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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
President and Pastor
April 12, 1973
Dear Brethren of God's Church:
I have just received quite a shock. On picking up a
financial report issued by the Financial Affairs Division, I was
horrified to notice that for the month of March there was a loss
of 23%, COMPARED to March of last year, in receipt of the SPECIAL
OFFERINGS for the BUILDING FUND. On checking, I found that
February showed a similar deficit.
That probably is my fault. Now that this outstandingly
magnificent HOUSE FOR GOD is under construction -- more than half
completed -- I guess I assumed you would all continue those very
necessary SPECIAL BUILDING FUND offerings. I overlooked sending
out the STATEMENT OF INTENTION slips. Please forgive me. But
please also try to make up the lost time and serious deficit in
these necessary SPECIAL offerings.
As construction progresses, I myself have come to realize
what I did not, fully, before -- just what a superb, unequalled
edifice this is turning out to be. I simply have not been able,
before, to describe for you its true qualities and beauty.
Of course, it must also serve the functions of auditorium
for God's college at the Headquarters campus. But to us it is
being built primarily as the HOUSE FOR THE NAME OF THE ETERNAL,
OUR GOD. For that reason it must be outstanding -- the finest in
quality and character. Our God is SO GREAT that nothing less than
the finest we can build could properly honor THE GREAT GOD, and be
a monument to His name and His GLORY!
Of course this is not a TEMPLE. It cannot remotely equal
Solomon's great Temple -- either in magnificence, or cost. Some
authorities estimate that it would cost, today, upwards of six
billion DOLLARS to build Solomon's temple. That's SIX THOUSAND
MILLION dollars!
Actually this is a comparatively small auditorium. It
will seat between 1250 and 1300 people. That's only one-third the
seating capacity of the auditorium in Dallas where my son Garner
Ted had his last Personal Appearance last Friday, Saturday and
Sunday nights (every seat full, and hundreds unable to get in).
There was no necessity to build this auditorium larger
than it is. Of course, for Church services, we could fill a
4,000-seat auditorium -- and in a year or two we would even
out-grow that! But for College forums, assemblies and other
functions, our 500 students would look lost in a 4,000-seat
auditorium. And we could not afford a larger one, with the