Feast of Tabernacles 2021: Behind the Work - Taking the Gospel to the World

warm greetings to all of you around the world i'm rod mcnair and we are privileged to welcome you to this year's behind the work film we hope you're having a wonderful feast of tabernacles wherever you are the feast reminds us that god is preparing this whole world for christ's reign for a thousand years the work is proclaiming the coming kingdom of god and today in the work we're experiencing new levels of growth and expansion that we haven't had in some time details of these things are brought out from time to time by mr weston in the co-worker letter in the video member updates and also in the world ahead but it's helpful sometimes to get a behind-the-scenes look at what's going on in the work that's the reason for this film so to accomplish this goal we've asked some of the men who are deeply involved in some of the decisions and plans of the work going forward to come to the tomorrow's world studio today to have a round table discussion to talk about these things joining me today are presiding evangelist gerald weston director of media operations evangelist richard ames tomorrow's world executive editor and pastor wallace smith and manager of digital media and elder mike desimone we also have some video segment highlights from several of our international regional directors so welcome to this year's feast film behind the work 2021 taking the gospel to the world [Music] so greetings gentlemen it's really a pleasure to be with all of you today to talk about something that is near and dear to all of our hearts to start the discussion let me direct a question to mr gerald weston mr weston to start out could you define what the work of god is well thank you mr mcnair i appreciate the question i think that most of our members would know the answer to this but let's just review it because sometimes it's easy to overlook obviously jesus made it very clear that we are to preach the good news of the kingdom of god the gospel of the kingdom of god into all the world as a witness unto all the nations and also the name of jesus christ the world has a different idea of what christ is or who he was we also have the responsibility of warning this world as we hurdle toward the end of this age and total destruction and also preparing for the world tomorrow the kingdom of god ourselves to rule at that time why are we doing the work what is so important about the gospel message to the world i think it's really important for us to recognize that god is not calling everybody today and i often ask the question if he's not calling everyone why is he calling anyone and the answer is very clear he's called us to do a work if you look at it historically noah had a calling the various prophets down through time had a specific calling jonah had a calling he ran from it and god is going to hold us responsible for for getting the the gospel out and the warning to this world in fact let me just turn to a scripture that i like to turn to from time to time it's in the book of proverbs i think it shows the the responsibility that we've been given here in proverbs 24 and beginning in verse 10 he says if you faint in the day of adversity your strength is small and at the end of this age we have a lot of people who are not taking on the responsibility they've been given he said deliver those who are drawn toward death and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter and we see a world that is stumbling to the slaughter he says if you say surely we did not know not know this does he who waves the hearts consider it he who keeps your soul does he not know it and will he not render to each man according to his deeds so god is going to hold us responsible if we don't do the work that that he's called us to do so let me take it from a different angle how can we possibly do the work i mean we are such a small group and there are seven point what five four a billion people out there mr weston how can we possibly even fathom that we can accomplish the work well i think it's very clear that christ is going to have to do it through us that was made very clear by mr d bar a party in in the last minnesota conference we have but i wanted to bring out a few statistics because we may think that we're small that we can't do much but the worldwide church of god under mr armstrong did have an impact in this world when i was in high school and god was beginning to work with me let's say in 1963 do people realize that the circulation of the plain truth magazine at that time was 400 000. uh we're approaching a half million right now so we're actually larger than the plain truth in 1963. a year later it was 510 000 we should easily surpass that this year that was when i left home and and actually began attending church uh entered ambassador college it was 635 000 and four years later it was two million one hundred and ten thousand subscribers and four years went from 635 000 to 2 million 110 000 now that kind of growth happened then if we had the same approach then that we have today oh we're just a small work we're not going to do anything i guess we could sit around and accomplish nothing but i think that that's very encouraging you asked the question how was the work going to be done when you read the great commission that jesus gave in matthew 28 and verse 18. he said jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth the king james says all power has been given to me in heaven and earth so what's the next sentence go therefore and make disciples of all natures baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit teaching them to observe all things that i have commanded you and lo i am with you always even to the end of the age how did he preface the commission by saying he has all power and authority in heaven and earth so that's how the war is going to be done but he's using fallible weak human beings but those human beings are dedicated and he uses god's holy spirit through us to do the work we need physical resources we're talking about spiritual resources but we need physical resources as well that's why we have co-workers i remember being back in meridian connecticut when god was calling me and i had donated to the radio church of god and i got this letter you are now a co-worker with christ and what an impact it had on me i was i can contribute to part of this work uh mr weston has mentioned how kovitt 19 would have financially devastated the church we would be really backwards but let me give you some statistics regarding the income from 2018 to 2019 our income increased 3.7 percent the assets increased 25.7 percent assets include of course property estates that are donated to us from 2019 to 2020 and we've just posted the audit the official audit of 2020 on our website and i might mention that's on lcg.org if you click on about us and then go roll down to the bottom of the page you will get the audit reports for the last six years including uh 2020 and this is what happened for 2020 our income increased by 23.4 percent the assets increased by 59 that's from estates and property when we would expect to have a reverse financially god actually blessed us extra and we still need to be praying for more co-workers and donors and and ministers and and those laborers in the harvest as jesus said in matthew 9 verses 37 and 38 to be praying for more laborers to come out in the harvest so that's that's an ongoing effort that we do but we we want to make sure that we are are praying