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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PASTOR GENERAL
April 25, 1985
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:
I am sending to you this letter ahead of the semiannual
letter I send out to all subscribers to The PLAIN TRUTH--several
million of them.
I want to bring you up-to-date on the progress of God's Work
which you are helping us to carry on.
Since the first of the year we have been breaking all
records in responses to the television broadcast. Six times since
the beginning of the year more than SEVENTEEN THOUSAND telephone
calls have come in from a single broadcast. It requires 500
telephone operators each weekend, most of these brethren are
volunteers, to answer those thousands of calls.
I have been working since the first of the year on the new
book Mystery of the Ages. Writing, updating, and re-editing of the
book was completed yesterday, and it is now in the hands of the
printers. Complete copies will be ready, God willing, by or before
the Feast of Tabernacles, and I hope you may obtain your copy at
the Feast. It is the largest, and I believe the most important,
book I have written.
Our ministers are being swamped with calls for counseling
about baptism by prospective new members. This is becoming a
problem, because as Jesus said, the harvest is plenteous, but the
laborers are few. We now have 583 ordained ministers worldwide
serving full time, but they are much overworked. Mr. Tkach says
there is an urgent need for money to put more ministers on the
payroll, but Mr. Neff our treasurer says that either the
co-laborers who supply the money through God's tithes and their
special offerings are too few, or are not sending in enough.
The income percentage increase is not keeping up so far this
year as well as last year.
I have always said that God causes the income to come in
according to how well we please him in our personal and collective
lives. This indicates we need to pray more often and more
fervently, and check up on ourselves as we should have done at
Passover time to see if we are progressing in our Christian lives,
and keeping close enough to God.
I know you will take this to heart and pray urgently.
In deep love, in Jesus' name.
Herbert W. Armstrong