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

Wednesday, January 20, 1999 - Tyler, Texas 

 
Working right up to the last minute of its allotted time, the Council of Elders today squeezed in the few remaining agenda items before concluding the current round of meetings it began last Thursday.

It took most of the day to wrap up a number of executive session items which included a member appeal, a request from David Hulme to purchase the television pilot, an invitation for Ron Dart to participate in a recent special activities weekend, and employee conduct and conflict of interest cases.

In the last hour it took care of several miscellaneous topics, beginning with reviewing and approving the third draft of the Council of Elders job description.

This document spells out the exact responsibilities required of Council members as the church’s governing board. The general areas are: develop and articulate the church’s mission, select the Chairman of the Council, select the chief executive officer, support the President and review his performance, ensure effective church planning, manage resources effectively, evaluate and monitor the church’s programs and services, develop and enhance public relations and internal communications, serve as a court of appeal, and fulfill other duties as assigned by the Constitution and Bylaws. The job description further details numerous points under each of these sections. It received unanimous approval by the quorum present (Vic Kubik and Jim Franks were absent).

Brief discussion then followed to clarify who is allowed to attend the Annual Meeting of the General Conference of Elders (GCE). The question was raised at the November meeting whether a new policy should be adopted, but the Council decided that for this year the current policy would stand—only GCE members, their wives and staff may attend.

The Council members then revisited a problem posed by two of the proposed amendments (see the Thursday, January 14 report). They first slightly revised an amendment that was put forward by a GCE member in a timely manner but was temporarily lost (thus missing the deadline), then wrote a new version of the mission statement. Both submissions will be put before the GCE under Council sponsorship and will be mailed with the call and notice packet at the beginning of February.

According to a recent poll of GCE members asking whether they would like to restart the Elders Forum, 119 responded yes, 48 said no, and 26 indicated they were not against it but did not plan to participate. Based on this feedback, the Council voted seven to two (Burk McNair was absent), to reinstitute it, only in the slightly different manner of via the Internet instead of cc:Mail.

Vic Kubik explained in a memo, "I have worked out logistics electronically which are actually easier than they were for cc:Mail. Initiating EF on the Internet will be a good test run to test future communications since cc:Mail will be unusable by [the year] 2000 and we will have to consider using some other means of corporate communication anyway."

Utilizing this method will cost the church nothing, although forum participation requires one to have Internet access. All elders will receive a full explanation and instructions right away, and this communications network should be up and running very quickly.

Last of all, Gary Antion and Bob Dick quickly reported on more concrete plans for the Annual Meeting of the GCE in March. In the past few days several Council and staff members held strategy sessions evaluating the various ideas offered in last Thursday’s discussions. From that emerged a clearer picture for constructing the meeting schedule, especially the free time on Monday. Breakout sessions offering a choice of venues fill most of Monday, although some few topics may be designated as plenary sessions. The GCE planning committee "will be very busy from now on," said Mr. Antion, and one of its larger tasks will be to select and schedule the session topics (from a number of suggestions already received) and assign the speakers.

With that, Mr. Dick adjourned this assembly, and Council members headed for home. Their next face-to-face meeting comes immediately following the GCE meeting in March.

- Clyde Kilough

© 1999 United Church of God, an International Association

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