for more co-workers and donors and god is the one as he said you know paul said you you have uh planted and i've watered but god gives the increase and we trust in him to provide the resources how does the leadership of the church make decisions in determining the the direction of god's work today how do we determine god's will are there specific plans strategies data-based techniques that we use um you know at least one of the ways that uh we've been trying to make some decisions is through doing some benchmarking and trying to understand where do we stand you know where are we what opportunities are out there how much do we want to grow how quickly can we grow what potential is there and you know what resources do we have and think all of that through thinking about what goals that we want to have in terms of a strategy do we want to have reached the world in another hundred years from now how hard do we try do we want to do it so that we try hard enough so that in another 100 years we can reach the world what about 50 years how much effort how much energy where do we funnel our resources so that we can actually do it do it 50 years what about 20 years what about 10 years how hard are we trying are we on a trajectory that would even get us there or that would even do it in any reasonable amount of time so mr smith let me throw this to you when we speak of the work when we speak of god's work and and accomplishing uh what mr desimone is talking about is it wrong to use advertising marketing principles is that appropriate or are we at church and should we not go down that route right i see i say where you're going and and that that's an excellent question because it can you start to hear about uh benchmarking and goals and and some of these things and it can sound so uh worldly it can sound technical and i think we need to be careful about that because it's not if you go back to mr armstrong and the example that he set it's really fascinating that in terms of supercharging god's work in the modern era which he did through herbert w armstrong god didn't call a theologian from some ivory tower he didn't call some vast intellectual in the academic world or something he called a marketing guy he called a guy that knew the the trade and knew what to do to reach people and i used to enjoy i have for even now if i go back and look at some of them some of his hand-drawn advertisements and some stuff and you would look at his advertising work and you look at his work for the work and he brought every bit of those skills that he had been taught and that he had learned to bear on doing the gospel again much like the apostle paul he used everything he could think of to do i've heard some say no again just just preach it and don't worry about those things this is this is god's tithe money these are god's offerings i think this is a good place to mention it because i'm not sure if these men well but on their behalf let me say i greatly appreciate the example that mr weston has set mr ames has set and how they get a great deal of counsel before making some decisions you know take things to the council of elders or we'll talk about them at lunch they do their best to try to get a lot of input recognizing members have prayed over these tithes you know they've prayed that their offerings would be used to some particular purpose because sometimes there's multiple opportunities and you have to to weigh that and we don't always make the right decisions there are times we we've we've gone through something tried to do our best and then learned it wasn't the best idea so how do you do that how do you make that balance between investing a lot of resources to give it its best opportunity versus you know something you want to test first it's a real challenge but when people hear things like that when they hear you know marketing terms when they hear those kinds of words just recognize we're trying to follow in the footsteps of those who went before us and those who went before us mr armstrong dr meredith they put every skill they could think of into doing right by the gospel and honoring jesus christ in terms of trying to do it with our best i think there's a scripture that really fits in with this very well that's over in ecclesiastes 11 and verse 6. it says in the morning sow your seed and in the evening do not withhold your hand for you do not know which will prosper either this or that or whether both alike will be good you know god could make every decision for us and we would always prosper but he allows us to be a part of that process and i think that that's uh that's one of the the wonderful things he he wants us to have some some satisfaction in what we can do so we try things and sometimes we we utterly fail but that's part of life and god allows for that as it says here you're not you don't know whether this is going to prosper or that or both will prosper as presiding evangelists how do you make these decisions i mean what what what's the process do you in terms of trying to weigh all these things well as is brought out uh by by mr smith uh we get a multitude of counsel that that's a godly principle to to get a multitude of counsel and and sometimes people say well there is uh dissension on the council i i would totally disagree with that but i would say that all the time that i've been on the council since the beginning of the living church of god there have been different opinions but if you don't have different opinions why have a council that's because people bring different things to the to the fore and i've noticed over the years where i might have a certain thought or direction that i think things should go until i get in with everybody else and hear another side of things and realize that well i didn't know as much as i thought i did about that subject and that's one of the safety factors of the council is that you bring in a lot of different thoughts from a lot of different angles mr ames do you have anything to add in terms of the decision making how these things are decided of course we all need to ask for wisdom we have a whole book of proverbs on the matter of wisdom and it talks about those who don't have the fear of god they do not choose the fear of god and are fools and we all pray for wisdom and and with with the various experiences those on the council some have been for many many years and had various experiences that are unique and that bring a different perspective to the issue we always pray for god's guidance and inspiration and yet uh mr wesson has to make the ultimate decision and we appreciate his leadership along that line and pray for his wisdom and our wisdom of course as well so let's talk a little bit about a specific question that comes up in terms of making decisions on the television program what are some of the limits as far as topics that we can actually address and say on the television program and how do you make those determinations how do you how do you determine to handle things wisely and yet still sigh and cry and and lift up your voice like a trumpet sure i think a lot of times our members wish we would be stronger on the telecast at least some of our members think that others think that we are strong but the point is we have limitations as to what we can do i i often think of your telecast on the miracle of dunkirk where you talked about the weather and that was censored or not shown in i think was australia maybe new zealand as well because you did not mention global warming now of course