Meeting Transcripts

Opening Remarks

Minister’s Manual

First, I will make a few comments about the Minister’s Manual. It is in loose-leaf form and wrapped, making it easier for you to take home. You will need to obtain your own binder. Perhaps you already have one on your bookcase. The manual may eventually be bound, but first we want to be careful that it includes everything it should. Even the week before camp meeting began, we added a short two-page section that we felt was lacking. Editorial issues still arise as well. For example, the excerpt that was sent out online this week had an extra “rather” in it. We will reprint even that one page to delete that one word. Eventually, as we see other editorial issues we will send out new pages for you to insert in your loose-leaf binder, replacing the old page with the new. The new page will be dated, so you will know you have the most current page.

After this meeting, you will find some manuals on my right, and some on my left. If you don’t have one, by all means take one. We had 300 printed before camp meeting. There are about 180 remaining. Take what you need now, so we can make more copies while you are still at camp meeting if we need to. After that, if you get home and find you are lacking, we can still produce more and send them. You can also take them back to your home church and reproduce them yourselves. And, they are available online.

When our new website is ready, the Minister’s Manual will be in tablet form, much like a Kindle, where you can read it on your tablet, computer, phone, or other device. You will also be able to go to the Table of Contents and jump to other pages from there. Right now, the manual is a PDF so you must scroll through 200 pages to get to page 201. Eventually, and not long from now, you’ll be able to click on a section in the Table of Contents and it will take you right there. So the manual will be more like a Kindle book.

Hopefully all of you are getting the excerpts from the manual that are sent out weekly. If you’re not receiving them, you need to let Sister Rodica know, and she will put your name on the email list. Reading the manual unites us and is helpful. It covers all kinds of material including what was in the original and more. There are contemporary issues that didn’t exist or need to be addressed when the original was written in the 1950s.

Minister Questionnaire Forms

If you have not filled out a Minister Questionnaire form lately, giving us your current email address, cell phone number, and etc., then make sure you get one of those forms from Sister Rodica or the camp office.

Daybreak and Discovery

We hope you’ve been taking advantage of the Daybreak and Discovery materials. This curriculum is an Apostolic Faith commentary (which we believe is a Bible commentary). It’s written like most of the material available today, but from a holiness persuasion. It is more than that; it is a holiness Pentecostal persuasion. We don’t attempt to make it slant that way; we attempt, simply, to provide a lesson that reflects the true Word of God. So by all means, take advantage of the curriculum in your churches. There are different means of using the materials, but if you don’t use them, you are losing the opportunity of a good study resource.

Reduction in Publication Orders

With respect to your orders for Sunday school lessons, the Minister’s Manual, and Higher Way magazines, we want every church to have what is needed and what will be used. If you find that your order is not large enough, please let us know and it will be increased. What we have concentrated on this past year is making sure that we don’t ship more than what will be used, because it is of no value to have this literature sit on a bookshelf somewhere in a back closet accumulating dust. We do not want to spend tens of thousands of dollars shipping the material to have it sit in bookshelves here and there. If your order was reduced, it was intentionally reduced because we want people to be calling us and saying, “Hey, we need more.” We know you are all busy, and it is unlikely that anyone would call and say, “We need less.” It takes time to make a call, and there might be a certain measure of embarrassment in not being able to use all that you are getting. Don’t be embarrassed. We’ve served in branch churches, too, and we know that opportunities for evangelism are different today than they were several years ago. So, if you are lacking, let us know.

Camp Meeting Registrations

I have mentioned publicly that we are going to be pre-registering people for camp meeting. In the future years, if the Lord tarries, it would be very helpful if everyone in every congregation would pre-register, and then check in once they get to camp meeting. A day or two before this camp meeting began, I pre-registered. Then I asked Sister Ellen Morgan if anyone else in Portland had registered. No one had; I was the first. I told her I wasn’t trying to be first to be boastful; I was trying to let it be known to everyone that they must pre-register.

