Co-Worker Letter – July 14, 1981

It’s time to bring you up to date on the most important activity on earth. Here we are into midsummer, 1981. I wrote to you at the beginning of this year that we were starting on perhaps the most important year of God’s Work in these very last days of this world.

We had been two and a half years getting the Work of God and the people of God BACK ON THE TRACK. Now it was time to start moving powerfully as we round the turn coming in on the homestretch. I told you of plans to plunge the Work forward at increased speed this year. For two years God had blest us by not having to borrow at the bank for the first time in years. Our budget was balanced. I urged you to make sacrifices financially, give extra generous offerings besides tithes this year, that we might go on more and more television and radio stations, and otherwise step up our efforts to get this last warning Gospel Message to a dying world. It was to cost more money to do a bigger work.

YOU RESPONDED LOYALLY! Financial income began to increase. We were nearing 30 percent increase once again for the first time in 12 years. I stepped up the recording of TV and radio programs in advance of airing. The new series of programs began producing a far bigger response than previous programs. Since the first of the year the programs have brought in 44,200 new first-time responses, requesting literature. Ten percent of these voluntarily sent in contributions, even though I never ask for contributions on the air.

What a coincidence of TITHING! I don’t mean money, but 10 percent of those who voluntarily send a contribution on first request later become co-workers. And 10 percent of co-workers become members! That is our experience.

Since the first of this year, 3,423 of these first-time responses from new programs, after receiving literature, have requested contact with a minister.

Our experience over 47 years indicates that each new first-time request represents 1,000 who listened, or viewed the program. This would indicate that we have actually reached with Christ’s Message more than 44 MILLION adults in the United States alone since the first of the year – and the number of stations we are on is very small compared to some 12 years ago. And those 44 MILLION are NOT hearing Christ’s true Message on any other program. Our program is as different as day from night.

All this is for the U.S. alone. Increases in Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa are greater than in the U.S. Yet in the U.S., church attendance is up by 4,000 for the year to date!

This is a report on RESULTS of our increased drive ahead for the year to date. It is a stewardship report on how your increased sacrifice and additional offerings have been used, and what they have produced for GOD’S KINGDOM! YOU HAVE BEEN LAYING UP TREASURE IN HEAVEN! Your REWARD will come in the soon-coming Kingdom!

As of the first of this month the income financially for the Work in the U.S. was up some 22 percent – growing once again, after a 12-year drop, toward a 30 percent increase. But in the last 30 days – since we entered the summer months – there has been a significant DROP. Now the month to date shows an increase of only 13.5 percent, and the past five or six weeks has brought the year-to-date increase down to 18.7 percent. THAT IS ALARMING!

We have been adding very powerful and leading TV stations, and plan to add more. BUT UNLESS OUR BRETHREN WILL SACRIFICE FURTHER, THAT MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE. We were, 30 days ago, in the best financial condition ever in the Work. Right now as I write, the situation is ALARMING! I have to ask you to PRAY earnestly, and to sacrifice for the most important operation and activity on earth!

God has been revealing NEW TRUTHS to His Church since the first of the year. So we are growing in TRUTH, as well as in results of the Gospel Work to the world. But are we GROWING SPIRITUALLY, in our own lives? We must PRAY MORE and more earnestly! We must not become weary with well-doing!

Since the first of the year, I have spoken to church-area groups in Seattle, Wash., Big Sandy, Tex., Chicago, Ill., Salem, Ore., Denver, Colo., New York, Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., Cincinnati, Ohio, and Charlotte, N.C. This next Sabbath, God willing, I go to Vancouver, B.C. These services have averaged from more than 2,000 up to virtually 5,000 in attendance. And always I have a special meeting with the ministers of the area and their wives. In May I visited church areas and offices in Australia and New Zealand, speaking to collective church congregations. Next Tuesday I leave for England, Germany and France and the churches there. We shall stop off and I’ll speak to the youths at summer SEP camp at Orr, Minn., on the way, and again at a third camp on the return trip from Europe. I also flew up to Orr to speak to the first of the three summer camps.

So you see I’ve been trying energetically to speed up my personal part and leadership in the Work

God’s Work is really plunging forward! We are in harmony TOGETHER as NEVER BEFORE! Please pray and sacrifice for YOUR part. I know you are 100 percent behind me, as thousands of you have written, and thousands have sent in group signatures of assurances of support. I’m having a special exhibit made for the ground-floor lobby of the Hall of Administration here at headquarters for all of these. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.