that that's the most absurd ridiculous thing that you could ever imagine but that's a type of thing that we deal with from time to time we have learned by experience that if we wanted to go to new zealand or australia and the uk that if we show a pride flag a rainbow flag as we are saying something negative then it's going to be censored so in some cases we don't even send the program to australia new zealand we know it'll be censored one of the more recent ones that was censored was on covid and pandemics and we had a couple letters thankfully it didn't go to the the higher authorities but they did go to the station saying that we were being negative toward the chinese because in the program i quoted from michael lay lai which i think is chinese name is saying that most flues and pandemics come out of china because of the way that they eat interestingly that program not that exact program but one of them that led up to it was given in hong kong and we had no trouble they didn't have a problem with it because they knew it i could just mention that even though we are censored on some of those stations with so most programs other stations do air with a controversial topic so christ opens the doors we have to be careful knowing where we are censored and where we're not censored so but we're thankful surprising some of our strongest programs are aired in uk and canada but some are not in some of these places new zealand australia uk how do we get our our our message there if the telecast is being censored uh are there different sort of rules with the different types of media that we we we produce well mr western's already given the limitations we were talking about but still those the gospel has many different aspects so even so we're not not able to talk about same-sex marriage we're still talking about the sins of the world we're still getting the message across very very strongly and then of course we realize that other dimensions such as same-sex marriage we can write in the tomorrow's world magazine that we cannot do on the telecast the bible requires us into isaiah cry aloud and spare not it's not a matter of sparing anyone it's a matter of being wise as serpents harmless as doves we want to actually get everything that should be taught and preach those things to the world but it's a matter of you know how can you do that when you actually look at even jesus christ during his own ministry on earth when you look at paul you look at there was a certain savvy there was a certain intelligence that was applied and that's what we're doing you look at the telecast for instance and there's things that are harder to say and stay on the air are to have that program aired but then you look at the literature that is offered you look at for instance i think one of my favorite products we've produced recently is the mad dvd a world gone mad and you look at what we say on all that on a telecast it would really be hard for that to come across but on that product in people's homes right there they're still seeing those things we see those things on the on the magazine you know i've heard some say why aren't you stronger about abortion well we literally call it a holocaust in the magazine is that is that strong enough i think my very first program that was was banned actually the very first one i ever made was because i talk about abortion as the wholesale slaughter of children in the united states but at the same time we're still saying those things in the magazine we're saying those things in our products the telecast is not the only means by which these things come out we just have to be smart about it but we absolutely do cry aloud in fact people who i hear complain sometimes are people that aren't even trying to get these messages out themselves it's a very hollow complaint mr d simone question for you can you just tell us a few of the different vehicles that we are using you know facebook is one uh the telecast is another what what are some of the other vehicles or uh platforms or means that we are using to get out uh to start people or to to funnel them into more meaningful connection so certainly television that is a primary driver that is one of the primary drivers facebook you know we use paid advertising for that that is you know organically it can it can do okay and we will continue to grow our organic efforts in these things but really it's a getting in front of people you know so on facebook for example you know you can have organic following you know very high numbers but organically if you're an organization they only put your posts in front of about one to two percent of your following right so that's that's what you get for free so if you want to get in front of a lot of people you just pay for it and they're ready to take your money and we can get literature in front of people for very very low costs but we also have youtube and instagram and we have twitter as well what can we focus on and get great results from it's easy to focus on everything and get nothing done so the question that we've discussed and i've tried to ask is what can we do and do great at it because if you can do great at it well then you have a better potential you know than just kind of okay at a lot of things we've hired somebody recently to work on search engine optimization and i think it's really important that way because to give you an idea going back a couple years i gave a program on tiny fingers and toes now that's a very good title for a magazine but it was the worst possible title for search engine optimization in other words for the internet because it who's going to search for tiny fingers and toes any part of it tiny fingers or tiny toes and i think that we're learning more how the titles are so incredibly important and that's one thing that mr ames always has it puts focus on titles having a title for everything in editorial for instance we have i have william williams you know on the staff and he'll actually go through we put it together for print but then he'll he'll go through and using some tools mr d simone has provided and some training he's provided then william will go through and and do an analysis for search engine optimization and we'll make the smallest of tweaks just little tweaks here and there we will change the titles in some cases to make sure people who find them on a search engine understand what the article is about but but he'll make small tweaks and it's amazing that the little things you can do to improve the odds that someone interested in your content will actually find your content we're not talking about fooling anyone but if someone is interested in say the story of lazarus we want them finding our article about that so so how do we get in their way when there's so many other people out there it's just a matter of using of using those tools so mr d small can you explain when we're talking about search optimization what does that mean so you go to google right and you say hey i want to know about the sabbath for example so a person goes to their computer or their phone most likely right and they type in you know what is the sabbath day well the idea with search engine optimization is that let's say we have articles on the tomorrow's world website or maybe the living church of god website where we would like to rank on that first page of the google search results right and so there are certain rules that are are generally encouraged to follow in order to be able to rank on ideally you're on the first page right