Overstock is Available

We mentioned that there will be an India presentation Monday evening, which will probably be less than an hour long—no more than one hour anyway. That morning in the annex we will set out a quantity of Sunday school materials that we have in excess. It’s all good material, and you are free to take what you want. It includes some of the old quarterly books, and maybe some of the old camp meeting teachings. That will be available Monday morning until noon, and then again for a while before the presentation begins. If you plan to leave before Monday, you can contact Kathy Snyder; she is the one who is coordinating it. If you don’t know who she is or where she is, contact the office and they will help you.

The Apostolic Faith

“The moment the name was proclaimed, everyone realized instinctively that it could, in fact, have no other.” — Gilbert, Martin. Israel a History. Black Swan: London, 1998

Today we have prepared a PowerPoint presentation to look briefly at our name, The Apostolic Faith. This will cover where it came from, what it stands for, and how it relates to our flagship publication, currently called Higher Way magazine.

Our History

Charles Parham

The first part of this presentation will be a review of what we covered in March, beginning with Charles Parham. He was devoutly non-denominational. He left the Methodist Church in the 1800s because he felt they had departed from the teachings and practices that John Wesley had implemented. He settled in Topeka, Kansas in the late 1800s and is credited as being the first one to use the term, “The Apostolic Faith.” He and a group of co-workers travelled from town to town throughout the Midwest preaching the holiness Gospel he had been taught and had experienced. He was very zealous and his self-proclaimed purpose was to seek the restoration of the faith of the Apostles. His group became known as the Apostolic Faith movement. He established a mission in Topeka, Kansas and in 1898 began printing a magazine. The purpose of that magazine was to teach the faith, the faith of the Apostles, the Apostolic Faith. It was titled “The Apostolic Faith,” as a description of a faith, not of a church or organization—he was strictly non-denominational in his viewpoint and didn’t want to be known as a denomination.

In October of 1900, Parham started Bethel Bible College in Topeka, and led the students through the teachings of the Apostles. You can read the book of Acts yourself and know within the first two chapters what a lot of those doctrines were: repentance, justification, divine healing, restitution, entire sanctification, the resurrection, and so on.

During a Christmas break, Parham left on a missions trip, and in his absence assigned his students a task. They were to study Acts, chapter 2, and reach a conclusion as to whether or not the Holy Ghost would still descend upon holy people, and whether or not the accompanying witness of the speaking of tongues would be the initial evidence of having received that experience.

The students had already concluded studying repentance, justification, and entire sanctification when assigned this subject. They studied it and prayed about it for several days and then held a New Year’s Eve watchnight service on December 31, 1900. Just after midnight, one student, a young woman by the name of Agnes Osman, experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the accompanying witness of speaking in a language that she had never been taught. Other students eventually received the baptism as well, as did Parham. As I recall there were forty students and about half embraced the teaching.

Parham’s magazine, The Apostolic Faith, used a portion of Jude 3 as a model: “Earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints.” This was six years before the revival in Los Angeles, California, and before the first publication of The Apostolic Faith from there.

The Kansas City Journal was a local paper at the time. Three weeks after the Pentecost on New Year’s Day in 1901, it ran a report. The title read, “Was a Pentecost: Apostolic Faith Claims Gift of Tongues. Members are chiefly women. Strange testimonials at a strange meeting last night.” So it was reported in a very dramatic manner. It is interesting that the subtitle says the members were chiefly women, because the article named the nine people who were present: five were indeed women, but four were men. So it wasn’t quite what the headline implied, which is not unusual. This account may have had a bias, but it does contemporaneously corroborate that Agnes Osman was the first one to receive Pentecost three weeks earlier.

The original Apostolic Faith movement archives relate that “Although the Apostolic Faith movement was established by Charles F. Parham in 1901, it has never been officially recognized as an organized body due to Parham’s rejection of organizational structure, but it was the first Pentecostal coalition of ministers and churches to maintain a common faith-based theology holding to tenants of faith centered around the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the Biblical evidence of speaking in other tongues as the initial sign of Spirit baptism.”

William Seymour

Five years later, Parham was in Houston, Texas. (I am skipping over five years to get to William Seymour who is credited by related historians as being the leader of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles). In Texas, Parham started a movement and taught on the Pentecostal experience. Seymour sat outside his classroom, due to the racial divide that existed at that time, and learned and embraced this teaching, though he did not receive it yet.

