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Council of Elders Meeting Report: August 16–19, 2021

Submitted by abooth on August 19, 2021 - 2:45pm

United Church of God, an International Association

Council of Elders Quarterly Meeting Report

Milford, Ohio

Monday, August 16, 2021

Chairman Len Martin called the morning session to order at 9 a.m. Eastern, and the meeting was opened with prayer. All 12 Council of Elders (Council) members were present. Randy Stiver and Paul Wasilkoff were online. Scott Ashley had a previous engagement but was online until he arrived later in the afternoon.

Chairman Martin welcomed everyone. He expressed how well the Council workshop went last week. There were a lot of great things that came from those three days. He quoted from Acts 5, citing that plans of men will come to nothing, but if it is of God, it cannot be overthrown. There was a tremendous unity and consensus in the discussions. The Council would present some of those ideas and discussions later in day and through the week.

The last Council meeting minutes were approved. The agenda for the week was discussed with a few edits and was approved.

President’s Report—Victor Kubik

President Victor Kubik greeted everyone. He read Philippians 1:6-7 which encourages us “that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it...” Mr. Kubik also read Philippians 3:13-14 that shows Paul’s attitude toward doing the work of God. We see troubling times around us, but we are to continue to press toward that goal. Mr. Kubik then commented on some of the various events since the May meetings.

Ambassador Bible College (ABC) is getting ready to start its 23rd class. Enrollment is 17 students. Student enrollment may be down because of COVID-19 restrictions which has impacted our international students not being able to attend this year. The start of the ABC year begins Sunday, August 22.
Feast of Tabernacles registration is at 8,300 people at this point. Three Feast sites are already full: Anchorage, Steamboat Springs and Panama City Beach. We recognize that the possibility exists for sites to be canceled due to state COVID-19 mandates and regulations and hopefully there won’t be any further issues.
Web Development Initiative is an area that Mr. Kubik has major involvement. As we move to the Drupal 9 Web content management for our website by next year (August 2022), we are looking at what can be improved with the website. We are working with a consultant firm. One of the main areas is the need to engage new people and co-workers and build a relationship with them and see what we can do to help them.
National Religious Broadcasters Conference (NRB) was held in June. Peter Eddington, Clint Porter, Rudy Rangel, Gary Petty, and Victor Kubik traveled to Dallas for this conference. One of the big subjects discussed was safeguarding religious liberty for Christian organizations and nonprofits. We are not alone on this issue.
The Word Fitly Spoken Clubs was held online for pastors to evaluate each other’s sermons. This worked very well to improve our ministerial speaking skills. Mr. Kubik has only heard positive comments regarding the speaker’s club.
Organizational Stewardship is the section of our Strategic Plan that deals with the care of our employees. We are doing a pay-scale review to examine current salaries compared to other non-profit organizations.
Planned Giving, a part of Organizational Stewardship, has the goal to improve how we engage with those donor’s and co-workers who have shown, through their financial support, a higher level of interests. Howard Marchbanks has been a tremendous help to Mr. Kubik in this area.

Operation Manager Reports:

Ministerial and Member Services (MMS)—Mark Welch

Mark Welch welcomed everyone. As operation manager for MMS, Mr. Welch sees the need to visit in person as many congregations and pastors as feasible. He wants our members and our pastors to understand that he is very interested and concerned with their well-being and welfare and MMS is there to support both our members and our ministry. Since the May meetings he has gone to the following areas:

Five congregations in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia on Pentecost weekend (pastored by Don McCoy and Steven Britt).
Murfreesboro and Nashville, TN on May 29 (pastored by Gary Petty).
Camp Nacome (preteen) on May 30 (directed by Matt Puckett).
Orlando and Jacksonville, FL on June 5 (pastored by Rick Shabi).
Camp Florida (preteen) on June 6 (directed by Jeff Lockhart).
Big Sandy, TX for Don Ward’s retirement on June 18-20.
MMS hosted its first boundary waters canoe trip with a group of pastors on July 7-11.
Online sermon to the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada congregation on July 17.
Soldotna, AK on July 24 (pastored by David Dobson).
Trip to Ft. Worth, TX on August 7 to attend the memorial service for former pastor, Bill Cowan, needed to be canceled as the memorial had to be moved to August 14.
Trip planned for the weekend of August 14 to North Dakota churches needed to be canceled due to sickness.

Some of the other activities Mr. Welch also mentioned were:

The Word Fitly Spoken Clubs: From all accounts received, the first round of The Word Fitly Spoken Clubs for all pastors was a great success. For eight weeks, eight ministers met online to critique one another’s sermons. There has been much camaraderie and good will in all groups and many have expressed how helpful it was in becoming more focused in their speaking.