ideally you're the first uh you know the first item up at the top now you could pay for ads so that when somebody searches that you can have an ad that shows up there but the great thing about you know organic search is what it's called just somebody going and typing it in it has a high intent behind it the person who typed it in they wanted to know exactly about the thing they typed in right not an ad that kind of works for you this type of thing so it has a high intent and it's free you do it right and it can take time to build that you know in your sites and so forth but you do it and it's it's free you don't have to pay money to get in front of people for doing that now you had to pay in work and effort and to get that done but no money and so that's the idea of search engine optimization what are the the let's say heavy hitters right now what are the things that we feel like are working the best one thing that i would say is is television i know that there are those who think that it's a waste of money waste of time but honestly is still i i would say it's that in the magazine are are the heavy hitters there the telecast isn't just on television it's on roku which is really another station it's on youtube and the highest polling activities we have out there are the telecasts in spanish language we have i think about a dozen that have over a million views and several of them over two million views we have over a million views in english on the program on ezekiel so television is is still very powerful i i should say that the telecast as we understand it whether it be on a traditional television station or on youtube but there are numerous other ones out here that we're using and others that have been very effective i know that mr desimone's doing some white boards and what's interesting is that sometimes that brings subscribers to our youtube channel whereas the telecasts don't bring as many subscribers it's these short programs that bring the subscribers but once they're subscribing then they have the availability of other other items that we have advertising out there mr ames speaking of other print uh material from time to time we we hear about mid-lit offers can you explain what those are and how they begin yes well years ago of course the mpd of course mail processing department has this huge warehouse we found that we had this inventory sometimes we wouldn't have a telecast and we have several thousands of booklets they're sitting there on the shelves they're in the warehouse well what can we do with them so that gives the idea of offering that to particular people who might have interest for example if it were a booklet on prophecy we would check to see our subscriber list and see how many people have ordered other booklets on prophecy and then we would offer that to them and it has been very very successful we've been able to give those people what they need and at the same time surprisingly or maybe not surprisingly six to ten percent of those people who request it are contributing as well and they become co-workers but it's been a really good process to help us to keep a balance in our inventory well speaking of print materials we also have some very interesting developments overseas mr peter nathan is the regional director of the uk and europe and in africa and now we're going to see a short video segment take it away mr nathan thank you mr mcnair and greetings to everyone keeping the feast this year from all of a brethren here in this region of the world i'd like to share with you some encouraging news about growth happening throughout this region the points to the future success of this work in preparation for the establishment of a kingdom of god during the time of a pandemic lockdown we've seen dramatic growth in requests for the tomorrow's world bible correspondence course this started last year in the united kingdom where we experienced outstanding growth in demand for literature and especially for the first lesson of the correspondence course yet we're well aware that it's too easy for people to request the initial lesson and then never follow through on requesting the subsequent lessons our experience in the united kingdom in 2020 was that more than 5 000 requests for the correspondence course were received a 650 increase over the previous year but more importantly the number of people moving from the first to subsequent lessons almost doubled in 2020 while in 2021 it's grown sevenfold [Music] it didn't end there throughout the region the tomorrow's world bible correspondence course is available in seven different languages english french dutch german portuguese spanish and in southern africa the afrikaans language english and french readers are scattered throughout the entire region while the other languages are largely confined to the host nations most of these languages have also experienced a similar growth to the english it started later in the pandemic and this time it was something in which we were instrumental facebook advertisements had been started by our headquarters office in charlotte and then we adapted them to use in the german dutch french and english languages here in the region the results have been startling we could barely keep up with the literature requests received we actually had to cut back on the number of ads so that we were able to cope interestingly enough rather than just requesting the booklet offered people were also asking in large numbers for the correspondence course to give an example ireland used to be a devoutly catholic country but which lately allegedly has been take taking rapid strides to become a modern secular godless society abortion has just been legalized following the results of an overwhelmingly supportive national referendum yet a couple of months of facebook advertisements focused on irish users has seen our correspondence requests increased by 900 percent over 2020 now the numbers are not huge we aren't about to convert to the irish on mass but the seeds are nevertheless being sown for future growth to continue our efforts to provide god's witness to these people the same holds true in the netherlands where the dutch language edition of a correspondence course has seen a 620 increase for the months to the end of may 2021 the german language has seen a 230 percent increase the most impressive to my mind has been the french response france as a nation prides itself on its secularism and the removal of religious trappings from public life the government seeks to play down the role of religion and the lives of its citizens yet with facebook advertisements that only focused on the area of paris we've seen a 440 percent increase in demand for the correspondence course what can we anticipate i wonder when we roll that program out to the entirety of french-speaking europe shortly we will be advertising literature in both afrikaans and english to the peoples of south africa we pray for similar response levels from both of those programs one thing is clear there appears to be a profound hunger for answers to the problems people face in life we have been entrusted with those answers that we can freely give to all it's an exciting time to be involved in the work of the living god the fields as christ said are still white to harvest and the laborers especially in the foreign language areas are few your prayers for the lord of the harvest to send more laborers into the harvest would be greatly welcomed over to you mr mcnair thank you mr nathan it's exciting to