In 1906, on the first day of the year, Seymour was invited to speak in Los Angeles and did so using Acts 2:4 as his text. Subsequently, he was locked out of that holiness church, because they did not embrace what he was teaching. As a result, he was invited to 14 Bonnie Brae Street to participate in prayer meetings. Ultimately, a ten-day time of prayer was initiated on March 31, 1906. Ten days later, on April 9, the power of the Holy Ghost fell. The home where this took place has been restored, and Debbie and I have had the opportunity to visit it, as have many of you. It really is something to step into that same house where the Latter Rain Gospel began. 

The meetings were soon moved to Azusa Street (actually, for a time, evening prayer meetings were still held at the Bonnie Brae house while morning prayer meetings were on Azusa Street). The first service held at 312 Azusa Street was on April 14, 1906, the day before Easter.

Florence Crawford

Florence Crawford stated that when she first began attending the meetings, there were scarcely twenty people in them. So she came into this group very early on. She soon received entire sanctification, and one week after that, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

I am sure you are familiar with the first paper that was sent out from Los Angeles. The headline was “The Pentecost has Come.” Five thousand issues of that paper were distributed under the name The Apostolic Faith, and with the motto “Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” This was still describing a faith rather than an organization.  

On the screen is a 1916 photo of Sister Crawford. Her activities in those early years, 1906-08, were heavily recorded in those first issues of The Apostolic Faith newspaper produced from Los Angeles. Clara Lum is well-known in Portland circles because she was perhaps chiefly responsible for writing, editing, and publishing that paper. Eventually, she followed Sister’s Crawford’s move to Portland, and became instrumental in doing the same thing here.

In late 1906, Sister Crawford was invited to hold meetings in Salem, Oregon. For those not familiar with the geography, that is a one-hour drive south of here. She did not have a plan at that time to come to Portland, but while in Salem, was asked by Mrs. Glasgow to hold meetings here.

The Salem newspapers of that time reported that Sister Crawford was in Salem on Christmas day. There is some confusion on this, but within a day or two, she brought the Pentecostal message to Portland. It is notable that the newspapers reported on such things in those days. Today, they bury and deny religion, and American history is rewritten to excise faith from past events. But back in the 1800s, D.L. Moody sermons were published in full). 

Taking a Name

In time it became necessary to incorporate so that when property was acquired it would be owned in the name of a non-profit organization rather than a pastor or other donor. It was necessary to protect from someone who might leave the faith, but keep the building. So we became The Apostolic Faith Church of Portland, Oregon.

Our Flagship Publication

In July/August of 1908 the first The Apostolic Faith newspaper was published and distributed from Portland. It reported testimonies, sermons, and news from all around the world, describing the results of what God was doing in the meetings. On the screen, notice the last edition published under the name The Apostolic Faith in 1966. It gives the news of the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost in Los Angeles.

In that same year, that same paper continued to be published with the same sermons, testimonies, and news, but bearing a different name: The Light of Hope.

On the screen, you can see that in the next issue of The Light of Hope, the ground-breaking ceremony of July 20, 1979 was reported on. I remember that ceremony, and I suppose a number of individuals present here today were present on that afternoon. It was a brief ceremony. We have a transcript of what Brother Loyce Carver said that day and I’ll quote it. “The function of this office is to send out to the whole world the product of the meetings held here—the sermons that are preached, and testimonies that are given, that God’s name might be glorified. These are typed, edited, printed, and distributed into all the world, free of charge. It is the same Gospel that you hear when you come to a meeting. We try to put wings to it so it will go everywhere.”

In 1981 we moved from a newspaper format to a magazine style, still calling the publication The Light of Hope. In 1995 the name was changed to Higher Way, though the content remained the same.

In 2015, the first full color issue was produced. We still print in duotone, but the magazine is also available in full color, particularly online.

