Roger Foster, a dear brother in the ministry and friend to many, died on February 27, to await eternal life in the Kingdom of God. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Janice, on November 27, to whom he was married for 56 years.

Roger and Janice were truly a remarkable couple in the ministry by their personal example, demeanor and positive effect on so many people. Roger was a man without guile who always saw the best in people. He was patient and generous in heart and set a high bar in faith and faithfulness as a senior minister towards his peers and those younger in the ministry. I was always impressed by how he cared for his parents in their later years at his home.

He was an outstanding preacher, author and innovator. He had a brilliant mind and helped write many of the Church's booklets and magazine articles. He served in 28 congregations throughout his career, with an extraordinary love for God's Word and Work. More than a decade ago I spent hours with him on the phone where we discussed how we could do the Work of God more effectively through the Internet.

Beverly and I will be traveling to San Antonio for the memorial service on March 18.

We will always love you both, Roger and Janice!

Council of Elders

The quarterly Council of Elders meetings concluded on Thursday at noon. The focus of these meetings was on preparing for the May General Conference of Elders annual meeting in Cincinnati. The strategic plan was tweaked and a balanced budget approved for ratification by the GCE.

Reports about the meetings will be available. You can view the video recordings online at http://coe.ucg.org/videos.

Here are some of the highlights from my report given on Monday.

We have very important decisions to arrive at and are asking for God's guidance in arriving at them. This brings to mind Ephesians 5:17: "Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is."

Our major focus at the home office and from the president is the work of the ministry and congregations, as well as the work of proclamation of the gospel through our media.

Regarding our ministry, our focus is on the quality, quantity and makeup of ministers and congregations. We have brought on 10 ministerial trainees in the past two years and need more.

We recognize the need for a comprehensive program to train our ministry.

Training BEFORE even being hired on as a ministerial trainee
For those training FOR the ministry
For those ALREADY in the ministry

The MMS Education team met twice during recent weeks to discuss long term plans for such training. On February 9, the group met and discussed how to proceed with plans for a ministerial education program that is consistent, structured and organized to fit the needs of our ministry, both new trainees and seasoned pastors. We want our ministry trained in the Church's teachings and practices, not what's picked up from private ideas that will cause problems down the road.

We understand this is a big project, but all agree it needs to be kept basic and accessible for the men, so as not to be overwhelming.

We recognize that we have a lot of good resources from web content of articles, sermons and FAQs, conferences, the Labor in the Word program, online classes, Ambassador Bible College classes, the Bible Reading Program and more. All recognize there is a need for training to establish a consistency with media content and church teaching.

Our immediate action steps were to write a proposed philosophy/mission statement (combination vision and mission) for this program by February 17, and to meet on March 7 to discuss this preliminary philosophy/mission statement and to determine our broad content areas to organize and develop material for. I want to express special thanks to Darris McNeely for driving this project.

Ambassador Bible College began the second semester of the current academic year in late January.

Four new students have joined us for this semester, which is out of the ordinary, but each had particular reasons for allowing them to begin their study at this time. One of them is a student from the Andhra Pradesh area of India.

Three of our new module instructors have recently been teaching at ABC.

Scott Ashley has brought his considerable study of the culture and history of the New Testament to teaching the Gospels class.

Gary Petty taught a new one-week module called Early Church History that covered the period from that of the apostles to the rise of the Roman Catholic Church.

Dr. Randy Urwiller applied his experience as a professor of literature to the class now titled Wisdom Literature, which covers Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

The students have conducted successful fundraisers both through sales of the magnetic calendars, and by sales and raffles at the Winter Family Weekend. This will finance a class trip to Nashville in May.

Only three weeks ago, the Cincinnati East congregations hosted an "ABC Sabbath" in which students served all of the weekly assignments other than presenting the sermons. They have also just begun visiting area congregations as the ABC Choir.

We see these as valuable opportunities for them to learn to serve the local congregations. All of the men give sermonettes in speech class, and we hope that all of our graduates will be prepared and motivated to actively serve their local congregations after their time at ABC.

Recently Completed Member Survey

The Member Survey was just completed and the data will be used for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. The Church's Strategic Plan goes through more thorough scrutiny and overhaul every third year, and next year is that year.

We had a very high response level with more than 2000 respondents: about quadruple the number of respondents needed to produce reliable data on many questions and follow up questions.

This past week I spoke with Julie Brown and Nathan Ekama about the survey; they spoke about the high quality of work put into developing the survey questions with Strategic Planning and Finance chairman Bill Bradford.

Results of the survey will be discussed in future open recorded sessions and in United News articles.

Content Committee Update

Senior Writer Project

Just as with the ministry, we need new leaders among our authors. We are currently working with some elders to train as senior writers. Some are producing blogs for the website and others write articles for the magazine.

We identified a critical need to have a team producing FAQs for the web. These are very productive pieces of content. This project will be managed on-site in the media department with appropriate oversight.

Beyond Today magazine and booklets

Working title for cover theme of May/June Beyond Today magazine will be: What Would It Take to Make America Great Again?

We have two booklets in process. One on "Angels" and one on "Europe and the Church." The Angels booklet will be offered to all BT subscribers in the June letter. We also plan future booklets on "Baptism" and "Grace."

We plan to continue the "Beyond Today Live" (PAC) with same theme in the next fiscal year.

New TV Studio report

To date, $177,340 has been received, and an additional pledge of $300,000 is expected to arrive soon. So, this leaves us about $123,000 short of our needs to begin and complete the project.

Outreach work

The Good Works advisory committee consisting of Milan and Sarah Bizic, Rudy Rangel, Chelsea Dawe and chaired by Lena VanAusdle has just approved several projects for the next year that will include Youth Corps helping with camps. The website is http://goodworks.ucg.org

We will sponsor an English/Leadership project in Chile; a summer camp in Chile in December; three Bible seminars in India; and a summer camp in the Caribbean. The total for these projects is $13,950. We also have $10,000 in reserve for natural disasters.

Internationally, I am grateful to Aaron Dean as International Advisor for working through challenges that are always there when working in countries with many disadvantaged and vulnerable people.

We are looking to God's guidance as to what we should be doing and I ask that Council to direct us to what is best for the Church in both the Ministry and Media.

Let's remember what we're here for and consider first what's best for the Church and its Mission.

I began with and would also like to conclude with Ephesians 5:17: "Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is."