see what's happening in the uk and in france and africa we also have a short video segment from mr rob tyler the regional director of the australasia region talking about some of the growth and and things happening uh in terms of the media there in his area take it away mr tyler thank you mr mcnair and warm face greetings to everyone around the world from your brethren in asia pacific well what a year it's been certainly much has happened in the world but also in the work of god and we're excited to talk about that and to share that with you today certainly covert 19 has had a huge impact on preaching the gospel to the world and we've been thrown many challenges that we never imagined we've been having difficulties with sabbath attendance we've been live streaming we've had international borders completely closed down no travel whatsoever and in and out of lockdowns to the point where some members some congregations have spent more time at home than actually being able to meet in person on the sabbath we're looking like it's coming hopefully to an end soon but we just have to wait and see with that in the meantime the work of god the gospel must go out and uh it doesn't stop brethren we have a job to do um but with the bad news there's there is lots of good news as well and that's what we want to talk about today so i just want to share with you a few things that have happened in the past year but perhaps the most exciting of developments throughout the year and i guess not just here in the asia pacific but also around the world is the use of of facebook to help get the gospel out and through the ads that we've been creating uh we've had incredible responses one of the challenges though in this part of the world is in some countries it's actually illegal to proselytize to a muslim community what facebook allows us to do is to target certain demographics christian communities within within uh muslim communities within muslim countries so that we don't cause out any problems we certainly want to keep the ministry and the members safe in some of those countries so we can target christians in in muslim communities in muslim nations we can target say in japan for example which is primarily shinto and buddhist we can actually target english speakers who are using facebook and just really zero in on that demographic and it's quite exciting to see the responses additionally facebook has allowed us to get into some island nations in the pacific uh in areas that we've never been able to get to for decades islands like fiji and samoa and tonga the solomon islands and we're also advertising in new caledonia in singapore and as i mentioned in japan so how fa how effective is facebook well to give you an example of how effective facebook is six weeks ago we had 18 subscribers uh in fiji after four weeks of facebook ads we now have over 450 subscribers in just four weeks so if there's a problem with facebook the problem is dealing and keeping up with all the requests that are coming in our regional offices and regional office managers have been calling an email saying please we don't have enough booklets we've run out of booklets what do you want us to do it's a good problem to have but we even had to pause some of our facebook ad campaigns in order to allow to allow our offices to catch up with all the work certainly facebook has been a wonderful tool a wonderful door that god has opened up for us to do the work in this part of the world finally just want to share with you some another exciting development and that is language translations that we've been able to do this year we've translated the bible fact or fiction in urdu which is the official language for pakistan and we've also translated the beast of revelation in this lama which would be a great help for our members in vanuatu we're also been translating many booklets and articles in the thai language and so we're very excited to be able to present the truth of god to people in their own languages some of the sometimes for the very first time people have been able to read the truth in their own tongue and that's a wonderful thing to be able to offer to people brethren here in the asia pacific we are just scratching the surface there are billions of people in this part of the world now christ said that the gospel of the kingdom of god will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations and then the end will come brethren if we don't do it who will i can confidently say that god's people in this region are excited by the growth excited by the opportunities and excited by the blessings that we have received this year but we are equally excited to see what is next what doors god will open up to us in the coming months and years ahead brethren have a wonderful inspiring feast of tabernacles wherever you are may god bless you all back to you mr mcnair thank you mr tyler for those very interesting and exciting updates it's nice to see what's happening in in such a big area of the earth speaking about the bible study course which mr nathan was mentioning a little bit ago there have been some new developments new ideas on packaging the bible study course could you describe what we're doing now sure uh mr weston had talked about trying to update the look and feel of the bible study course the content is evergreen mr john gwen did a marvelous job in terms of those 24 lessons anyone who has not been through the bible study course needs to go through the bible study course but in terms of the look and feel time had really moved on we've even had old copies where there was the old logo to the magazine we were advertising even some channels we're not on anymore in the back of some of them so first uh mr john robinson led the way in terms of making it look more up to date we presented different kinds of looks to it and and executives liked what they saw we went in that direction but then also we're trying to figure out how do we get people through the bible study course more quickly if not more quickly but more solidly so they don't just drop off and i know mr weston had an idea of taking the first four lessons and thinking well maybe that's too burdensome to receive all four at once so we've split off the first lesson so now when someone subscribes to the bible study course they get the first lesson only and then if they go through that when it's nice it's small it's an opportunity to get a success real quickly then they can request lessons two through four it's a bit of an experiment we don't we don't know if it's going to be successful or not i think being able to test and try these different ideas you know different ideas we think hey maybe this can work and this goes beyond just even the bible study course i mean we do it we do it online we do it in a lot of different ways you know we actually even through the telecast trying to do what we call you know what's called a b testing right so trying this here and trying this here and saying hey what works better you know one example of something that that didn't work well was you know we think about the order form of people ordering literature for example originally i think we had all of the options of to order every piece of literature on there and and this creates maybe friction and and i don't know but maybe confusion or just various issues that come up from that right well mr weston said well let's make a single item order form and so we made that single item order form just so that when person goes to order that one thing they get