August 15, 1955  
August 15, 1955 - Brethren & Co-Workers Letter
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Herbert W Armstrong 

RADIO CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR

Broadcasting The WORLD TOMORROW
Publishers of The PLAIN TRUTH

August, 1955

Dear Friend and Co-Worker with Christ:

   With more THANKS than words can express, I want to acknowledge receipt of your tithe (and/or offering) for the great work of God.

   Truly this is the very turning-point in the whole history of the work to which God has called us, of this generation — the very LAST generation of this age — carrying God's last warning, and the glorious Gospel or Jesus Christ, preparing the way for His COMING!

   You'll never know HOW MUCH your generous and willing sacrifice and your fervent and continuous PRAYERS for the work really mean just now, in this crucial period.

   We're apparently off to a good start on TV. Only the first scattered returns from the first telecast are in so far, as I write, but already there are about ten times as many letters from the Los Angeles area as we customarily received from the ABC RADIO network station. Actually, to justify its greater cost, we have to get from 15 to 20 times as many viewers, and as much mail response, as we had listeners and letters from the radio network, city for city. It's now entirely too early to estimate what the final and regular weekly result will be. Our first week on the radio network brought the smallest mail response of any program, and it built up rapidly. Again, we started the radio network at the very beginning of the best listening season — late October. We are having to start TV in the very poorest listening season — mid-summer. But first mail returns from Los Angeles and from Portland telecasts give us reason to believe that TV may be, as we have hoped, the SOLUTION to the tight financial squeeze we've been in for two or three years.

   We know now that the real cause of this financial squeeze has been the fact that most people are turning away from radio, and spending their time on TV. Among the 90% of people who now have TV in their homes, where we formerly had 64,000 listeners we now have only 4,000 on RADIO. That is based on information from some 12,000 radio listeners who have sent us questionnaires. Yes, it seems already to be indicated that TV is the whole answer. But we must remember that all these NEW listeners — and the hundreds of letters already received are nearly altogether from people who NEVER heard us on radio — will have to see many programs, and be aroused to read The PLAIN TRUTH and other literature for some months before they become Co-Workers, and help lift the financial burden. Meanwhile, WE HAVE TO CONTINUE TO PRAY, AND SACRIFICE to the very limit, as never before.

   Also meanwhile we are getting letters from all over the world of people's lives being changed — people being brought to Christ, converted, wanting to be baptized. My son Dick has been on a baptizing tour through Denmark, Belgium, France, Norway and Sweden, and has many awaiting baptism in Britain. Our men have baptized many scores of new converts won to Christ by YOUR prayers and YOUR tithes and offerings working with me and our other Co-Workers, this summer. A GREAT HARVEST IS BEING REAPED! Just think how much GREATER will now be the spiritual harvest, with our viewing audience so vastly MULTIPLIED by the Television campaign!

   Truly, great as this work has grown by God's power and blessing, it appears that we are only now at the very BEGINNING of the mightiest work of our time on earth! But the days of our financial struggle are not over, and won't be for many months. So, DON'T SLACKEN IN YOUR INTERCESSORY PRAYERS. If you stop praying for me, and for the work, we'll yet fail, right when a vastly MULTIPLIED victory looms in sight! We must work and sacrifice now harder than ever. We must never become weary with well-doing! GOD BLESS YOU for your part! And let's THANK GOD together for the way He is using us, guiding us, blessing us!

With love, in Jesus' name,
Herbert W. Armstrong

Publication Date: August 15, 1955
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