Roy Holladay Leslie L. McCullough
Chairman President

Dear Ministers and Brethren,

The Council of Elders will be meeting in Clearwater, Florida, in December to conduct our next face-to-face meetings. We will have committee meetings on Monday and Tuesday, December 3 and 4. Council meetings will begin on Wednesday, December 5, and run through noon Wednesday, December 12.

Your prayers for these meetings are essential to their success. The agenda of the Council meetings is included with this letter to aid you in praying for them. Please ask God to guide these meetings and to grant us, as a collective body, the wisdom to make appropriate decisions. We need your help through prayer in all that we do and thank you in advance for your concern.

Several important items of business will be discussed. We will continue with the process of selecting the president of the United Church of God, an International Association. The Council has selected five men to be interviewed on Monday, December 10. Each candidate will be given 45 minutes to present his answers to questions that have already been formulated by the Council. Members of the Council may also ask any other questions they wish. The actual balloting for the president will take place at the Council meetings in February of 2002.

We have 13 elders from the former Remnant Church of God who are seeking ordination as elders in UCGIA. Also, we have 13 requests for ministerial credentialing from elders associated with the former Church of God, a Christian Fellowship. This is the largest number of ordinations and credentialings that the Council has ever considered at one time. We seek God’s discernment in evaluating these men.

Doug Johnson will be reporting on the Council meetings over the next two weeks and his efforts are greatly appreciated. Doug works late many nights composing the reports. We wish to thank him for his hard work and service to the Church.

The members of the Council look forward to speaking in many of the Florida and Georgia church congregations during our visit to Florida. We look forward to meeting with and talking to many of you.