United Church of God, an International Association

Council of Elders Meeting Report

A comprehensive report on the various branches of the Church's education program highlighted Tuesday's meeting of the Council of Elders.

Burk McNair's return from his trip to Missouri to attend his brother-in-law's funeral brought Council attendance to 100 per cent, but one Council member was usually away from the room throughout the day for videotaping interviews in preparation for the Feast video.

At the end of the day, the Council and home office staff gathered to formally dedicate the new office facility. After a few comments from President Les McCullough, Chairman Bob Dick led the group in prayer, asking especially for God's blessing on all the individuals who will serve there and their parts in furthering His work.

Richard Pinelli, Ministerial Services director, opened the main session by giving a brief sketch of the education program's history, how it has been organized, and the following summary of specific areas.

GENERAL EDUCATION:

The components of this program are designed to address in an on-going manner the more comprehensive spiritual needs of the Church's membership.

Sermons/Bible Study tapes on the Fundamental Beliefs

This program aims to produce for each congregation's library a set of audio and video tapes of sermons and/or Bible studies on each of the Fundamental Beliefs. Three tapes were completed during the 1997-1998 fiscal year, two more have been completed this year with two others awaiting final review. This project, coordinated by Doug Johnson, should expand rapidly next year to complete the series.

Special Presentations and Seminars

The purpose of these presentations and seminars is to provide education on various biblical topics and related special interest issues such as history, finances and marriage and family. Two videotapes of slide presentations are completed, The Sabbatarians in New England, by Jim Franks, and a two-part series on The Tabernacle of the Old Testament by Roy Holladay. Outlines have been submitted and are under review for programs on the intertestament period, the covenants and creation. The Adult Education Seminar at the Oakhurst summer camp in July offered classes on prophecy, nature of God, general epistles, spiritual growth, marriage and building friendships. These were also recorded and tapes could be available, depending on funds and review approval, for the churches this fall. Robin Webber coordinates this program.

Bible Study Course

Four lessons are now completed, two of which have been printed in the January/February and May/June Good News. Since this will be an expensive project if published as a "stand alone" product, we are being extremely cautious with the testing phase. If it does prove successful it could be press-ready by the end of the year. Dave Register is the coordinator and John Ross Schroeder is the primary writer.

Fundamentals of Belief Project

This program is complete and the finished booklet has been distributed to all church members. It was coordinated by the Doctrine Committee and Scott Ashley, managing editor of the Good News.

YOUTH EDUCATION:

As we achieve success in helping parents, children and families spiritually and physically develop, the future brightens for the Church. Youth Education plays its part in the following areas.

Foundational Parenting Seminar

A two-part parenting seminar on video with a syllabus handout is being planned. It will provide a foundational perspective on parenting, focusing on the unique understanding of our children's "spiritual state" of being set apart by God and how that can affect parenting practices. The goal will be to present understanding and considerations unique to church member families and not duplicate other high-quality efforts of "outside."

Festival Books & Education

A Feast of Tabernacles youth instruction program was tested at seven sites in 1997. The curriculum for these two days of classes focused on the millennium, of course, and after further development these will be available again at most U.S. sites in 1998. In addition, each child age three to teenage will receive a keepsake booklet that also explains the meaning of the Holy Days. These brochures will be sent by the Feast of Trumpets to church pastors for local duplication and distribution. Judy Servidio and a team from different church areas are working on this project.

Camps

The summer camp program, instituted shortly after the founding of UCGIA, is one of our oldest and most successful efforts. It helps children build networks of Church friends and experience living by God's laws in a supportive peer environment-something they do not often have at school or in small, isolated congregations. Summer camps also teach staff, including ministers, how to relate to young people in a helpful manner. The program director is Bill Jacobs.

Sabbath School program

This project aims to help congregations assist parents in educating their children, and help the Church fulfill its role of feeding the flock. Numerous individuals and church areas have contributed lesson plans, from which a task force under the supervision of Jim and Judy Servidio is crafting a standardized curriculum that is trying to embody the best parts of all. The final product will be publicized when completed. Churches will not be required to use any particular one and the committee hopes that providing access to all these programs will offer the best product possible for any congregations needs.

Teen Bible Study outlines

Fourteen Bible Studies geared to teens are ready for publishing and will also be available electronically by the Feast of Tabernacles. This undertaking, developed by a team of ministers and young adults, intends to provide some structure and guidance for conducting interactive Sabbath studies.

Young Adult education

This program is in very basic developmental stages. Several ministers conferred for two days over a year ago to discuss the needs of the church's young adults. "Young adult" is loosely-defined, but generally means an age ranging from post-high school into the 30s, and it includes both single and married. Information-gathering meetings at the 1997 Feast told us that this group seeks instruction about personal and spiritual success, and also needs to connect with and identify with the work of the Church. The first formal UCG Young Adult Leadership Program takes place in December in Winter Park, Colorado, where 140 are expected to gather for a seminar series titled Making Life Work. Doug Horchak is the program coordinator.

