrumental. And I had the pleasure of being a regional track coach for the Midwest on one of the annual track meets. And we all went home rejoicing because we had won the national track meet. And one of the contributors to that victory was a boy's 400-meter relay. And I had looked weeks previous to the GCE meeting at the names, and I saw there, as one of the four members of the first-place 400-meter relay team, a kid named Len Martin.

Now, as a coach, you're coaching a whole region. So you know the kids from your own church, and you know also those from your district, but this is multiple districts. And I didn't know the kids from that district. Now, that kid who was on the 400-meter relay team is the overseer of YU's summer camp program. Legacy. So our title isn't just a lofty title. Our title is a very real, a very genuine title that says a great deal about everyone sitting here and everyone connected, no matter what church area they happened to be in. Legacy is one generation passing down what they have been given, what they have learned, what they've experienced. In this case, those who have passed down what has been given them and learned by the founding of the United Church of God to another generation who pick up that treasure and carry it forward to then pass it on to an even later generation.

We brought our legacy into the United Church of God from parents, grandparents, teachers, and mentors. And now, as those who are here in Indianapolis, have reached certain ages, those who were founders, those who were at the original meeting, have reached a particular age in life where it's necessary to watch as the next generation picks up those duties and tasks to be available as mentors if needed, but to watch a group of individuals pick up with energy and determination and carry forward those same very precious beliefs and ways of life.

The 78th Psalm contains a little more lengthy description summing up the heart and core of legacy. It is a reminiscence that goes all the way back to the time of Jacob. But you know legacy and the components of legacy and the nature of legacy doesn't change no matter how many centuries or millennia pass. Again, I'd like to read this to you in the new international version. It's the first seven verses of Psalm 78. It reads, He degrades statutes to Jacob and established the law in Israel, which He commanded our ancestors to teach to their children. So the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born. And they, in turn, would tell their children, and then they would put their trust in God and would not forget His deeds, but would keep His commandments. The nature of legacy never changes. For those who have the vision to see legacy, it doesn't end with the faces that you see, no matter if those faces are of chubby little kneed boys and girls who are walking around. It's to those who are not even yet born. Because that commitment is endless, it's timeless. And as a psalmist wrote, it started all the way back when God called the Abrahams, the Isak's, and the Jacob's, and it is the responsibility of every generation to continue to teach those things to their children, and to look beyond their children to those who aren't even born yet and know that it's just as important that they receive the same things.

Service. True service springs from our faith. God's way has always been an active way. It has always been a giving way of life. There's a certain amount that is lost between the culture of the period in which the Old Testament was written and the more mechanical and precise and mathematical thinking of the Greek world that dominates in the New Testament. But God from the very beginning has always been a God of action. Show me what you believe. Let me see what you believe. There is in our past a poem by an American poet named Edgar Guest that has been read periodically that reads, I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any time. That's who God is.

Service springs from our faith. At the feast in Colonna, British Columbia this last fall, the perennial question was asked that is often asked at feasts. Well, how many of you have been here for 10 feasts? A period of hands. How many for 20? A few less. And it declines as you go to 30 and 40 and 50. And you look around intently when the person asking the question says, How many of you have been here for 60 feasts? And up go very, very few hands. At Colonna this year, the question didn't end. The question went to how many of you have been here for 70 feasts? And up went one hand.

I hadn't had the opportunity, even though the crowd wasn't that large, to talk to the individual who raised his hand. But the individual who raised his hand was Mark Elliott, John Elliott's older brother. Their parents, having moved to Pasadena in 1949, began working with Mr. Armstrong at that point in time, 76 years ago. In 1954, Mr. Armstrong assigned Jack Elliott the task of creating an ambassador club.

The club, and later the local spokesmen's clubs, have been the primary tool to train men in the Church of God as public speakers. If you look from 1954 to today, you look at all the students who have been in an ambassador club, which are the smaller number, and all the men who have attended spokesmen's clubs. Thousands, thousands of men have been taught the confidence to be able to stand, if I may borrow a biblical term, and give an answer, to stand confidently and speak. Mr. Elliott's creation of the club, and later the manual, speaks to one thing, service. When United began, these manuals were copyrighted by our former Church, so Jack Elliott's son John rewrote the substance of the manuals, and United has carried on the training. I guess you could call that a legacy of service. You know, service is simply taking a skill God has given, and turn it into service to the whole body. It's fascinating when you stand back from Paul's epistles, and you realize the number of times he spoke to congregations about the Church being a body, a body made up of members, members of different types that could all contribute. The total flaw in thinking of everybody being the same member, everybody an eye, everybody an ear, everybody a foot or a mouth or a hand, that every single member was needed for the body to function. He told it to the Romans in Romans 12. He told it to the Corinthians twice in chapters 10 and 12. He said the same thing to the Ephesians in Ephesians 4. He repeated it at the end of the Colossians in Colossians 1 and in Colossians 2.

