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

Thursday, November 12, 1998 — Cincinnati, Ohio

The Thursday, Nov. 12, gathering of the Council of Elders was devoted primarily to numerous reports from all branches of the Church’s and Council’s administration. Chairman Bob Dick explained his desire to steer Council meetings in a more conventional form—start with approving previous minutes, review old business, and have reports from operation managers and committee chairs before moving on to new business items.

Receiving status reports at the front end of the Council sessions should pave the way for more effective meetings later. As Mr. Dick put it, "As we move through the week’s meetings we can do so with a sense of where we sit today and where the operation managers, committees or President feel we are going."

After approving a stack of old meeting minutes, Council members then heard a series of reports, beginning with President Les McCullough’s.

The President’s Report

In April the Council established a goal of doubling the Good News circulation from 80,000 to 160,000. "We’ve gone to work with TV ads in three different areas, which only added marginally, but they did add. The big thing was getting into the waiting room program," said Mr. McCullough. "Currently the November-December print run was 146,000, and 8,000 names have not yet been added into the computer. There is no question we will accomplish the goal of 160,000 Good News magazines before we begin the fiscal year. In the last three to five months we have added 30,000 names to the subscription list. That is really staggering, and it has been done very inexpensively." We now have 81,000 regular subscribers and 65,000 business subscribers (of these, 13,500 have been placed in waiting rooms and other business areas, 38,000 are being sent to congregations for placement, with 13,500 in inventory).

"The magazines are really moving out—and all of those in the waiting rooms have six subscription cards in them—and we’ve had fairly good response from those subscription cards as well," he said. "We will easily reach our goal of 160,000 and I would like to see us overrun that a bit. I don’t want to see us overrun it a great lot because we do have some other areas we need to spend money on."

Mr. McCullough also stated that the Church plans to produce four or five more booklets before the end of the fiscal year in March 1999. The schedule proposes two on prophecy ("How to Understand Prophecy" and "Are We Living In the End Time?"), one on the modern identity of Israel, another titled "What Happened to the Church Jesus Built?" and possibly one more, "Holidays or Holy Days?"

The Home Office is also considering additional testing of TV ads in a couple of new cities, most likely in conjunction with print ads.

The Church also completed a test of advertising on the Earthlink Web site via a Web banner. Peter Eddington, who oversees multimedia efforts, reported that 170,000 people saw the ad, 1,000 clicked on it to see what it was about, and 130 requested the Good News. The audience was primarily from the Silicon Valley and New York, and he said we would like to try it again in a different type of market. "What is interesting is that we get about 45 requests for literature each week [just off the Web page]. That week we got an additional 200 requests for literature," Mr. Eddington noted. Responders to the ad can click onto other literature besides the Good News and, interestingly, requests multiplied during the week the Web banner ran, then returned to normal levels. "Hits on the UCG Web site surged that week. It did have an impact, more than we might realize, than just the 130 subscriptions it produced," he said.

In addition, Mr. McCullough has written a letter to the 81,000 Good News subscribers advertising the recently re-written booklet "What Is Your Destiny?"

Concerning finances, he did not want to preempt the Treasurer’s report scheduled for Friday’s meeting, but Mr. McCullough did give an overall view. "Suffice it to say, the [category one] income has been steady at roughly $38,000 to $39,000 a day [throughout this fiscal year]. That is what our present budget is predicated upon to meet the obligations we’re committed to right now.

"It is difficult for many to comprehend having money in the bank that you’re trying not to spend. Someone hears there is $200,000 in the bank and says, ‘With all that money why don’t we do something with it?’ It’s not really very wise management to have your church bank account being on the verge of being overdrawn all the time. We don’t want that, we’re not interested in going that way, and we don’t feel we are going to go that way. We’re trying to be careful. If someone asks, ‘Now that this money has come in why don’t we go ahead and do this and do that?,’ well really, there is not all that much money. It is there and if we get into an emergency situation we can cover ourselves and not go back and ask for another special offering. We don’t want to be put in that situation again. Everything is going along relatively well and I think you will be pleased when we give you the projections at the end of the year. There are five months left in the fiscal year. We’re positive in an optimistic way, but we want to be positive in an absolute way."

Mr. McCullough also praised the work of Richard Kennebeck, Information Services Manager, who has developed a remote-access-entry program that will allow Church members in local congregations to key in new-subscriber information directly into the computer base. This project will greatly alleviate the strain on the shorthanded Home Office staff.

"Let me acknowledge, compliment, and praise the people here in the office," added Mr. McCullough, pointing out that the work force has been reduced from 33 to 13 in the move to Cincinnati. "They are all overworked and have more work than they need to do yet they are all ready and willing. They are really doing a great job and I very much appreciate that."

Treasurer’s Report

Tom Kirkpatrick’s report related only to the Treasurer’s department as it pertains to the operating plan, with the full financial report scheduled for Friday.

"This fiscal year to date has been a year for several of us who are new in our jobs to get established in our responsibilities," began Mr. Kirkpatrick in his overview. "We have been helped by the tremendous attitudes and diligence of those we work with. Now that the move of the Home Office to Cincinnati is complete, and the immediate and pressing nature of our financial challenges are alleviated somewhat, we are set to begin work on the operations plan and budget for the next fiscal year. In that work, I will come to a greater confidence level in advising what flexibility we will have financially in the new year."

