United Church of God, an International Association
Council of Elders Quarterly Meeting Report
August 23, 24 and 25, 2011
Milford, Ohio
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Chairman Melvin Rhodes called the quarterly Council of Elders meeting to order at 9:00 a.m. Six ABC students were present along with a few other guests to observe the session. During the open sessions the ABC students rotated in to observe the Council in action.
Don Ward opened with prayer, asking for Jesus Christ’s presence during the meetings. The minutes of the Council’s previous meeting were approved as amended. A short discussion ensued for rearranging several elements of the agenda, which was then approved.
Mr. Rhodes had Bill Eddington present the newly revised Council of Elders Code of Ethics, which every Council member is required to sign. After a public reading of the Code, each Council member signed his copy and delivered it to the Council Secretary. (The Code of Ethics was expanded in recent meetings and discussions to cover actions and behaviors by some previous Council members who are no longer part of UCG.)
OPERATIONS REPORTS
The rest of the morning meeting consisted of the regular operations reports to the Council by the Administration. Since the Council now receives monthly reports from the Administration via teleconference, the quarterly meeting reports take less Council face-to-face time than in the past.
President Dennis Luker:
Mr. Luker began his report by commenting that because of day-to-day operations, the home office serves as a sort of heart beat of the work. In the year since he arrived to assume the duties as president, we have developed a very positive spirit without the cross-purpose agendas of the past. Mr. Luker expressed concern that many or most of the employees are overworked, and he is concerned about the possibility of employee burnout. The employees are feeling the stress of the long hours, and the Council will need to consider the possibility of some new hires to more effectively spread the workload.
The new 35-member class at ABC is a joy to have in session. The ministry, from Mr. Luker’s personal conversations, has high morale, a sense of peace and encouragement and eager motivation. The Kingdom of God Bible Seminars are generating a great deal of excitement and interest. We are coming together, stabilizing and moving forward.
The selection of three new regional pastors (RP) is a positive step forward. He stressed the importance of considering the role of a regional pastor’s wife to help with encouragement and feminine insight when making the RP decisions. Mr. Luker voiced a particular apology to the non-salaried elders in the regions for neglecting to include them in the pastors’ survey that led to the RP selection. They will be included in all such future surveys.
In the area of finances, it has been very encouraging to see the income holding steady and moving forward. Christ is blessing His Church and His work.
The international areas have been inspiring to watch as they regrouped, stabilized and are moving forward. Even in areas that initially looked like we had no one with United, we have been especially encouraged to see many stepping forward to remain with and serve actively in UCG.
Mr. Luker commented on how he has never considered leaving a church organization for the reasons of governance. The only reasons to do so are to continue to be able to obey God and keep the truth. He stressed that he is not a “yes man” to the Council, but offers his complete cooperation and support and serves at the Council’s pleasure. “Our working relationship is good because we are working for Jesus Christ, the true head of the Church. We are mutually submissive to Him and to each other.”
Ministerial and Member Services Operation Manager Victor Kubik:
Mr. Kubik began his report by expressing sadness and condolences at the news of the recent deaths of two elders who served the Church very effectively for many years—Jack Elliott and Leonard Schreiber.
He went on to report that we now have 80 full- or part-time ministers and 195 churches in the U.S. Our Sabbath attendance was 7,253 in the past month and is building. The KoG Seminars are very exciting for both ministry and membership. Some small areas have more registrants coming than we have members in the local congregations. So far only 1 in 14 visitors to the registration site have actually registered, so we may have more attending who have not registered.
We now have three new RPs living in the regions they are serving: Vernon Hargrove for the Central area, Ken Martin for the East and South and Steve Nutzman in the West. Roy Holladay will continue to serve on the Ministerial Team, overseeing Feast planning and the camp programs. Gary Antion will oversee all of the church’s education programs, including for training the ministry. Our Ministerial Workshop will take place on Labor Day weekend with a record number of 32 enthusiastic couples attending.