A Shift to Continuous and Multi-channeled Publishing

During the past several months, we’ve begun to move toward what is called continuous or multi-channeled publishing. This is in an effort to streamline and maximize our content creation and distribution process. It will automate and optimize the manner in which we deliver the same Gospel message that we have delivered for 110 years. One change in our approach will be to think in terms of web or electronics first. Our process will go from electronic to print, rather than from print to electronic. This may seem to be a distinction without a difference, but to those who work on it, there is a difference.

Multi-channeled publishing will allow us to more readily deliver the Gospel message in a variety of forms, including audio, video, and text in addition to print. It will also be delivered faster through a variety of channels such as web, email, and mobile devices through texting. We need to adapt the way we deliver the message according to what people will use, because it doesn’t do any good to create the message and let it sit on a shelf. Our young people, in particular, mostly read or watch things using their mobile devices. But, I’ve even surprised myself. I love books, but find myself reading by tablet or even on my computer. Our goal is to capitalize on the electronic opportunities that exist today to evangelize not only our own people, but the world, which needs the Gospel.

Restructuring

We are implementing a restructured system of oversight that officially takes effect immediately after camp meeting, but really it is taking effect now. It mostly involves the same people as in the past, but the roles have been adjusted and better defined. There is some overlap in these roles, because different people multitask, but for the sake of clarity this chart shows an editor-in-chief, assisted by an executive manager, who is assisted by two operations managers.

Catey Hinkle will serve as managing editor. There are two aspects in particular that she will have oversight of: words and design. Karen Barrett is our words person, the senior editor. Rodica Musgrave is our creative director. She has been involved in the literature process, but also is academically and professionally qualified to be the creative director, so she will begin that position. There are teams working with Karen and Rodica. They will account to Catey who will then see to it that what is produced is published in all channels.

Beginning on October 1, you will see the evidence of what we are doing when the new website and app are ready. I thanked the pastors and spouses a week ago Friday for their patience, because we know that the present website and app are not up to the standard they need to be at, but we’re pedaling as fast as we can. We will also have a redesigned flagship publication on January 1, 2017.

This slide shows the Higher Way committee. Some of them have been involved in producing the Higher Way for many years, and some are newcomers. Karen Barrett began working at the Portland office in 1968, and Cheryl Paulsen began in 1971. Ed Habre became involved with the Higher Way in 1993. I moved here in 1996. John Musgrave began working at the office in 1999. Rodica Musgrave began in 2001, though until now she has not been involved in the publication work. Trina Paulsen started in 2002, Catey Hinkle in 2006, and Jodie Hinkle in 2010. Also, Erik Calhoun, who wasn’t present the day we took this photo. The combined experience of all of these is 200 years. The youngest four have a combined age that is about half the combined age of the others, but they are equipped to carry on without the elder members. I am referring not just to their academics or intelligence, but to their love for this faith and work. We need to immerse the next generation in carrying the Latter Rain Gospel forward.

The Process of Changing our Publication Name

The Higher Way committee convened with the focus of examining the purpose of our flagship publication in order to evaluate its name. Along the way, we solicited input from a number of pastors, providing them with the background that all of you are now hearing.

Early on, it was noted that a flagship is defined as the lead ship of a fleet of vessels. It is typically the first, largest, most heavily armed, or the best known. So a flagship, generally, is the best known and most widely distributed publication of a publishing organization. As such, it has a unique purpose. It should present a well-rounded, balanced view of our core beliefs. That is what Higher Way and its predecessors have done for 110 years.

As we began the process of deciding the name for our flagship publication, we determined to consider the strength and weaknesses of a variety of different names, including the current one. We solicited input in order to have other options to evaluate. It became apparent, and I’ll talk to that in just a moment, that we really needed to either stick to the current name, Higher Way, or return to the original name, The Apostolic Faith. There were three reasons. First, I sent out a letter to a number of our pastors requesting alternatives to those two. A number came back with a preference that we return to the original. The Second reason was that other names suggested clearly attempted to connect any new name with the name of our church. For instance, some of the suggested names were: The Faith, Inspiring Faith, Faith Values, The Apostles’ Faith, and The Faith of the Apostles. That’s not to say they necessarily recommended those names. That’s not what we were asking for. We were asking for alternatives to consider. Finally, and perhaps the most important reason, was that changing the name again would cause confusion or uncertainty. So we determined the name needed to be either Higher Way or The Apostolic Faith.