He reviewed the requirements for finance and accounting listed in the Operations Plan, commenting briefly on the status of the department’s progress in areas such as compliance with respect to accounting standards, development of budgets, managing cash flow, risk management, international reporting systems, congregational reporting systems, Human Resources, information systems, etc.

Ministerial Services Operations Update

Richard Pinelli began his report by reviewing the rather dramatic changes in the Church in 1998. Ministerial Services has seen a general decrease in conflict resolution and problem cases, he said, and the membership seems to be much more at peace in most areas. This is despite having to work through a demanding transitional period in which the Church changed Presidents, reduced by two-thirds the size of the Home Office staff, went through the crisis in the Big Sandy, Texas congregation, lost between 2,300 and 2,500 people in attendance, lost over 60 elders, imposed half-salaries and reduced expenses, and the Home Office moved to Ohio from California.

The temporary cuts in expense allotments adversely affected the level of ministerial and Regional Pastor service through the summer and fall, Mr. Pinelli remarked, although it did result in MS being slightly under budget at this point. No further manpower reductions are being planned, he added, only a couple of transfers are currently planned, and that desired higher level of service is being restored.

Charles Melear, who coordinated the Feast of Tabernacles, the annual meeting of the General Conference of Elders and various other projects, recently married and relocated to Colorado and will no longer be employed at the end of the year. He mentioned that Matt Fenchel will take over some of Mr. Melear’s duties and some of the field ministers may help in other areas. Confirming future Feast plans is a high priority right now for the Ministerial Services office.

"We’re picking up all we can do in the education areas, but the biggest problem we have right now is having the dollars to do all we would like," said Mr. Pinelli. The four-tape-series on the "Nature of God" was recently sent to all church areas and a two-part video on the tabernacle is ready to be released. While videos are preferable for all presentations, they cost about two-thirds more to send out. Although the current budget constraints prevent sending materials out as quickly as desired, "we still continue to keep building on the member and minister education programs, and there have been some very positive steps occurring," he said.

The following committee reports were considerably shorter than the operations reports, aiming mainly to update Council members on the project status of each group.

Strategic Planning Committee (Roy Holladay, chairman)

The next strategic and operating plans were completed in August but the Council temporarily delayed official ratification pending further discussion of the church identity issue. The General Conference of Elders will receive these plans before the 1999 annual meeting. "One of the basic jobs right now is to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of the plans," said Mr. Holladay, offering Mr. Pinelli’s report as an example. Another committee task is to constantly be updating the internal scan (what is happening in the Church) and the external scan (what is happening in the world) to anticipate factors that may affect the Church’s operations.

Communications Committee (Victor Kubik, chairman)

"The Communications Committee was formed in the past year for the purpose of filling in holes in communication. We either had inadequate communication or else we didn’t have a process of informing our constituents and the public about what is going on," Mr. Kubik stated. The committee’s primary task is to aid Council communications. Its main work has focused on providing information to the President and Ministerial Services for weekly updates, streamlining a system by which all queries to the Council are answered, updating the Church’s Web site and coordinating Council members’ travel to church congregations.

Doctrine Committee (Jim Franks, chairman)

Mr. Franks reported that the doctrinal and study papers in various stages of development, ranging from near-readiness to first drafts, include: "Are Our Children Being Called Now?," a doctrinal statement on jury duty, healing, the nature of God, the Passover (Exodus 12, specifically), calendar postponements, Exodus:34:22And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end., the covenants, born again and church government. The committee is also proposing a unified approach for the format and presentation of doctrinal papers and a review process for all publications and printed material.

Education Committee (Gary Antion, chairman)

"I’m pleased with what the education programs are doing, but we want to make sure they are all going in the same direction, that they are covering issues that will feed one another in the whole picture," Mr. Antion stated, explaining why the committee must have the overview.

Ethics Committee (Gary Antion, chairman)

The major current project, forming the Expelled Elder Appeal Committee (consisting of elders from both the US and international areas), is nearing finalizing. A project on the horizon is to develop a policy or procedure for disfellowshipping and suspending in order to better standardize the ministry’s approach.

Finance Committee (Aaron Dean, chairman)

Most of the committee’s recent work has been to follow up on previous resolutions that had not yet been implemented, reported Mr. Dean, and to coordinate with the Home Office staff the production of the required financial reports.

Media Committee (Don Ward, chairman)

A major discussion point later in the Council meeting will be to clarify and coordinate the scope of duties for this committee and the operations departments, so everyone involved does not crossover, misunderstand or neglect all the responsibilities involved, said Dr. Ward. Regarding specific projects, the committee will give the Council later in these meetings its proposals for local cable access television programs and an update on its explorations into for 30-minute TV and radio programs.

Roles & Responsibilities Committee (Dennis Luker, chairman)

The committee is ready to present for Council approval its job descriptions for the Council as a body, for individual Council members, and for the chairman. After these are completed the only remaining job descriptions to be developed will be for the treasurer, secretary and operation managers.

Updating the "Exceptions" list

The last session of the day was devoted to making sure several resolutions previously passed were either completely implemented or revised if necessary.

- Clyde Kilough

© 1998 United Church of God, an International Association

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