Co-Worker Letter – January 1986
WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PASTOR GENERAL
January 1986
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers:
Once again the time has come to send each of you your receipt for tithes and offerings – for 1985.
I want you to realize the magnitude of the accomplishments you have helped make possible this past year – yet I wonder if it is humanly possible to comprehend just how great is the work the living Christ is accomplishing through our combined efforts and sacrifice under him and through the boundless power of the great God in heaven.
We are humanly inclined to judge by what we can see physically. What we see physically is a small church body on earth. Yet what we should see spiritually is something so stupendous as to defy any comparison, so colossal above all that has been accomplished by all the combined efforts of the large churches of this world. Spiritually it is a gigantic worldwide accomplishment compared to no spiritual accomplishment whatever.
Jesus Christ sent forth the first apostles to the small world of that day centered around the Mediterranean Sea. In 20 years there was violent controversy over whether the gospel to be proclaimed was a gospel ABOUT Christ, or the gospel OF Christ. For nearly 1,900 years Christ’s Gospel of the Kingdom of God was thereafter NOT PROCLAIMED to the world. But Jesus had said, “THIS gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto ALL NATIONS, and then shall the end [of this world] come.”
The tithes and offerings of this small church began the work of proclaiming 1,900 years later the Gospel of the Kingdom – the only true Gospel – throughout Europe after it had gone forth for 19 years over the United States and Canada.
It is now true that this Gospel has been proclaimed within EVERY NATION ON EARTH BY THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD.
NO OTHER CHURCH has proclaimed THIS true Gospel at all!
Following are current worldwide figures you should know for the year 1985.
- Seventy-four million PLAIN TRUTH magazines were either mailed to subscribers or distributed through newsstands.
- Seven million GOOD NEWS issues were sent out.
- Two million YOUTH 85 magazines went to young and old alike.
- Six million booklets, books and reprint articles were mailed upon request.
- More than one million Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course lessons were sent to students.
- Our Mail Processing Center received more than one million phone calls, mostly in response to the WORLD TOMORROW program on television.
- Our offices around the world received more than 10 million letters from subscribers responding to the work of the Church.
What tremendous accomplishments your tithes and offerings have made possible in 1985. Now let’s keep it up in 1986!
With love and gratitude, in Jesus’ name,
Herbert W. Armstrong