Ultimately, the final decision would rest, really, on this committee because they’re immersed in what is going on here. We wanted the input from those further away, but it was simply impossible to take the time to give a detailed explanation and history to everyone and collect their ideas. I can relate to this because I recall receiving a survey when the name was changed to Higher Way from The Light of Hope. I was in a branch church and a pastor. I really thought, I’ll just be on board with whatever you want. I cared, but I just could not relate to what they wre trying to do. I supported whatever the decision would be, and still do, in hindsight.

Before a decision was made, I felt I needed to convey to some leaders abroad that we were considering returning to our roots with regard to the name of our magazine. I received a number of responses and had dialogue, each of which was very helpful.

One district leader wrote, “The name The Apostolic Faith will cement in print what people know and believe about us; namely that the Apostolic Faith Church has a high standard of the Gospel of holiness and are not involved in frivolity, etc. In our local communities, that is the conscious and subconscious perception ingrained by our forerunners and continues today. The Name also says stability, meaning yesterday and forever . . .” Others expressed similar sentiments. We also addressed some of the pitfalls and potential pitfalls with both names. One view emerged that a religious name could be unfavorable. This was fascinating, because another view came (and that’s why it is good to solicit input from a variety of people) that the name should clearly be religious. Within a body of holy believers, there are a variety of perspectives. Ultimately in a branch church, the final decision is with the pastor. In something like this, someone has to make the final decision and that is me.

It was also noted that using The Apostolic Faith could confuse some who might mistake us for the “Jesus only” group. I’ll get back to that in a bit just briefly. It was also said that of the two names, Higher Way sounds condescending, as if we think we are superior to others. One proposed that “The” in front of Apostolic Faith suggests the same because it sounds like we’re the only one, there are no others. I share this information to show a little bit of the process that we went through. We went through it with our eyes wide open and tried to have an open mind. I told this committee that I did not feel that I was predisposed, nor do I feel even today that I was predisposed one way or the other. I shared what I felt; that I wanted the committee, really to make the determination, even though at the end it certainly was clear that I would have to make the final decision.

We engaged professionals outside the Apostolic Faith, which, by the way, is what we did with our most recent logo, to obtain feedback on changing the name of our flagship publication. These are people who live and breathe this every day, and they’re certainly in a better position than I am to know the pros and cons. I’m not artistic or crafty or trained in this area, and I’m not going to launch out and pretend. We consulted one man who was on the cutting edge of desktop publishing a few decades ago and still is very, very active in both the academic world and the professional world. After being given an understanding of who we are and what we are all about, he said, “It seems to me (and remember, he’s a publisher) that The Apostolic Faith is in keeping with your mission—putting wings on your inner work. And, it is also the simplest (which he felt was important). Not sure I would worry about the denomination thing. I would expect a magazine called St. Paul’s for St. Paul’s Church to be about the life and affairs of St. Paul’s Church. Isn’t that what you are wanting?” So here you can see the internal struggle that was going on, and we put it out to professionals who in essence asked, “Why are you people struggling with this?”

Another wrote, “You are the Apostolic Faith Church, so if you have a problem with that name for a publication, then you are facing a similar issue with the name of the church itself. A brand name should align with and reflect the brand value. If the brand value’s attributes are to give written visual expression and meaning to what is happening in your services, then the name, The Apostolic Faith, is appropriate.”