Under week-to-week direction of UYC overall coordinator Steve Nutzman, the United Youth Camps program has gone very well through the summer. We were blessed with extremely good summer camps. A great part of that blessing has been the rise of new leadership to serve as highly capable camp directors and wonderfully talented and dedicated staff members to carry on the United Youth Camp program with excellence.
The international areas overall are doing amazingly well. We have assigned U.S. senior pastors to oversee various areas. One area of concern has been Zambia, where people of the breakaway group have refused to leave the UCG church property. Your prayers would be appreciated for the positive resolution of the ongoing legal confrontation there. We have 227 brethren in Zambia who use the property for youth camps, services and the Feast.
The Good Works program requested a bus for Zambia for multiple uses for the brethren there, and the funding came pouring in. United Youth Corps provided three American volunteers to assist Jim Tuck with the recent program for Zambia and Malawi and will be sending three Australian young adults to the Kenyan youth camp in December.
We are planning a series of regional and sub-regional conferences to help support our new pastors and continue to build camaraderie throughout the ministry. We still need to fill some holes in the U.S. pastorates, especially in one or two cases.
In conjunction with Mr. Luker’s concern about stretching ourselves too thin, Mr. Kubik announced that he has decided to step away from pastoring to focus on operation manager duties at home office and in visiting the regions. Mike Grovak has begun pastoring the Lafayette, Indiana, congregation, and Mr. Kubik will hand off the Terre Haute congregation in due course.
He concluded that although we are getting older, he feels that Christ has plans for us yet to do something great in His work.
Media and Communications Operation Manager Peter Eddington:
Mr. Eddington reported that we expect to have close to 1,500 officially registered attendees at the KoG Seminars. The majority of the seminars are being held on September 10. In a few cases new people were moved by the KoG Seminar ad in The Good News to begin attending church services—thus showing a side benefit of the seminars.
The Feast sermon video is now being edited. The title is “In Pursuit of the Kingdom of God,” featuring a 20-minute presentation by Mr. Luker, plus interviews of longtime members and home office employees.
Internet mail is up 120 percent from last year for some months, and the need is growing for managing this increasing workload. We appreciate the elders who participate in answering these questions and letters. With Beyond Today television we are now seeing the development of a regular audience where people order a number of key booklets. That pattern indicates positive response to God’s calling toward Church membership.
We do have a blessing with WGN America as a great value for the gospel. The west coast and Chicago markets are getting responses, but they are still more expensive per response than WGN America at the moment.
Finance Operations Manager and Treasurer Aaron Dean:
Mr. Dean started with encouraging news that the income is holding well. If trends continue at current levels, we should use about $1,000,000 less in reserves than we had budgeted. God has blessed our efforts.
He said that we fully expect positive income to increase as we move forward with the KoG Seminars and yield to Christ’s leadership. Much of our one million dollar “faith” income line in the recently approved budget has already been provided through God’s blessings. God always looks ahead of us to see and plan for what we can’t see.
Mr. Dean recommends that we develop an operating reserve policy for wise management of our assets. He offered to provide for any Council member who desires it a complete line-by-line financial review, because we certainly have nothing to hide.
In his handout for the Council, Mr. Dean included his philosophy as treasurer, “We are a church first and a corporation second. President Luker and I wish to continue the momentum being built and approve reasonable expenditures, even if not completely budgeted, that help the gospel and the people. If we humbly yield to God, He will bless us to do what is necessary.”
Items to discuss included construction of a non-climate controlled storage facility on-site to free up warehouse space in anticipation of the construction of the new television studio.
Mr. Dean clarified that we did not do away with the estate donations for the retirement fund because we needed the money; we did so because we need to preach the gospel.
Regarding the reports that Mr. Dean distributed, Bill Bradford asked why some of the Feast accounts have larger funds in them. Gerald Seelig explained that we avoid bank fees by keeping a number of thousands of dollars in the accounts, and that these remain a portion of our reserves. Where possible we maintain an overall Feast account, but under U.S. banking policies we sometimes must have separate Feast accounts. Bill Eddington specifically thanked Mr. Dean for producing the interim balance sheet, which many Council members had been requesting for five years.
