United Church of God, an International Association
Council of Elders Teleconference Reports

Dec. 28, 2011—Cincinnati, Ohio

Chairman Melvin Rhodes opened the teleconference meeting at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (USA). All Council members were present, as was the president, the secretary and all three operations managers. Robin Webber opened with prayer.

Winter Family Weekends—Gary Antion and Aaron Dean

Gary Antion reported on the just finished and very successful Winter Family Weekend held at the Great Wolf Lodge in the Cincinnati area. Attendance figures included 714 for Friday evening Bible study, 1,100 for Sabbath services plus about 475 for the various Sabbath seminars.

The weekend's mission to enhance godly relationships through inspirational, educational, social and athletic activities in a moral and positive environment (with reference to Colossians:2:2That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;) was fulfilled. The same facilities are reserved for the same time period in December 2012.

Aaron Dean then reported his experience at the smaller but equally successful Northwest Weekend in the Portland, Oregon, area, which had an attendance of over 500 people for the Sabbath, a teen dance and a number of seminars.

Trip to Philippines and Financial Report—Aaron Dean

Mr. Dean then updated the Council on his planned trip to visit brethren in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. He then delivered a summary financial report, which continues to be more positive than originally budgeted for.

UCG Booklets on Amazon.com—Dennis Luker and Peter Eddington

The Council was updated on the opportunity to place the booklets on Amazon.com for downloading on Kindle e-readers. Amazon requires a minimum of 99 cents for a download, but when informed by customers that the same booklet can be downloaded for free from UCG.org, they will also offer it for free. That is according to Amazon's "match the lowest price" policy, which benefits the gospel.

Mr. Eddington explained that through Amazon.com, people are currently downloading more kindle e-books than all the printed books sold in the world, and it has been one of the hottest selling items as gifts during 2011. Another advantage of the Kindle download is that it allows one to choose to listen to the booklet, opening another market for those finding it difficult to read, or for those who would like to listen to the booklets while doing another activity.

Bob Berendt expressed concern that there should be no perception that UCG is trying to "make money" on God's truth. Aaron Dean explained that having a price on booklets is similar to when Mr. Armstrong's books were sold in bookstores, yet could be obtained free from the church. Another reason is that some people have concerns about giving their contact information on thewebsite for fear of solicitation. Thus the Kindle booklets allow those people to read the truth via a method within their comfort zone.

After thorough discussion Peter Eddington proposed that the church proceed to make our booklets available through Amazon.com with a notification that the booklets are available for free on ucg.org. The Council vote was 11 in support of the motion and one abstention.

Dual Committee Membership—Bill Eddington

Mr. Eddington explained that under our Bylaws a General Conference of Elders member could serve on more than one committee. Roy Holladay commented that this isn't a matter of overworking committee members under normal circumstances since the amendment committee has the most ongoing activity. Bill Bradford expressed no concern about conflict of interest between the committees and that such conflict could arise only on specific situations such as when a relative of a committee member might be discussed in a committee meeting (such as in the Member's Appeal Committee or in the Expelled Elder Appeal Committee).

The Council's consensus was that when such situations arise any committee member can raise the concern about a potential conflict of interests to the Chairman. Then the committee members can decide that there is such a conflict on a case-by-case basis.

Ordination Process—Victor Kubik

After discussion of the current deacon and elder ordination procedures the Council decided that additional work was needed by Ministerial and Member Services to define what it is meant by "consensus" in the ordination process. That detail would be reported upon at the next Council teleconference.

The Council set the next teleconference meeting for January 3 and arranged for the next face-to face meeting to be from February 27 through March 1. The teleconference meeting adjourned at 6:56 p.m. EST.

Jan. 3, 2012—Cincinnati, Ohio

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Melvin Rhodes at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (USA). After brief technical difficulties the entire Council answered the roll call.

Ordination Process—Victor Kubik

First, the Council discussed one or two key edits in the elder and deacon ordination process policies, one of which included how the term "consensus" is defined. When discussion concluded, the amended process was approved unanimously.

Continuation of Strategic Planning—Robin Webber and Bill Eddington

This was the latter stage of an ongoing Council discussion to prepare the Strategic and Operations Plans for presentation to the GCE. Discussion initially addressed the goals and objectives in the Strategic Plan for Congregational Care (the work of Ministerial and Member Services). The wording of the objectives was effectively drafted by Bill Bradford and Bill Eddington. The discussion focused on word-smithing the statements. After considerable discussion the Council settled on this wording for this goal and these objectives:

Goal: A godly environment that promotes Christ-like service, spiritual growth, humility, love and unity.