I happened to be reading a book during this process. When I flew to Chicago, I was on a chapter that spoke of Israel’s war of independence and the subsequent question of what they would call their nation. I never would have thought this was an issue, but it was, as you will see. At 4:00 p.m. a ceremony took place in Tel Aviv which included the singing of Jewish anthems and the signing of their declaration of independence. I’m summarizing, not quoting, what is said here and also on the Israel history website. That declaration was read publically, and was listened to all over the land of Israel. It was surprising for me to learn that there was a certain amount of suspense in the audience as to what they would call their land. The declaration opened with “Aritz, Israel,” which means the “land of Israel.” Then it continues, “was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.” Remember this is all from their declaration of independence, which is roughly the same length as that of the United States. The document continues, and refers to the just concluded World War II as “the catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe.” Gilbert, the author of this book explains that very few knew what the nation would be called and gives the other names that were considered, including Zion, Ziona, Judeah, and Ivrea, which means the offspring of Ebor. If you read Genesis 10 and 11, you will read of Ebor, from which comes the word “Hebrew.” So that was a possibility. Also, “Hirtzleah,” which relates to immigration to the land, was considered. The declaration went on, and finally proclaimed, “We declare . . . the Jewish State, to be called "Israel." Gilbert notes that an early Jewish civil servant commented, and I quote, “The moment the name was proclaimed, everyone realized instinctively that it could, in fact, have been no other.” To us, in looking back,  of course it was the right name. It would not have made sense to call the land of Israel Zion or Ziona. Well, I shouldn’t say it would not have made any sense, it would have made some sense. The quote continues, “the children of Israel, the people of Israel, the land of Israel, the heritage of Israel—all these had existed, in reality and metaphysically, for so many thousands of years, they had exercised such influence on the evolution of mankind that the State of Israel was their logical consequence and culmination. Naming Israel made obvious to the world not only who we were, but that we were what we had always been.”

This was just striking to me, and afterward I wondered how we could call our flagship publication anything other than The Apostolic Faith. If it is describing a faith or a church, it works either way. That name makes obvious to the world who we are and who we have always been. Does it not properly brand who we are challenged to be? For 110 years we have been earnestly contending for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

So, beginning with the January 2017 issue, we intend to return to the name The Apostolic Faith for our flagship publication. You will see that on the new masthead. The content will not change. It has not changed in our 110 years. We do believe fiercely that we have a mandate from God to continue publishing what we have always published—what was published from Los Angeles, and what Brother Carver declared during that ground breaking ceremony in 1979. We will publish sermons, testimonies, and news. We are going to get back to publishing a few pages of news, not of what the church is doing, but of what God is doing in this faith. We want our attendees to be reminded of who we are, and those looking on to hear about this faith. Our goal in this process is to appropriately align the name of our magazine with its mission, and the name, The Apostolic Faith, accomplishes that. The Apostolic Faith began as a movement, and the name of those original newspapers branded that movement. The name still reflects, most effectively, the content that we are trying to produce. It is intended to be what anyone would see and hear if they were to step into one of these services. We’re simply putting wings to it so those who can’t step into one of these services, can experience it. Now, people can experience the content of our services not only textually, but also by means of audio and video.

We are promoting the faith and not the church. Even adding two pages of news to the magazine and expanding the number of pages from twenty-four to thirty-six to allow room for some news and make the magazine more readable will point to what God is doing rather than what the church is doing. Concerning the items on our website, the staff knows that I have never liked the name “Pastor’s Journal.” I think it was created with the thought that I would wax eloquent and give my opinion and my views, but that is so not me, and I told them so. You will notice, when I write, that I write about others, and the photos are of others. I want people to see what God is doing. That will be the goal of what we are trying to do. We want people to see what God is doing. We want to promote Jesus, not ourselves. We want to promote the faith, not the church.

I am not concerned about our being mistaken for the “Jesus only” group who are also named The Apostolic Faith. If someone comes to our church or website, because they thought we were that group, they are welcome. They need to hear what is being said, or they need to read what is being said. The worst that could happen is someone who thinks we are the “Jesus only” group will come and see and hear, and then leave thinking, That was not what I was expecting. We are The Apostolic Faith. If anyone needs to change their name, it should be them.

In this day where churches attempt to project themselves as non-denominational or not organized, we want to project ourselves as an organization, as a church, as a denomination. We do not want to camouflage who we are. We want people to know we are The Apostolic Faith. We stand for the faith of the Apostles. When I say the Apostolic faith, I am thinking of a description of a faith more than of a church. It is the name of our church, but internally we want to be, by our lives and by what we teach and preach, described as being a faith. The faith of the Apostles, The Apostolic faith. We want to be earnestly contending for the faith. That’s what we’re striving to do and to be.