Regarding taking legal action to recover assets in international areas, Mr. Dean explained that we first write to those responsible in the breakaway group to request that they return said funds or taken assets. When these requests are ignored we have a fiduciary duty to protect these church (they are not an individual’s) assets, so we may need to seek the aid of a magistrate to recover UCG assets they refuse to return, or to confirm that the Church owns assets claimed by the dissident group, even if we already have physical possession. In some cases the governments in the nations involved may also choose to investigate the matter and seek an accounting, etc.
Some asked about the status of the Denton, Texas, property. Mr. Dean reported that the Church has continued the practice of the previous owner in running cattle on that acreage. By doing so we have retained its “agricultural use” designation, which translates into a lower property tax levy than what might otherwise be the case. He asked everyone to please pray that we can find a good buyer so we can sell the property.
COUNCIL COMMITTEE REPORTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Mr. Berendt first reviewed the process for submitting doctrinal research through the regular channels specified. A doctrine task force will soon be in place to review doctrinal research papers prior to being forwarded to the Doctrine Committee. He reported on several recent papers that were reviewed by the Committee on the topic of the date of Passover, eating unleavened bread and when human life begins. The Committee will pass on to the Council their recommendations. The Committee is working on 16 papers at the moment. One minister suggested that all of United’s official study papers be systematically organized for more effective use. Mr. Berendt commented that this suggestion is a particularly good one. Council discussion focused for a few minutes on a long-standing project about the nature of man, and several recommended the need to move that project to conclusion.
The one main item to present is the Sexual Misconduct Policy for the Ordained Ministry that the Committee has been working on for some time. The Committee also wants to review and improve the Ministerial Code of Ethics, much as was done for the Council Code of Ethics.
Two items were discussed, including the merger of The Good News and World News and Prophecy magazines and the need for an associate media producer position in the operations area.
Mr. Eddington reported that a review of governing documents has been an ongoing project. A first pass of the Constitution has been completed and will be "parked" until the review of the Bylaws has been undertaken. This is scheduled for the remaining months of 2011. Also considered was the idea of selecting a deputy chairman of the Council. Another area of review is the role of the president and Council to bring clarity to the issue in the governing documents.
The Committee will be presenting a cash reserve policy for Council review. A risk analysis project is also underway. The Committee has enjoyed wonderful cooperation with the Administration in producing their reports and work.
Mr. Rhodes took the floor to discuss future Council meeting dates. John Elliott reported on a suggestion that he had made to have the December meeting be moved to follow the Winter Family Weekend as a cost-saving feature, but found that although the U.S. travel costs would be lower, certain international travel costs would double, thereby erasing any savings. Therefore, he withdrew his suggestion.
December meeting dates are to be December 4 through 7. The following meeting dates are planned for February 27 through March 1. Although the desire had been to make one Council meeting per year be a video conference, the consensus was that the December and February meetings need to be face-to-face to review the budget and strategic planning issues that are always on the agenda for those meetings.
Peter Eddington proposed on behalf of the General Conference of Elders Task force that the GCE meetings be May 4-6, 2013. The dates for the 2012 GCE are already scheduled to be May 5-7 for next spring. The 2013 dates were agreeable to the Council.
The Council broke for lunch at 11:30 and reconvened for the afternoon session at about 1:00 p.m. to receive the remaining Council report.
The Committee only met once (June 8, 2011) for a few minutes (telephonically) to decide upon renewing an existing $250,000 line of credit for the Church with J.P. Morgan Chase Bank. The Council was required to ratify the Committee resolution, which it did unanimously.
The Council then unanimously ratified the various (and aforementioned) committee chairmen selections.
As Ethics Committee chairman, Mario Seiglie presented the proposal to approve the Sexual Misconduct Policy for the Ordained Ministry that the Committee, Administration and legal counsel had worked together to finalize. The reason for the policy is that we did not have a formalized written policy in the past.
Mr. Seiglie provided a public reading of the paper and moderated the various points of discussion by the Council. At the end of discussion the policy was unanimously approved.