that one thing and they're not offered every piece of literature that we have and it doubled the number of people who get that you know so anyways that's i think an example of something that worked and the idea of a b testing which is great we now are going to go to a short video from mr mario hernandez where he will describe how one problem with the print media and getting the magazine into the spanish-speaking world has turned into a solution roll it now mr hernandez the living church of god has been preaching the good news of the coming kingdom of god in the spanish language for 26 years the true gospel of jesus christ has been heard watched or read through our telecasts magazines booklets and bible course by people who understand spanish in 200 countries the fruit of this work is reflected in a figure of almost 700 members and attendants present in 34 congregations in 19 different nations since its inception to this day the preaching of the good news of the world tomorrow in spanish through youtube has received over 50 million visits this channel has over 350 000 subscribers to our telecast the tremendous results god has provided to his work fill us with zeal and courage to press on towards the fulfillment of the great commission entrusted by christ to his church go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature nevertheless the chaos generated in the spanish world by the social political and economic crisis aggravated by the coven-19 pandemic has produced a collapse in the male system ninety percent of our subscribers in latin america have been kept from receiving our publications in the last two years as we faced this challenge we knew god would open a door for us to be able to continue to obey his command to preach the good news and make disciples of all the nations mr gerald western our president evangelist has authorized the implementation of a digital project that will coexist with the church printed publications the project includes the development of a new web page and an app fitted for cell phones the name of the project will be tomorrow's world near you we are all aware of the fact that we live in the digital era rivers of information and misinformation run at high speed in the face of thousands of millions of viewers of all ages in the entire world in less than 29 years internet has become an indispensable tool for work and study for news entertainment and social interaction across the world sixty percent of the world population are now users of internet cell phones have greatly contributed to the widespread use of internet practical and easy to use they are carried along by young and adult wherever they go these smart gadgets have the potential to be used to convey a warning for the near future and the great hope of a better world the digital project being implemented at this time in the spanish work of god will use this resource for a righteous goal in a manner that will be educational and pleasant interesting and timely our subscribers will receive vital information for the success in their personal lives and the achievement of their ultimate destiny there will be news presented within a prophetical perspective a spanish version of the successful viewpoint short programs generated in canada will also be available we will present to the public in an agile and dynamic format the spanish version of the tomorrow's world magazine with great visual quality people will be able to share their favorite bible verses and interact in different ways with the content of the application the church youth will contribute with messages and short videos about the numerous challenges they face in their daily lives in order to inspire and motivate a youthful audience in a confused world finally those that will be called to be part of the church of god will be able to approach us in a practical and easy way in concluding we want to mention with gratitude that god has provided people with great talent within the church for the implementation of this project we have already hired five competent church members from different countries in latin america that have committed themselves to the support and completion of this project we are also blessed to have in the team 12 volunteers that with willing hearts have decided to be active contributors in the fulfillment of this project it is truly inspiring to walk together in an unanimous effort through this new door that the eternal has opened for the advancement of the great commission we count on your intercession before jesus christ and our father for their continual guidance in this new initiative we wish all of you a very peaceful and inspiring feast of tabernacles [Music] thank you mr hernandez for that report it really is interesting what is being done it's sort of fascinating what opportunities are coming up as a result of technology mr weston the tv department recently completed a project of a commercial can you describe that and how it's going to be used we want to grow the subscriber base for the tomorrow's world magazine and i say subscriber what we want is is people who actually read it a readership we want a large readership not just a large subscribership but we have to get it into people's hands to find out who once wants that so through the course of time we came up with the idea of doing a television commercial this is not on the telecast itself but a television commercial but it's more than that it we have a 30 second a 60 second and a 90 second commercial and we're starting it right now on the internet advertising the magazine on the internet and we're going to put it on television we're already working on that so we can actually show it so that somebody looks on television watching something and here comes this commercial for the tomorrow's world magazine do you have the feeling our world is going in the wrong direction a very bad direction where can you turn to make sense of a world that is spinning out of control tomorrow's world exposes the truth and reveals the real reasons behind today's news it just brings a piece of mind that i just really need in this time tomorrow's world magazine makes sense of today's chaos looking at history science and current events through the pages of the bible the magazine has been very impactful for me to discern the biblical aspect of what is being said as opposed to a right or a left view and i think that's important and you don't really get that anywhere else the magazine doesn't tell me what to think it guides me to a deeper understanding and for us it's really about the hope the nice thing is that the subscription is free the magazine often asks questions that i've never even thought to ask myself it helps me be a better person it's really nice that we have a magazine that we can trust join over 450 000 loyal readers and enjoy peace of mind knowing what's ahead in times like these we need real answers clarity not confusion and truth instead of lies jesus commands freely you have received freely gift so every subscription is completely free visit twmagazine.org to get yours now [Music] how do you envision this being used mr desimone it has a potential to do well and that's you know what we made some of the decisions to to make the commercial and then you know pay for the air time it's it's not you know inexpensive but it is something that does have a potential to get the magazine to a lot of people for a very low cost a few years ago one new project that was developed was called viewpoint in canada regional director