Ministerial Education Program: Under the direction of President Kubik, for months the MMS Education Team consisting of Steve Myers, Gary Petty, Mark Welch and their wives met online to design and organize a pastor’s refresher program. The overall theme is “Building the Brotherhood,” but there will be a variety of important topics discussed from prophecy to divorce and remarriage to apologetics. All sessions will have a short introductory lecture followed by an interactive discussion or workshop. We realize that many of our ministers have a certain knowledge of the topics covered and are more interested in discussing practical aspects and how each topic applies and relates to being more effective ministers. The first session is scheduled for all our presenters for November 9-18, 2021. There will be two sessions in 2022 and 2023 as we bring in all U.S. pastors and their wives.

Summer Camps: Overall it has been a very successful summer camp season with six teen camps (Winter, Cotubic, Wamatochick, Pinecrest, Northwest and Woodland), and five preteen camps (Nacome, Florida, Ironwood, Buckeye, and Seven Mountains). Pinecrest had an outbreak of COVID-19. Three preteen camps were eventually canceled due to COVID-19 (Colorado, Northwest, and Texoma). This summer there were 423 campers and 276 staff attending.

Sickness: COVID-19 has hit some of our congregations hard. This underscores the need for our pastors to stress that members should not come to services if they are showing any symptoms of sickness, however slight.

Regional Pastor Meetings: Bi-monthly Regional Pastor meetings with MMS have been held online and are very productive.

Treasurer and Financial Services Report—Rick Shabi

Rick Shabi began his report by reminding the Council that the Church’s fiscal year ended June 30, and that since that time the financial department has been focused on year-end closing procedures and preparing for the annual external audit, which is beginning this morning.

Commenting that fiscal 2021 was a most unusual year for the Church due to the impact of the coronavirus on travel, Sabbath services, and other meetings and activities of the Church, Mr. Shabi distributed detailed financial reports for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021, and for the month of July, 2021, accompanied by notes so the Council would have the opportunity to go through a more extensive review of the information later if they so choose.

He led the Council on a review and discussion of the year-end income statement, citing that overall income was significantly above budget, exceeding prior year income by 9.5%. Most of that increase was in income categories that could be classified as “core” to the Church. General Contributions (which represent first tithe and offerings), for instance, were up by 7% over the prior year; the Festival Fund was up by 21% over the prior year; and Holy day offerings were up by 13%.

Mr. Shabi commented that these are a direct blessing from God and reflect the membership’s commitment to the financial principles found in the Bible. God provides what His Church needs. Our gratitude is to Him.

Overall expense for fiscal year 2021 was well below budget, resulting in a healthy excess of income over expense. Once the external audit for the fiscal year is completed and presented to the Council, the entire audit report and financial statements will be published in the United News.

As the church entered fiscal year 2022, which began July 1, it is in a very strong financial position.

Financial reports for the month of July 2021 show the continuing trend of strong income overall, as well as in the “core” categories.

Year-end and July 31 Balance Sheets, departmental expenses, and key operating statistics were presented and discussed to round out the balance of the Treasurer’s Report.

Media and Communications Services—Peter Eddington

Peter Eddington went through some of the following statistic results to date:

United News circulation is now at 18,351. This is up 3.6% from last July. Approximately 48% of United News copies go to coworkers and other non-UCG readers.
Our coworker count is at 8,589—just below our all-time high of 8,609 in June. And that’s a 17% increase over the same time last year.
Our donor list now includes 10,763 people. That’s a 15% increase over last July. Our peak number was 10,834 in June.
Combined with our coworkers, we continue to have more of our readers and viewers contributing to the work of the Church than the total number of members in the U.S. and abroad — 19,352. That’s a 16% increase over the same time last year.
U.S. Beyond Today magazine subscribers total 265,664. This is a 6.8% increase compared to the same time last year.
The Church’s Beyond Today YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/BeyondTodayTV has had 14.1 million views (an 11% increase over a year ago), has 64,100 subscribers (a 13% increase over a year ago), and hosts 2,450 videos (8.6% more than a year ago).

Some other items Mr. Eddington talked about were:

Booklet and Bible Study Course printing history: The United Church of God, IA has printed 11.237 million copies of its booklets since 1996. In addition, we have printed 3.26 million copies of our Bible Study Course lessons since it began in 1999. During the 2020 calendar year, seven of the 12 lessons were reprinted, and five lessons have been reprinted so far this year—for a total of 80,000 copies. These figures are very encouraging, in that they show our readers are engaged and wanting more biblical information from us.
eBooks: More than a million e-books have been distributed electronically through Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, Issuu and Kobo.
Roku App advertising results: After 56 months of advertising, which began on November 26, 2016, we are seeing the following total results through July 31, 2021:
- 36.98 million advertising impressions (20.5% increase over last year).
- 268,010 channel installs (14.7% increase over last year).
- 7,343,333 unique viewers (19.7% increase over last year).
- 37.83 average minutes on channel (20% increase over last year).
- 60.80 average minutes on channel last six months.
Amazon Smile Donations: The United Church of God was issued a quarterly check of $1,535 from the AmazonSmile Foundation for January through March, 2021. We are very thankful for those who are using this program to benefit the Church. More than $17,815 has now been donated to us from AmazonSmile (a 45% increase over the same time last year).