Objectives:
- Improve the quality and effectiveness of pastoral care in congregations.
- Increase positive member involvement in their congregations and the larger work of God.
- Promote members spiritual growth through educational programs.
- Increase percentage of youth retained in the church.
- Improve the Feast of Tabernacles experience for all participants.

When they completed that section, the Council moved directly to the Organizational Administration section of the Strategic Plan, and after more active discussion distilled the following as the goals and objectives:

Goal: Open communication channels and administrative policies and practices that enhance effectiveness, unity and godly relationships among the employees and elders.

Objectives:
- Increase satisfaction levels among home office employees and elders.
- Improve internal communications.
- Improve teamwork.
- Improve efficiency among employees and administration.

John Elliott asked the senior men on the Council and Administration what their satisfaction level was with the refined goals and objectives. President Dennis Luker expressed that he was pleased with the results as did Council member Roy Holladay. Bill Eddington believed that the Council has given a detailed enough plan for the administration to move forward.

Mr. Rhodes called for a vote on the results of this meeting's Strategic Plan wording, and results were ratified unanimously. The Administration will now develop the critical success factors for the Strategic Plan.

Don Ward recommended a broader role for the Administration to provide spiritual leadership.

The next teleconference meeting was scheduled for January 18 to provide the regular administrative monthly update—with particular focus on the planned visit to Living Church of God headquarters in Charlotte, NC, and for Aaron Dean to provide a year-end financial report. The meeting adjourned at about 6:45 p.m.

Jan. 18, 2012—Cincinnati, Ohio

The teleconference meeting was called to order by Chairman Melvin Rhodes at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (USA) with all Council and key Administration members present.

Far East Trip Report—Aaron Dean

In the process of traveling to the Philippines, Aaron Dean stopped first at Singapore to visit the brethren and answer their questions about the split. Some are beginning to realize that they had not been given the facts by others earlier in the year and desire to be part of United.

Next he visited Leon Sexton in the Chiang Mai region of Thailand at the Legacy Institute located in the safer Buddhist area of the country. Leon Sexton expressed definite interest in restoring the friendly, cooperative relationship that he had with United when Roy Holladay was president. Mr. Luker commented positively about a discussion that he and Mr. Dean had on the phone with Mr. Sexton even before Mr. Dean's visit and then asked the Council what observations and questions they had about the project.

Robin Webber expressed a very positive opinion of moving forward with a more proactive relationship. Mr. Dean explained that the previous administration had wanted to assimilate the Legacy Institute project, which effectively ended United Youth Corps participation in it. Discussion centered on the involvement of UCG young adults as teaching volunteers in the institute. Mario Seiglie described that serving at the Legacy Institute in the past was a golden opportunity and could be again. Gary Antion suggested developing a solid application and vetting process for selecting which young adults that would represent United on the project in the future. John Elliott very favorably compared the participation of United Youth Corps volunteers in Kenya with what their counterparts would do in Thailand.

Council consensus was for the Administration to continue building a cooperative relationship with Legacy Institute. Mr. Dean then reported on the possibility of developing a Feast Site in Chang Mai for 2014.

Finally, Mr. Dean reported on his visit to the Philippines, where he and regional pastor Earl Roemer worked out with the Philippine ministry how to better bring the Church office processes into sync with the home office, plus a good deal of time was spent reviewing a new constitution and bylaws for UCG in the region. The meetings went very well and the ministers reported that some old friends had begun to come back to attend in UCG when they realized that they had not been truthfully dealt with in the past year.

GCE Theme for 2012—Peter Eddington

Mr. Eddington reported on the proposed theme that the GCE Committee had entitled "Transforming Lives: Humbly Serving God's People through Faith and Sound Doctrine." Several Council members proposed shortening it to simply "Transforming Lives." Gary Antion liked the forward moving impetus stated in the lead words of the theme. As discussion progressed several expressed maintaining the second part of the theme using the stated or other phrases as a subtitle. Council consensus was to proceed with "Transforming Lives" and Council will confirm a subtitle before its February meeting.

At 6:00 p.m. the Council entered executive session for about one hour until the teleconference meeting ended.

-end-

Randy Stiver and Jorge De Campos
Council Reporters

© 2012 United Church of God, an International Association