Many a pastor will look at his congregation if he's talking to another congregation. I've heard this a number of times. He'll say, I've got a congregation of worker bees. When you look at a congregation and you stop for a minute and you look at what everyone is doing, and you realize if any one of them wasn't doing what they were doing, things would not work. Somebody has to work the sound. It's a whole world of difference when you have a live pianist and rather you're playing a canned hymn. Great contribution. And we go on to all the other things that are part of the service.

You know, when you look at that body and you ask, well, where do I fit? I can give you the simplest answer possible. Every—and I'm going to use the broad brush—every one of us at some time or another has said, well, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Whatever it was that you said, if I can do it, anybody can do it. That's your gift. Because you know what? Everybody can't do it. And the only reason you say, if I can do it, everybody can do it is because you do it naturally. You didn't think about it to begin with. You didn't engineer it. It just happened to be what you can do. Use it. Contribute. One of my greatest joys in the United Church of God is—knowing the way we are—probably one of the greatest joys of some of you. One of my greatest joys in the Church of God when it comes to service is every time I read a prayer request result. It's not the original, but the follow-up. How the individual is overwhelmed by the number of cards and letters and messages of encouragement that they have received.

You don't know until you're there how precious that is. But since an awful lot of you have been there, you do know exactly how precious that is. A brief moment, a few words on a card, a stamp on the top, in the mailbox. Not a lot of effort on your part. Profoundly important to the person on the receiving end. We have a reputation for service. It's probably most visible at feasts of tabernacles and at summer camps. My wife and I were in Branson, Missouri a few years back, and the festival coordinator stood up, and he was reminding the audience that the auditorium they were meeting in was a performing arts auditorium owned by a family, and that the Church of God was the only outside body ever allowed to rent it. And had rented it many, many times. You know, when somebody has a treasure that they own, and I know the family that owns the theater, this is their livelihood. And its care, the attentiveness to its various parts, the stage, the auditorium, very important to them. To be able to trust somebody. They will keep it neat, they will keep it tidy. They won't deface anything. The people who are outside will see the traffic flows in and out of the parking lot, will be attentive to all the needs that are there. Take a deep breath and say, we like these people. We will allow them to come back, and come back, and come back, and come back. They've watched those individual collective bits of service that make up the reputation of the Church, and said, we like what we see. It's a testimony. Part of the gospel we preach is the example we leave behind us. I don't know if I were flipping a coin, which it would be. The impression we've left over the decades at the Feast of Tabernacles, or the reputation we've left with youth camp managers at the camps that we have been allowed to rent for our summer camps. There have been a number of camp managers who have marveled as they watch this body of people all come in on a Sunday. And if they watch carefully, they're aware as camp managers that they're looking at a body where it's almost a one-to-one ratio between staff and campers. This isn't five and ten kids to a staff member. The attendance is close to one-to-one. And to chat with whoever the coordinator is, and to find out that every single one of these individuals is unpaid. They're taking a week off of their personal time to dedicate a lot of time, a lot of energy, to see that children, teens, and now with our preteens, are given a foundation. A foundation that allows them to fellowship with peers and to enjoy peers, to have fun, but to have a very strong spiritual anchor to that time.

A legacy of service driven by our faith. They're all connected. They're all intertwined. We've continued for 30 years, passing along those things we have learned, and each new generation takes up the tasks and carries them on with the energy and a more youthfulness of body and mind. And we continue as a church. Today we celebrate 30 years of that with the delight that God has allowed us to continue on. What legacy, what encouragement do we wish to leave long-term? In the same spirit as what I read in Psalm, where it says, even to those who are unborn, the answer is really simple. It's the same answer that Paul gave as he reflected, as he was passing a legacy on to his young mentee, Timothy. And it's found in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 and 15. Paul's words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3, 14 and 15, But as for you, continue in the things which you have learned, and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.