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

Tuesday, January 19, 1999 - Tyler, Texas 

 
The Council split today's tasks between reviewing a major booklet draft in the morning and reviewing ministerial ordinations and a member appeal in the afternoon.

With the lengthy, and long-anticipated, treatise on the identity of the lost 10 tribes of ancient Israel nearing completion, the Doctrine Committee brought this last draft to the entire Council for analysis.

This subject ranked among the most important topics for the UCG to address, according to a survey of the ministry in 1995. Rick Sherrod, a former Ambassador University history professor, started the ball rolling when he took his considerable amount of compiled research and authored an extremely thorough first draft. In accordance with established procedure, it then went to the doctrinal process committee, with all 23 reviewers approving its doctrinal content. John Ross Schroeder then tackled the major task of editing it down to a  more manageable size, and what the Council eventually received was a 110-page manuscript. Plans call for a final booklet version of approximately 85 pages. Several titles have been bandied about to try to capture the theme of "where are the Israelites?" but the final heading is yet undetermined.

In its review the Council focused only on areas the Doctrine Committee previously highlighted for scrutiny. Each member, though, was asked to read the entire study in the next two weeks and submit any further input before it goes to the technical editors and on to print.

The Council expressed great appreciation in complimenting Dr. Sherrod's work. "Rick has done a lot of work on this and is a great resource," said Jim Franks. "He has given us a start on something that we, by ourselves without Rick, could have never come to at this point. I think this is an important doctrinal booklet for the church. This will be a fresh approach and I think it will be very well received. It takes a different approach than basically rewriting former material, but it arrives at the same conclusion."

In a related matter, the Council reviewed and approved a letter from the Doctrine Committee to answer a few members who have raised several issues regarding racial and historical aspects of the ancient Israelites.

It then spent the afternoon in executive session.
 

- Clyde Kilough

© 1999 United Church of God, an International Association

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