Robin Webber as chairman of the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee led the discussion, inviting Treasurer Aaron Dean to be at his side to address any questions. He handed out a copy of a revised cash reserves policy. The Council members had also received this proposal in advance to prepare for the meeting.
Mr. Webber briefly explained that the current policy has a minimum reserve of 10 weeks during the lowest cash flow period—typically just before Trumpets, due to pre-Feast expenses and festival assistance mailings. He also added that the current policy treats the cash reserve as a “locked box,” because the Council has no authority to access the reserves when God opens a door for us to walk through or for an economic or church crisis. He noted, however, that the previous administration did dip below the minimum reserve when land was purchased in Texas.
The proposal submitted is to withdraw the current Cash Reserve Policy and to replace it with a new Cash Reserve Policy with an eight-week minimum reserve, plus a new Use of Cash Reserves Policy, which would enable the Council, with a two-thirds consensus, to use these reserves when God opens a door for us to walk through or during an economic or church crisis, with the intent to restore those reserves as soon as possible.
In answer to the question about the rationale to reduce the reserve to eight weeks, Mr. Dean explained that when the policy was originally adopted, the asset base of the church was different. Today we have assets (such as the building in Cincinnati and the land in Texas) fully paid for. Gary Antion also pointed out that “the brethren also tithe for us to do the work, not for us to put it in the bank.”
After some additional discussion about procedural matters of how to execute these changes, the Council voted unanimously for the withdrawal of the old cash reserve policy of 10 weeks and the adoption of the new policy with a cash reserve of eight weeks.
Then the Council focused its attention to the newly proposed Use of Cash Reserve Policy. It was agreed that a two-thirds majority would be important for this policy, rather than a simple majority vote. The Council also balloted unanimously for the adoption of this new policy.
The Chairman then called upon Mr. Scott Ashley to close the day’s session in prayer at 4:12 p.m.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
EXECUTIVE SESSION SUMMARY
The Council remained in executive session all day to discuss personnel and other issues. Below is a key point summary provided by Council Secretary Gerald Seelig:
A proposal was put to the Council to bring Darris McNeely to the home office to be the associate media producer. Mr. McNeely will continue to work on production of Beyond Today as well help coordinate the world news section of The Good News magazine. He will also write blogs and commentaries on breaking news. This would free up Peter Eddington, media operation manager, to focus on other issues in his department. The Council unanimously approved the move and new position for Mr. McNeely.
The Council approved the hiring of an associate pastor to serve in the Cleveland (Chattanooga), Tennessee, and surrounding congregations.
The Council approved 17 requests for ordination into the ministry. Five of those ordinations were outside the United States.
A discretionary assistance issue was briefly discussed by the Council.
The Council considered the question of who might be authorized to perform baptisms and the “laying on of hands” in remote areas of the world where there are no ministers. After discussion, the matter was remanded to the Doctrine Committee for further study.
The Council had previously done an assessment of the treasurer, Aaron Dean. This assessment was reviewed by the Chairman of the Roles and Rules Committee, Bill Eddington, with Mr. Dean and the Council of Elders.
A sensitive legal matter was brought before the Council by the church’s attorney, Larry Darden. The Council was asked to make various determinations with regard to that issue.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
COUNCIL DISCUSSIONS
The day’s meeting was called to order by Chairman Melvin Rhodes, who asked Bob Berendt to give the opening prayer and then turned the floor over to Darris McNeely, chairman of the Media Committee.
The Media Committee recommended merging GN with WNP beginning with the January-February 2012 issue and to maintain the name The Good News. This idea has been percolating in various stages for some time. Australia had to forgo mailing WNP some time ago for budget reasons, but this would provide a way to include that content in the expanded GN. It would provide a much greater circulation of the WNP-type content (currently 50-60,000 readers) to all 330,000 of our GN readers.
Discussion followed about the need and desire to take a good look at our writing style to make it even more effective as we bring the good news of the Kingdom of God and the prophetic trends and events of society into one magazine. We want to make sure that our writers are staying in tune with our Media Philosophy statement that the Council approved some years ago. Additionally, the GN editorial team plans to start a Christian living section and possibly a “the Bible and You” section; possibly including a two-page mini-Bible study feature.
