Greetings brethren,

January and February have been very busy months. I am always amazed at how fast time seems to pass. When I was younger, days seemed like weeks, weeks seemed like months, months seemed like years and a year seemed like an eternity. These days a month transpires and I wonder where did all the days and weeks go?

I returned home from my Asia trip on January 6th and it was really nice to be reunited with my family after being away from home for more than three weeks. On January 19th I left for Cincinnati for the first session of the 2009 Pastoral Training Classes and returned home on January 29th. The material that we covered was excellent. Some of the subjects covered were: the high calling of God, the development of doctrine, time management, pastoral principles of Timothy and Titus, the importance of character and integrity in the ministry, authority and submission and the government of God, time management, learning to examine yourself and take correction, the fine art of delegating, education and youth programs, origin and development of the NT ministry, and early church history. During the classes we experienced some snow and ice which forced the closure of the Home Office for a couple of days. We were able to conduct most of our classes even though the weather was hazardous. As I mentioned earlier, the material was excellent but I was not used to sitting in a classroom situation for 7+ hours per day. By the end of each day I had reached my saturation point of information. Thankfully I returned home with pages of notes and a large three-ring binder filled with handouts.

February 9th I traveled to Dallas, TX for the two-day Festival Coordinator’s conference. Most of the festival coordinators for the US and Canada as well as several men who serve as senior pastors for Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia were present. Each day was filled with several presentations covering: post feast site reports, speaking schedules, festival youth instruction, education seminars, festival activities, transfer policy, feast site budgeting, site planning and housing, issues faced at international sites, special music and webcasting. I’m always amazed at the amount of planning and work that goes into each festival site in order for the site to function smoothly and be as enjoyable as possible for our members.

During the past two months we have also been working on plans to produce promotional cards to be inserted into some of our Good News magazines being sent to Asia [see sample image at right]. The card will advertise a free subscription to The Good News magazine and can be filled out and sent to our Home Office, or the person can go to our GN Web site and request a free subscription online. We plan to target cities or small countries where we already have members or congregations.

We are also working on a newspaper ad for a large circulation national newspaper in the Philippines. The ad will offer a free copy of The Good News magazine to those who respond. Along with the free copy of The Good News the respondents will also receive an offer for a free subscription to The Good News – which will require a second response. This will be the first opportunity we have had to advertize The Good News to the entire nation of the Philippines. We also feel this process will provide us with good quality responses for a one year subscription to the magazine. We would like to solicit your prayers for the success of these two programs. We look forward to sharing the results of these programs once they are implemented and we have had an opportunity to process the responses.

[Editor’s note: This editorial was writen before the ad was run. See GN Ad in Inquirer Gets Over 500 Responses.]

© 2009 United Church of God, AIA - Pilipinas