FOCUSED EDUCATION:

As society becomes increasingly more complex the ministry has to deal more with people addicted to drugs or alcohol, and those who are abusive and have been abused. The cultural picture we see does not hold much hope for improvement in these areas, and Focused Education aims to enlarge the Church's capacity to help people so affected.

Understanding and dealing with abuse

This program consists of a four-part article series to be published on a quarterly basis, and is designed to educate everyone on the subject and provide support for those who have suffered from abuse issues. John Cafourek oversees the development of these articles.

Prejudice

The initial objective of this effort is to enlighten the Council and ministry about the nature of this problem, who in turn can help identify and work on eliminating elements of both covert and overt prejudices within the Church. Arnold Hampton heads this endeavor.

Alcoholism

This aspect consists first of a three-part article in United News for general education on the subject, with long-term plans to hold training sessions for elders, along with congregational seminars and workshops.

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION

Providing on-going education and skill development programs for the ministry is the objective of this program.

Pastoral epistles

Larry Neff, Paul Suckling and Dave Johnson are working on a series expounding the Pastoral Epistles. The printed handout is complete and the taped presentation has begun. When this series is concluded a similar project will address Galatians and Colossians.

Ministerial ethics

Clyde Kilough has developed a presentation on ministerial ethics, duties and responsibilities based on Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus. This will be recorded at a presentation to southern California elders in September for distribution to the ministry.

News trends journal

Elders recently received the first edition of World News and Prophecy, which most in turn reproduced for members in their congregations. This newsletter will be issued monthly.

Ministerial journal

September 23 is the target date for launching another new publication, an informational ministerial journal featuring articles that will help elders in all aspects of their work-preaching, teaching, counseling, serving, developing church programs-as well as general articles on family, literature reviews, and scholarly works.

Where does it go from here?

After the update, Education Committee chairman Gary Antion stressed the essential need of ongoing education for all aspects of the Church. Without that, he said, "You have people coming in the front door, then they go out the back door because they are not stabilized in the faith."

"We are hampered somewhat by the degree of funds available," observed Dr. Ward. Mr. Pinelli stated that the education program is operating on an $86,000 budget, 70,000 of which is dedicated to camps. Mr. Antion urged all those involved in education to present a very ambitious budget next year to increase the work in that area.

Going on, he stated, "Ministerial Services, with all the other things it is doing, has done an enormous job and they are to be commended." MS has its hands full with so many matters, though, and to bring this particular program to a higher level of fulfillment he recommended appointing one coordinator. That person should ideally be someone with a background in educational development and who could devote concentrated effort to galvanizing and dovetail all the various aspects.

Mr. Pinelli concurred, but added another factor. "In our early beginnings we just had so much to do that's why we put four men [the Ministerial Services team] in charge of the program. As the church grows ultimately you have to have a bit more coordination, but you have to have coordination between 'minister thinking' and 'education thinking.'" he said. At times in the past some programs were generated by administrators who did not have a pastoral perspective and did not relate to field thinking. For that reason, he said, we have tried to draw these programs from the grass roots level.

"I would like to take someone who is in education and a man who is in the ministry and combine their thinking. Put those two together and they can tell us what we need. It would be nice if we could develop the man who is the educator with the man who is the pastor and in a team-based approach put both minds together."

After further discussion Jim Franks suggested that according to proper procedure in operations matters like this, the President should take all this input and then bring forth recommendations for program management and personnel. Mr. McCullough said he would be prepared to do that at the November Council meeting.

Other business of the day

The Council entertained a request from the Lafayette, Indiana, congregation to air in their region the Northwest Tomorrow cable-access television program. Policy calls for Council approval before locally-produced programs are used in other church areas. Before granting that request, however, it decided to ask Galen Morrison, Howard Davis, and Rod Hall to each produce three sample "wraparounds," so that any locally-produced TV programs would begin to have a common look and feel.

The next couple of hours were devoted to continuing work on the Rules of Association. The General Conference of Elders and National Councils have had two rounds of input since December, 1995, Mr. Franks recounted. The first draft was sent to the GCE last April and he now presented the latest revisions based on the feedback. Forty individuals and National Councils contributed suggestions, which Council members first reviewed before tackling the document itself. The greatest challenge is to create rules broad enough to accommodate the varying concerns of those who want to be part of UCG, but inclusive enough to progressively move forward with coordination and unity. Because of the magnitude and importance of this document, the Council very carefully scrutinized and edited this latest draft. It will soon send this revision to the GCE for one more round of evaluation and feedback before presenting it for ratification.

Subsequent to yesterday's report about new appointments to the Amendment Committee, the following elders were contacted and have agreed to serve in that capacity: Roc Corbett, Jack Elliott, King Finlay, Joe Horchak, Paul Smith and Mike Grovak (alternate). They were approved by an 11-0 vote, with one absent.

The Council also worked toward completing a Web site policy that would satisfy insurance requirements and spent the last hour of the day in executive session to continue with some of the personnel issues on the agenda.

- Clyde Kilough

© 1998, United Church of God, an International Association