Peter Eddington added that we would plan to expand then the GN from 32 to 40 or 48 pages in length. We want to maintain a focus on Bible prophecy, but with a motivational thrust to teach personal repentance. Although the merger will happen in January, it will be an evolving process to reach the desired end product as the flagship publication of UCG.
Roy Holladay asked if the cost saving of not publishing WNP will pay for the merger. Peter Eddington said that the greatest savings will be in postage, plus some savings of scale in the printing. Overall, the project will cost only a few thousand dollars more per year but will spread the WNP-type content to the GN’s much wider audience.
Gary Antion asked if the GN readership will favor added prophetic content. Scott Ashley answered that GN reader surveys over the past few years consistently show a desire of 70 to 80 percent of the readers for just such articles, with explanations of the Bible and Bible teaching a close second. The added content will focus on both areas, giving readers more of what they’ve said they want. The merger will be a boon for international areas in spreading the prophetic content. Mario Seiglie explained that the Latin American brethren are excited to now have the added prophecy articles to be translated and published in Spanish.
Mr. McNeely asked for a vote of Council consent without resolution for the proposed magazine merger. Chairman Rhodes conducted the vote of consent and it was unanimous in favor of the merger.
Mr. Webber pointed out that God has a great strategic plan for His children and Kingdom, and four years ago the Council dedicated itself to strategic planning. We seek to do all things decently and in order. Mr. Webber handed out a summary manual of strategic planning for the benefit of newer Council members who had not gone through the strategic planning training workshop several years ago. This review provides a refresher for the annual strategic planning session during the Council’s quarterly meeting in December. He emphasized the need to monitor our strategic plan regularly as the church moves forward.
Bill Eddington explained how vital it is to establish an updated Strategic Plan during the December meeting in light of the events of earlier this year. When the Council lays out the Strategic Plan, the administration can develop the Operations Plan. Mr. Eddington also emphasized that once the plan is made, it must be regularly monitored.
Mr. Webber then explained how the center spread of the Strategic Plan booklet (which the GCE approved in May) is read. A key point is that the Council’s strategic role meets in the middle of the spread with the Administration’s operations role. He also outlined that there will be extensive open discussion during the December meeting followed by a day of boiling down the new Strategic Plan. Surveys will be sent out for broader input prior to the December meeting.
The Council then adjourned at 11:30 for another tasty but economical in-house luncheon before beginning the afternoon session at 1:00 p.m. The afternoon meeting began with an executive session to follow up on previous executive session items. They remained in executive session until 2:15 p.m. and then entered open session.
The first doctrinal issue discussed were the questions, “When does human life begin?” and, “How long must a child be in the womb for God to include him or her in the second resurrection?” The gist of the discussion concluded that, of course abortion is wrong and that life begins in the womb, but we simply don’t have enough information from the Bible to state specifically when in the womb that God imbues the spirit in man—and with it human identity. A full explanation of what we can and can’t know about the exact moment when human life begins will be written by the Council as our formal statement.
The next item had to do with whether it is a sin to not eat unleavened bread on each of the Days of Unleavened Bread. The Committee’s conclusion was that our current paper on the subject needs to be rewritten for clarity. The consensus was that we should eat unleavened bread on each of the seven days of the festival, but that we cannot say that the Bible declares that to not eat some unleavened bread on one of the seven days is actually a sin.
The final item was another research paper that advocated observing the Passover on the 15th of Nissan rather than the beginning of the 14th as we currently believe. The Council’s response was that our observance of the Passover in the evening at the beginning of the 14th of Nissan is correct from Scripture as we have long believed and taught. This is written clearly in our “Passover of Exodus” study paper.
One outstanding doctrinal issue to be reviewed in the near future is the biblical definition of human nature. Mr. Berendt reminded the Council that it has to also constitute a doctrine advisory task force and a prophecy task force in the near future.
