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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, August 8, 1980
Page 5
FROM MINISTERIAL SERVICES
January-June 1980 U.S. Church Report
This is the first of what we hope will be a periodic feature in the
Pastor General's Report to keep all of you informed of activities within
the U.S. Churches.
Baptisms: There have been 1,741 baptisms in the U.S. during the first
six months of 1980. This is a 33% increase over the number of baptisms
for the same period in 1979 and brings the level of baptisms back up to
what we had in 1977.
Church Attendance: U.S. Church attendance averaged 70,345 for June.
This is only slightly less than the May figure (70,897) which is the
highest attendance figure we have had since we started averaging the
weekly Church attendances in January 1978.
New Churches: In order to reduce the mileage many of the brethren are
having to drive to attend Sabbath services, the following new churches
have been approved so far this year: Coldwater, Michigan; Mena, Arkansas;
Lake Crystal, Minnesota; Tallahassee, Florida; Bangor, Maine and Portland,
Maine (replacing Augusta); Baker, Oregon; Hazard, Kentucky; Winchester,
West Virginia; Cadillac, Michigan and Yankton, South Dakota.
Public Bible Lectures: Up through June, 106 Public Bible Lectures have
been held in the U.S. We have received attendance reports on 75 of these
with a combined new attendance of 917 for those reporting.
Probably the most successful Bible Lecture held so far this year was
conducted by Earl Williams. The following is a brief report from Earl
on this lecture:
...We were able, with the help of God, to witness to approximately
ninety brand new people. This works out to be a 3.3% response to
our invitation. This past Sabbath (April 19), after the lecture,
we had about 30 of those people to come back for Sabbath services
and two requesting baptism already. We tried one very successful
experiment. What we did was to put 300 attractive brochures in
side newsstand Plain Truths. We also had a three-day spot ad at
the end of the radio broadcast. We feel the lectures were success
ful not only because of the new people who had responded, but it
has also turned on the local membership with renewed zeal and en
thusiasm.
International News
Caribbean Update: The Caribbean office in
_ San Juan, Puerto Rico repo
7
ts
that the mail count for the month of June 1s up 38% over the same period
last year. The amount of mail containing contributions this month was up
50% over last year. And the total income for the Caribbean area is up
4.8% over June of 1979.
Mr. Al Sousa of the San Juan Church has been carrying out a series of
Bible lectures to students of the Spanish correspondence course in the
cities of San Juan, Ponce and Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. The overall response