of the canadian area mr stuart wilhovich is now going to describe a little bit about what's happening with viewpoint [Music] warm feast of tabernacles greetings to you all i am very pleased to have been asked to describe the tomorrow's world viewpoint initiative with you a number of years ago staff in our canadian office tried to identify the segments of the population who are able to receive our tomorrow's world television program or print media the evidence available implied that the majority of viewers were an older demographic and already quite interested in religious matters there was a growing portion of canada's population younger and detached from organized religion which we were not reaching with the message of the gospel additionally we found that many canadians were opting out of tv cable subscriptions rather watching media online thus becoming less reachable by traditional television we also recognize that in our society there was a rapidly growing distrust of the bible and the christian religions associated with it since jesus ordered us to preach the gospel unto all creatures we felt an effort was needed to possibly connect with these folks the question was how jonathan riley then our business manager suggested using five-minute videos over the internet given younger populations tend to access internet through handheld devices and are not always prone to watching longer productions this made sense therefore we opted to test if we could reach a population which was between 18 and 44 not overly religious but realized or suspected that life did not start by accident team then developed scripts and recorded and produced videos in several categories history including historical events linked to biblical history social issues which often lead the video to a biblical principle morality science and creation our objective has been to produce videos that are information rich and well researched hoping that viewers will trust viewpoint as an information source one they can share with others and often come back to view again ultimately the goal is to have the viewer connect the name tomorrow's world with that which is an honest and reliable source of interesting information and wisdom there has been a steady growth in viewership since the inception of viewpoint the subscriber base has grown to over thirty thousand which represents just in 2021 a 30 increase over 2020. likewise the total views are over 6.2 million in june 2021 a 35 percent increase over all of 2020. it is interesting that although we only advertise in canada only 45 percent of viewers are canadian with 55 percent coming from over 50 nations worldwide the target audience is as we planned most aged between 18 and 44 and 70 male now that we know we can acquire and retain an audience we are hoping to increase the percentage of our viewers who will then visit the tomorrow's world website view tomorrow's world programs acquire selected church literature and become tomorrow's world subscribers print or online once the english version was developed and successfully tested our french staff began producing a french version called point of view we are pleased to have presenters for the french version from different parts of the french speaking world mr peter lim of australia has done remarkable work translating and then creating chinese subtitles for viewpoint which is to be presented on the church's hong kong website mr lim has also translated all of the bible course lessons nearly all of the church's booklets and numerous magazine articles which are now available and can be promoted through viewpoint and other ads we also understand consideration in some areas is being given to translate viewpoints into spanish german and afrikaans there is much work to be done in this platform to make it a more effective conveyor for the church's message but to date we have been able to engage a substantial number of people who are younger not traditional viewers of tomorrow's world and who are generally not coming from a religious background we do pray that god will guide this effort and its further development so it can be used as a useful tool for those god wishes to call and make a part of this work i'm stuart valhavic for tomorrow's world viewpoint on behalf of our staff we'd like to wish you all an inspiring feast of tabernacles thank you mr wohovich that was interesting because his description in his report was actually done in the style of a viewpoint as well mr weston you were involved in canada in even the inception of viewpoint can you describe to us what are the goals of it and what are the some of the challenges well i think the uh the viewpoint itself gave the the idea of reaching a different audience i actually had nothing to do with it uh this was the brainchild of jonathan reilly our our business manager who has a lot of artistic ability and he was one that came up with the idea it's following on the line of uh prageru for those who are familiar with that particular those shorts that they have but it's proven to be very successful so we got their attention that the challenge is how do we take it from getting the attention of these people to turning them to the gospel and obviously if they like the viewpoint and they go back there and subscribe it's generated a lot of subscriptions then they go back there and they'll see other viewpoints like one on the easter rabbit or easter bunny that mr riley did and showing how it is paganized and then offers the easter booklet mr weston here's another question for you what are go to's can you define what that means and also why is it important that we focus on their development well go-to's are people who have shown some interest in baptism church attendance meeting with other people and so they're very important and how we handle them is important and we've tried to work with our ministry to be very welcoming mr desimone did a bit of a test in how we approach go-to's and sometimes we have the approach of we have to be so careful to to allow anybody to come to services if god is calling somebody we don't want to put roadblocks in front of them we don't want to have an open door as such we want maybe what we call a screen door we there are some really nut cases out there that we don't want coming to our services but at the same time we don't want to put roadblocks in front of normal people who are asking very serious questions and they they may want to learn more about the the living church of god so we have to to approach them properly we have tomorrow's world presentations how would you describe the effectiveness or the importance of our what we call twps well i think they're very important i always try to let the members know that our expectations are reasonable i expect one half to two people to come along as a result of any one given twp but we've introduced the truth to many different people and i think it's so important for our members to recognize that their example not talking about something nutty or getting in their face and grilling them but but just being friendly and warm and welcoming is so important because this is the first time that many of these people have ever met a church of god member sometimes it gets theoretical it's just kind of online and impersonal but when they can come to see a real presenter and uh sometimes i've even a couple times they've even given me money i said well no wait a minute this this is a contribution to the church you know not to me uh but but they are really excited about seeing a