The first topic discussed was the procedure for seeking the support of 25 percent of the members of the GCE in order to place an item on the annual ballot. The Council balloted unanimously to send out a letter to the GCE presenting a proposed procedure and asking for their review and comment. After receiving the feedback from the GCE, the Council will then send out a finished statement of the procedure to be balloted on by the GCE.
The next item discussed was the idea of appointing a deputy chairman of the Council who can chair Council meetings in the absence of the Chairman. Mr. Eddington commented that board-driven corporations and other entities typically have a deputy chairman simply to facilitate the business of the board and the organization. He pointed out that the Committee believes that there is merit in such a Council appointment, but recommended amending the Bylaws first to reflect the role of a deputy chairman. The Council unanimously approved the recommendation to proceed with developing the necessary amendments for balloting.
A formal review of the UCG governing documents (Constitution, Bylaws and Rules of Association) is underway. As noted earlier in this report, some work has been done on the Constitution, and the Bylaws will be looked at in the next few months. The project is under the nominal oversight of the Roles and Rules Committee, with the chairman of the Committee acting as project coordinator.
Mr. Eddington stressed that no changes are being proposed in the governing structure of the Church. The review team will simply analyze which wording or points may need to be updated to reflect the changing circumstances that the Church now faces. Gary Antion interjected that, in fact, the Council in 2002 had also worked on a review. The purpose of reviewing the governing documents is to make all wording and terms consistent throughout and to keep it up to date and clearly worded. It was emphasized that the Fundamentals of Belief is not part of this review.
The next item is whether U.S.-based senior pastors can be elected to the Council as international members. The process has been that the U.S.-based senior pastor must spend most of his work time on his international duties. The Committee recommends that the current process continue to be our practice and that no change be introduced.
Mr. Dean pointed out that a television studio project was approved some time ago by the Council. The new studio will make Beyond Today operations much more efficient. He also explained that a new storage facility will need to be built on-site to store items that will be displaced in the warehouse by the new studio construction. John Elliott suggested carefully thinking through any building change to provide for flexibility for growth. Mr. Dean agreed, reflecting on the benefit in this project of the active, team-based approach that president Luker has been building within the Administration and the church. Peter Eddington suggested also reviewing the more comprehensive building remodel that was discussed four years ago.
A Council communications procedure was presented by Secretary Gerald Seelig to make sure that communications to and among the Council members are more effectively processed. The item was presented for Council discussion, and a decision can be made at the December meeting.
Bill Eddington presented a suggestion that an Advisory Committee be chosen to review the responsibilities of the GCE. John Elliott, who had placed the item on the agenda, commented that the proposal was a fact-finding to see what the GCE duties are and how they can be facilitated. Bob Berendt suggested that the GCE should actually do the review itself. Mr. Elliott explained that there is no mechanism in the GCE to start this review, and that the members of the committee would be GCE members rather than Council members. Gary Antion stated that this is a very healthy process for the ministry in general. Scott Ashley suggested that this is a good time for the GCE do what the Council is also doing with the governing documents. By unanimous ballot the item was remanded to the Roles and Rules Committee.
President Dennis Luker brought up the final item on the agenda: the policy regarding applauding special music at services. He stressed that special music is not entertainment, but it is performed to God. Feast special music coordinator Steve Myers asked if we can legislate how God’s Spirit moves a person—a difficult issue. Gary Antion suggested not encouraging it, but that it is a matter of the heart. Mr. Holladay read our current policy that discourages applause except for the children’s choir. Mr. Berendt and Chairman Rhodes both stressed that the Church is for worship—not for entertainment-style music. Dr. Ward recommended focusing more on improving the quality of our special music—especially avoiding what is sometimes called Christian pop. Discussion was tabled until the December meeting. All were encouraged to review the “Music and the Bible” paper on the ministerial website.
After a closing prayer for safe travel home and God’s continued blessing on the Church and the work, the quarterly Council meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
-end-
Council reporter Randy Stiver
Assistant Council reporter Jorge de Campos
© 2011 United Church of God, an International Association