There truly can be no greater church on the face of the earth than a Church of God. Everything about it, from its existence to its mission, occupies the most important moment in the history of humanity and they make sure to let us all know how glorious it is.
This is part of the latest statement on the health of the Church of God a Worldwide Association. Notice how they extend their reach all the way back into the glory days of old in the mother church, the Worldwide Church of God where everything's perfect and wisdom and truth emanated from it to the world, while inwardly it was a hotbed of corruption, immorality, and financial misappropriation, led by power-hungry men who left a trail of destruction in their wake. Some of those same men sit comfortably in COGWA where they went after their apostasy from the United Church of God.
God has apparently been shining his favor upon COGWA ever since, especially when it comes to its ministry.
In reviewing the modern history of the Church, we can clearly see that the spiritual health of the Church is at its best when there are dedicated pastors who have a passion for the truth and a genuine love for the brethren. If you take a small slice of our history, beginning in 1933 with the inception of the Radio Church of God and going forward 20 years, you will find a lot of people tuning in to The World Tomorrow program and many thousands of subscribers to The Plain Truth magazine but the Church was still primarily a radio ministry, even after 20 years. In 1953 there were only a handful of congregations in the northwestern part of the U.S., and none outside the United States. But in the next 20 years—from 1953 to 1973—things changed dramatically. The attendance at the Feast went from less than 1,000 in Big Sandy in 1953 to almost 100,000 in multiple sites in 1973. What changed? In 1952 the first graduates from Ambassador College began to be sent to the congregations, serving a year or two as ministerial assistants and elders before becoming pastors.
Later on, various educational programs were established to assist the ministry in upgrading their biblical knowledge and their abilities to better serve the brethren. At one time we had a program called DELS, or Deacons and Elders Lecture Series, and in the early 1980s the Refresher Program was established to provide this needed education.
In recent years we have seen additional programs established for ministerial education. Today we have four primary programs that we rely on for biblical education and the development of future leadership: the Focused Mentoring Program, to develop leadership in the United States; the International Leadership Program (ILP), to develop leadership outside the United States; the Pastoral Development Program (PDP), to provide continuing education for the U.S. pastoral ministry; and Foundation Institute, to provide a basic biblical education for all those able to attend the nine-month program.
In addition to these formal programs, there are various conferences that keep the ministry informed and provide additional classes. These include an international conference for the worldwide ministry every two years and a variety of regional conferences in other years. We also usually have daylong webinar classes for the ministry in the spring and fall of each year. And we have conferences annually for special groups—Feast coordinators, camp directors and the Ministerial Services team. All of these education programs create a lot of activity here in the office. It seems that each week I am either planning for an upcoming conference or in the midst of one.
Each group of the recently completed PDP had approximately 15 hours of classroom instruction—along with time for interaction and socializing between classes and in the evenings. To give you an idea of the topics presented in the PDP, here is a partial list of classes in each four-day session:
- The Importance of Integrity and Character in Doctrine and Christian Leadership.
- Your Relationship With Your Congregations.
- Divorce and Remarriage Issues: Doctrine and Process.
- If I Knew Then What I Know Now.
- The Pastor’s Role in Developing Leadership in the Local Congregation.
- Helping Gen Z and the Alphas.
- The War Against Truth.
- Preparing for the Tribulation.
- Technology for Today’s Pastor.
- Preparing for Retirement.
- Legal Considerations for the Ministry.
- Politics and Voting: What We Teach and Why.
- The Unique Stresses of Serving in the Ministry. Member letter