Committee Chairman Reports:

Doctrine Committee (DC)—Mario Seiglie

The DC has completed a project that will be presented to the Council later this week. The DC is continuing to work on the review of three more papers.

Members on the DC: Scott Ashley, Jorge de Campos, Darris McNeely, Mario Seiglie (chair) and Randy Stiver.

Education Committee (EC)—Aaron Dean

The only project remanded to the EC at this time, is the article on music. It is still in the process of being edited.

Members on the EC: Aaron Dean (chair), Jorge de Campos, Brian Shaw and Paul Wasilkoff.

Ethics Committee—John Elliott

The Ethics Committee has no mandated duties or assignments at this time.

Members on the Ethics Committee: John Elliott (chair), Mario Seiglie, Randy Stiver and Paul Wasilkoff.

Media and Communications Committee (MCC)—Darris McNeely

Darris McNeely presented for Scott Ashley who was online, but traveling to the home office. The MCC had no meetings since the May Council meetings. The MCC has no other assignments at this time.

Members on the MCC: Scott Ashley (chair), Jorge de Campos, Darris McNeely, Randy Stiver and Paul Wasilkoff.

Roles and Rules Committee (RRC)—Dan Dowd

The overall responsibility of the RRC is to monitor administrative policies and procedures so that organizational, constitutional, bylaw and legal requirements and standards are complied with. The focus of the RRC over the summer was to oversee the upcoming annual assessment of the Treasurer. This business will be covered and finalized in executive session tomorrow. Later this week, the RCC will also oversee discussion regarding a review of the Scopes and Responsibilities of each committee of the Council of Elders.

Members on the RRC: Dan Dowd (chair), John Elliott, John Miller and Brian Shaw.

Strategic Planning and Finance Committee (SPFC)—John Miller

The SPFC has a few projects it is currently working on with one of the biggest being the three-year update to the Strategic Plan.

Members on the SPFC: Aaron Dean, Dan Dowd, Darris McNeely, John Miller (chair) and Brian Shaw.

Report on Council Workshop—Len Martin

Chairman Martin gave an overview of the Council workshop. They met for two and a half days at the Deer Creek Lodge in Mt. Sterling, Ohio. Ten men were able to be at the location and two were connected online (Randy Stiver and Paul Wasilkoff). The goal of the workshop was policy driven from Bylaw 8.7.2 that lists the Council responsibilities. There were 27 agenda items the Council was asked to look through. The Council got through almost all of them, so it was very productive. There was an amazing comradery through the workshop, which the Chairman described as being like Ephesians 4, where the apostle Paul pressed upon the church to act, “with lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians:4:2-3).

Chairman Martin presented on behalf of the Council three main categories to help to move the administration further forward in the way we are going.

The first was in the area of developing disciples and how we can do more to prepare a people. The idea of looking at the feasibility of owning regional properties that are closer to congregations that can serve as camps, mini Feast sites, focused education training, ABC extension classes and other programs for the youth and those of all ages in the Church. This feasibility study was remanded to the Education Committee to further research.

The second area was to look at employee retention. The Council recognizes that although we have limited resources to accomplish all that we want to accomplish, the cost to the organization when we lose valued employees and the subsequent costs to hire and re-train, hinders our ability to “do the work.” The Council would like to explore additional benefit opportunities that could be made available to our employees. Some may not have a cost impact to the organization, unless utilized (such as continuing education or other forms of tuition reimbursement). This point of interest was to see what areas of employee compensation can be used to help benefit the employees and to evaluate salary ranges and other areas to explore to help retain employees. This was remanded to the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee (SPFC).

The third was in the area of our vision statement. Whereas most members can recite from memory our slogan, “Preach the Gospel, Prepare a People,” which is a shortened version of our mission statement, the Council began discussion on how we can get everyone to similarly focus on our vision. Brian Shaw presented this to the Council during the COE workshop the previous week, so he presented it again for the administration and elders. This process was begun eleven years ago when a project team worked with an outside firm to help us understand UCG’s critical essence. Their work was supposed to be reworked and made our own, but due to other pressing matters it was never completed. The COE now strongly agrees that the essence of what UCG offers is “truth” and especially depth of truth. There was also agreement in how UCG presents the truth, “in love.” He said that Ephesians:4:15 is one of the core verses of our vision statement and sums up where we are all to be and how we conduct ourselves. He then drew a competitive map so all could see that our competing clutter in the market does not speak to those who are seeking “truth in love.” This isn’t just a slogan, a theme or a tagline but a cultural change that will unify us and lead us all to developing the nature of Christ, as Ephesians tells us. The COE wants UCG administration to lead our ministry and membership in “truth in love,” and believes strongly that as this is reflected in our sermons, publications and video services, all those seeking to do the same will want to engage with us. All of the Council was excited to continue to move this forward with more emphasis on this condensed version of our vision statement and each member expressed this to the administration. The Council remanded this to the SPFC for policies that can be given to the administration for implementation.