On the screen is a sample mockup of the masthead with some recent titles of Higher Way magazines just scattered there for comparison. We have had this professionally designed just in the last couple of weeks. A few options were created and then put out to a professional community, all of whom recommended the same masthead. I feel that took the decision out of our hands and put it into the hands of the people who do this all day long, every day. So this is the masthead.

We intend to expand the magazine to thirty-two pages from twenty-four. The content will remain the same. We will just seek ways to do things better, particularly with the digital age, which opens new avenues for evangelism. In fact, most of what will end up in the quarterly publication will have already been presented digitally during the previous quarter. We will select from what has been produced digitally and compile it into the quarterly magazine.

I hope it has come through that this is about more than the name of a magazine. It is about the description of a faith. It is about an identity. It is about a way of life.

A Challenge Before Us

I have just a few more comments. We will depart from the PowerPoint now. Embracing that we are The Apostolic Faith, presents a tremendous challenge. It puts us back into the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. We’ve heard in our generation, and perhaps more in the previous generation of nominal Christianity, which is Christianity in name only. We don’t want to be The Apostolic Faith in name only. We are challenged, and the church can rise to no higher level of spirituality than that of its ministry. Each one of you and each spouse of a minister is being watched, and whatever standard you set is what the congregation will model. Unfortunately, to a degree, some will go to the lowest common denominator rather that the highest. So you are challenged, and I am challenged to be The Apostolic Faith and to reflect appropriately what was lived in the Acts of the Apostles.

I am speaking of more than platitudes; I am talking about practicality. We must live the faith in our marriages, in our homes, in the way we conduct our business, and in every area of our life. We need to be able to withstand scrutiny. We would expect no less of one another. If we embrace the name, we must be challenged to live up to it. As a matter of faith, I am speaking of more than Sister Crawford, Brother Charles Rodman, Brother Jack Robbins, or Brother George Hughes and those that followed them, I am speaking about those who preceded them by several centuries—the Apostles and the writers of the New Testament. As a church, this means subjecting ourselves to the order that God has ordained within this work, and this is where the practicality comes in. This is part of the value of digesting the Minister’s Manual which unites us globally. We need to read it. We need to have the excerpts emailed to us weekly.

When I think of the Minister’s Manual and of us as an organization, a denomination, or church body, I think of Titus, chapter 1. Beginning at verse 5, Paul wrote, “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, (organize) and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: If any be blameless. The husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.” That’s the first question I ask about someone assuming a greater degree of responsibility. I ask them to tell me about their marriage, about their finances, about their children. I want to know how they live. I know what they will be at the pulpit. I want to know what they are when they are not at the pulpit. That’s the faith. We have the right to have a high expectation of one another.

Paul goes on to describe some criteria that we want to apply to this faith. Those who have failed in our ministry have failed for one of two reasons; they have either failed due to moral collapse, or they have failed by a refusal to be held accountable or be subject to authority. If we follow the Minister’s Manual, which follows the Bible, we will not fail. Every detail cannot be covered in the three hundred plus pages, but the principals are there. We are all accountable. I am accountable. I could give details of more than once having recused myself from a situation because I was part of the problem. I declared to the one with whom I was part of the problem, “I am only asking that you be accountable. I can ask no more of you than what I would expect of myself. Therefore, let us both be accountable to our peers and if they deem that I conducted myself inappropriately in raising some objections, I will apologize to you and to them for ever having raised the issue. But we’re both being held to the same standard.” There’s safety in accountability. It is not necessary to fail to succeed. None of us is above accountability.

Just as the Minister’s Manual is Scripturally oriented, so is the Daybreak/Discovery curriculum, which takes us through the Bible in three years. It’s not complete yet, but it will be in time, Lord willing, if Jesus tarries for a while. It is about seventy percent completed, but it is invaluable; it can be used in different ways, and it helps unite us globally.

We are finished, but let’s sing a song and then be dismissed in prayer.

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