Greetings from Pasadena! Mr. Herbert Armstrong visited the S.E.P. camp up in Orr this weekend, and I have already heard from some of the young people that he did a great job and everyone was very encouraged.
Messrs. Luker and Burk McNair are out of town to conduct area conferences in their respective regions and Mr., Dean Blackwel1 is now completing his move to Pasadena. So, no one is here but us "chickens."
A minor request I want to give you before going on is our desire that you forward to the News Bureau any outstanding articles about world news in prophecy or related information from your local newspaper. Be sure to put the name of the paper and the date on the clipping before you send it in, so it will have more validity. This should make our news coverage even more profound and serve the Work and all of us better in that way.
Mr. Luker and I had a very fine visit with Mr. Herbert Armstrong last Thursday afternoon and were able to cover a number of points regarding church plans and growth. We will not now announce these new programs and "jump the gun" until we have them fully developed. But, we will start to implement some of these programs on a "pilot basis" within the next several weeks and see how they go. Suffice it to say that fine new opportunities and challenges are in the offing!
This Sabbath here in the P.M. Church, Mr. Dibar Apartian and I were very happy to be able to ordain Ray Clore as a local elder in God's Church. He is an American, an Ambassador College graduate, and has been serving faithfully and holding God's people together in Haiti even while he served as Vice Counsel there for the U.S. State Department. Now that his time for transfer has come up, he asked Mr. Apartian: "Where do you think I should ask to be transferred? Where can I serve the Church the most?
Since Ray speaks French very well, Mr. Apartian recommended the Cameroons in Africa.
Expecting the normal request for a second assignment to be in a "nicer" area, Ray's superiors were astonished when he asked if there was an opening in the Cameroons. They said: "Of course! There is always an opening in a place like that but why do you want to go there?"
In this way, Ray Clore has set a fine example for all of us. As a white, middle-class American with a beautiful young wife and one-year-old baby, he and his wife are willing to go virtually "anywhere" they can safely go to serve God and his people — and at their own expense, for he is not on salary from us!
Would to God more of us had THIS type of attitude!
And that brings me to the main point I want to mention in, his letter. In my recent visits with Mr. Armstrong, he has made it very clear that his main concern now, is to "clean up God's Church" and to prepare the Church as an unblemished bride to marry Christ!
Fellows, I hope all of us can join God's apostle in this effort with all of our united strength! We all need to preach more sermons to help the Church to grow in every way "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." We need to emphasize this total yielding to God in every phase and facet of life.
For too many years, we have had large sections of brethren and even our ministry who were not really CONQUERED by God! Those individuals often believe most of the truth, and seem to "go along with us" when things are pleasant and stable. But one "key" to their attitude is that they will "bristle" when they are corrected. They will generally NOT accept strong correction or any type of demotion without a "fight" or even their resignation from the ministry and/or the Church.
In a word, they are SELF-willed!
Now, the Living Christ is allowing all kinds of trials to come on us in order to see if these people truly are converted — CONQUERED by God. Perhaps Christ is even using some of the difficulties we are passing through to see if you and I are willing to look beyond the immediate human element in ANY situation and recognize that CHRIST really is alive and in charge, over all of the Church and Work most of us have been a part of for many years.
Yes, He does allow us to make mistakes — and I have certainly made my share — but he guides and orchestrates the MAJOR direction of everything in the Church and He is the active HEAD!
This fact is of supreme importance to us, fellows, and I hope all of you will deeply study the Bible as outlined last week, and PRAY constantly and fervently to keep in personal touch with our God and our living Head and Savior at His right hand.
Mr. Armstrong has, in fact, stated that he wants all of us ministers to join him in doing just this! Personally, I know that when I don't pray to God on my knees for at least 30 minutes a day — I don't grow spiritually. True, I may not "fall away" or retrogress too far, but God is not as REAL to me if I don't study the Bible regularly and pray daily and fervently.
Fellows, I know that all of you have probably preached entire sermons on this subject of prayer. But, as Mr. Armstrong has said: "We must be a praying ministry!"
And in many cases, even though we know about prayer, we obviously have NOT been as close to God as we should have been as God's own ministers. Otherwise, the heavy drinking, gambling, cursing, dirty jokes and illicit sex, broken marriages and "broken" attitudes would NEVER have occurred among us.
So let's all respond! Let's all use Mr. Armstrong's admonition! as a trumpet call to battle ourselves and sincerely draw close to God. Let's "pray... lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting" (I Tim. 2:8). Let us pour out our hearts — sometimes with sincere TEARS in our eyes as our Savior did (Heb. 5:7). And, let us, like Epaphras be "always laboring FERVENTLY for (one another) in prayers that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (Col. 4:12). This total communion with our Creator is the real source of the POWEX we will receive to clean up the Church, finish the Work and, together, enter the very Kingdom of God.
So let's make a CRUSADE of this, fellow ministers. Let's preach and teach about it. Counsel and encourage the brethren about it, and make this a fervently praying Church more than ever before! And let's start out by setting the example and doing it ourselves.
FROM PASTORAL ADMINISTRATION
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