Proposed Changes to Ordination Procedure—Mark Welch

Mark Welch presented to the Council some proposed changes to the current ordination procedure for clarity and to improve it through additional mentoring requirements before an ordination request is made to the Council. The current Policy 4.5.1.1 Elder Ordination Procedure was reviewed and edited by the Council for about 30-minutes. The Council unanimously approved the edits.

The Council went into executive session at 3 p.m.

The Council came into open session at 3:42 p.m.

Upcoming GCE Dates

May 14-16, 2022
May 6-8, 2023
May 4-6, 2024

Proposed Driver Safety Policy—Chris Rowland

Chris Rowland presented to the Council a new policy to add to the HR manual. Larry Darden, as our legal advisor, commented that it was needed to help protect the Church from potential lawsuits. It also is a reminder of good safety while driving. The proposed driver safety policy was reviewed with suggested edits for about 30-minutes. The Council then unanimously approved the Driver Safety Policy.

The Council adjourned for the day at 4:27 p.m.

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

The Council was in scheduled executive session all day.

The Council adjourned for the day at 6:48 p.m.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

The Council began in executive session to finalize some things from the previous day.

The Council came into open session at 10:24 a.m.

Scope and Responsibilities of Council Committees—Dan Dowd

Dan Dowd, chair of the SPFC, led the discussion on the Scope and Responsibilities document to the Council. This is a follow up from the May meetings when the Chairman asked each Council committee to sum up their responsibilities. Rainer Salomaa has been a great help in the past when cleaning up previous church documents and this Scope and Responsibilities is another one that needs to be reviewed following his example. The Council committees were asked to review their scopes and responsibilities to discuss them in the December Council meetings.

Hymnal article for United News—Aaron Dean

Aaron Dean, chair of the Education Committee (EC), discussed the current draft of the hymnal article for the Untied News. It was discussed with input from the Council for about 50-minutes. The EC will continue to work on the article utilizing the input provided and bring it back to the Council.

Doctrine Committee Update—Mario Seiglie

Mario Seiglie, chair of the Doctrine Committee (DC), updated the Council on one completed project. The completed project did not receive support from any of the DC members. Presenting this project follows the guidelines for the DC to inform the Council of its completion and the author was informed there was no support.

The DC is currently working on an extensive write-up of the Calendar paper being headed by Jorge de Campos. The Council now has the paper and was asked to review it with any edits by the middle of November with the goal to present the paper to the Council in the December meetings. The DC is in the process of reviewing the Voting and Involvement in Politics paper. One other paper is still being worked on, as well.

Exploring new options for 2-minute Beyond Today programs —Peter Eddington

Peter Eddington, media operation manager, presented to the Council some additional ideas for other nationwide television spots for the 2-minute Beyond Today (BT) programs that have been tested on Newsmax TV for the past eight months. There are several other networks on which the 2-minute BT programs could be tested. Mr. Eddington shared those options and what the costs would be for a 10-month test on various networks. The Council discussed ways to measure the outcomes and what can be done to get the best metrics to help continually improve results. The presentation and discussion went about 90 minutes. The Council approved $310,500 from additional, unbudgeted Church income to be allocated to this test program.

The Council went into scheduled executive session at 2:30 p.m.

The Council adjourned the days meetings at 4:55 p.m.

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Chairman Len Martin called the morning session to order at 9 a.m. Eastern, and the meeting was opened with prayer. All 12 Council of Elders (Council) members were present. John Elliott, John Miller, Randy Stiver and Paul Wasilkoff were online.

The Council began in executive session.

The Council came into open session at 9:37 a.m.

Youth in the Church—Len Martin

One question that came in last week with the Council workshop was how can we help the youth, especially the 18-age group from leaving the Church. What can we do as a Church? The Council discussed and brainstormed ideas for over an hour. The Chairman remanded to the SPFC to have further study and develop policies on this important subject and emphasized the importance of moving this forward and reporting in December.

The Council adjourned the week of meetings at 10:54 a.m.

-end-

Council Reporter

Shawn Cortelyou

[These are not the official minutes from the Council meeting. Elders can find those at the Home Office with the Council Secretary. Video recordings are posted for the elders on the UCG Ministerial Resource Site.]

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Council of Elders Meeting Report: August 16–19, 2021