person on television or our particular writers for tomorrow's world magazine and then it's so wonderful and inspiring for our church members too and as mr west has said it's very important for our brethren to make them feel warm and welcome to have that very personal person-to-person contact we've talked a lot about things that are going on here in the office in the uk in south africa in the in canada we have offices in australia and the caribbean all over the place but we've also got individual members all over the world who many of them are watching this uh god willing at the feast if you could say one thing to them about their responsibility in this work what would you say i would certainly say to pray for the work to pray for god's guidance to pray for wisdom to pray for boldness and you know we talked before about praying for boldness uh i think in particular for the evangelist that the ones that guide and direct and make those decisions to pray for those things again we talked about we cannot do this by ourself it will not be done by ourselves we have to do our part we've got to plant the seeds we've got to throw out the seeds but we cannot do it by ourselves we need prayers and and i believe entirely and fully and i think we all do believe that those prayers absolutely 100 percent make a difference and i think god can smooth the path for us he can help us avoid troubles you know we talk about experimenting and everything like that all that's great well he can help where those things seem to work out better than they would if we were just doing this by ourself we need the prayers of the brethren we need the prayers for sure mr smith is this just a work going on in adelaide australia in mississauga ontario or is this something that every single person is involved in it absolutely is something every single person is involved in you know mr d small is talking about their prayers definitely their financial contribution is part of what makes it possible as a product of this work i would not be here i was 14 years old i couldn't pay for the magazine i'm still in high school and i didn't have a job at the time i would not have been here if it wasn't for those in the 70s and 80s who are faithfully financially supporting what we do but then beyond that the work really is done inside every congregation like i think i mentioned earlier the brethren take everything we write in the magazine take everything we say on the telecast everything we say in a booklet the brethren are those teachings turned into flesh and bone and when someone walks into that congregation and they shake that first hand and they have that first conversation they're looking to see the things they've just seen in scripture come to life and the work continues in that membership so that's what i would encourage the brethren to do to don't grow weary and well doing that that they're a vital part of everything we do they are in a sense the living breathing ambassador of everything christ has been telling these people through these various media and to to pick up your part of that and to continue with it and to be what those people need mr ames why is it so important that each one of us get involved in the work and and all of these things that we're discussing how does that pertain to every single one of us well of course every individual as dr martha would say is precious in god's sight and so every individual has his or her part but god has given us the responsibilities of supporting the work mr armstrong said so many times he said over these 37 years i've seen that those who grow spiritually are those who have their heart in the work and if we're going to grow spiritually we need to have that that heartfelt concern because you see the world is so terrible our dvd a world gone mad you realize we need god's kingdom and our brethren can pray for that they're supporting us here at headquarters we appreciate so much that support and as mentioned they are ambassadors for christ as well but they need to seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and realize yes we are the light of the world we are the salt of the earth uh christianity is a way of life it's a way of giving and as long as we reflect that light we reflect jesus christ we're projecting the fruits of the spirit love joy peace long suffering etc then we will be the ones who will have an influence on those who are coming into the congregation and influence to our family and friends and relatives and eventually of course those who've been uh our relatives who will be in the white throne judgment what we do now has lasting effects even beyond this world and beyond the today's world so we need to just keep seeking the kingdom of god first and loving one another and supporting the work mr weston as as we wrap this up and as you think about all of us worldwide around the world what can we individually do to move the work forward i think a good starting place is to take the the phrases that we use for example taking the gospel to the world giving the ezekiel warning message we need to take those as more than simple statements we have the ability to memorize something but once we memorize something for example john 3 16 i point that out in in that booklet once we memorize the verse we can kind of check that off as okay i've got this without going back and actually looking at what that verse means and so when we say take the gospel of the world or to warn the world of what is to come we have to recognize that that has to be translated into actual actions and it has to be a part of our our very being where that is the reason for our existence too much of the time people i think historically in the past have not appreciated that calling that god has given us and they have taken the approach of this is about my personal salvation and as mr ames was expressing there mr armstrong recognized the need to do the work mr meredith recognized the need to do the work when he started the global church of god he immediately began doing the work preaching the gospel to the world warning the world of what was to happen so these have to be more than simple mantras that we use or simple expressions that we can i can say it now i can check it off but what does that mean and i hope that we've been able to do that in this presentation to be able to give a feeling for what we are really about here well thank you mr weston thank you mr ames mr d simone mr smith for taking the time today to to join us for this discussion it's been fascinating and i hope it has been interesting to all of you and uh we just want to wish you all a fantastic rest of the feast as you have seen we we have a fantastic opportunity to be a part of god's work today there's a lot of work to do we can't do it by ourselves as we've been talking about here but there's so many new opportunities and new avenues that it is exciting to to think about what's ahead of us so thank you for your heartfelt support thank you for your dedication and god's work thank you for all that everyone is contributing as we heard the gentleman here speak just a moment ago as we prepare for this world to receive christ and for him to reign on this earth we we pray for that day and we accomplish the work and pray for that god would accomplish the work through us so have a wonderful rest of the feast of tabernacles and an inspiring last great day you

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Length: 72min 37sec (4357 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021