Bob's Notebook

News and thoughts from UCC President, Bob Folkenberg, Jr.

North American Leadership Meeting

Cohutta Springs, GA, February 17, 2010

What a joy it has been to join most of the North American Division Conference Presidents for a working retreat and council here in beautiful Cohutta Springs, GA. I am constantly reminded, at events such as this, that God is leading His church in a wonderful way. Thought we face challenges and setbacks, the Lord is working through committed leaders and Pastors across this Division to preach the Three Angel's Message in preparation to the coming of the Lord.

Pastoral Leadership Meetings

Yakima, WA., February 8, 2010

Once a year, the leadership team at the Upper Columbia Conference meets one-on-one with each of the 85 Pastoral leaders. The interviews take place in Spokane, Wenatchee, Yakima and Walla Walla. I am presently in the midst of these interviews and two themes keep coming out loud and clear:

• The Lord is at work in our churches. His Spirit is equipping the church to move forward boldly for His Kingdom.
• The devil is angry and is doing all he can to distract the church from its vital mission.

I pray daily that the Lord will anoint and baptize His church with His mighty Spirit so that we can press together focus completely on sharing the love of Jesus and His soon coming with those living in the inland northwest.

ShareHim Bootcamp Trains Membership to Share the Life

Lewiston, ID, January 30, 2010

Starting on Friday night 50 lay men and women gathered in the fellowship hall of the Lewiston Seventh-day Adventist Church to learn how they could live a lifestyle focused on mission. Attendees learned how to share their testimony, work together in Outreach Leadership Teams, utilize literature and door-to-door surveys to find Bible Study interests and even how to preach an evangelistic series.

The focus of a ShareHim Bootcamp is to give the church practical tools on how they can share their faith with others. The Lord richly blessed this bootcamp. Others are planned in for the late spring and early fall. If you are interested in attending one of these training weekends, please call Dave Livermore at the Conference office for more information.

Tithe in UCC Affected by Ongoing Recession

Spokane, WA, January 26, 2010

The ongoing recession has affected many in our Conference family. Many members are without work or at times under-employed. This trend has affected giving all across the United States as well as in our own Union and Conference. The North Pacific Union tithe was down from the end of 2008 by 2%. Upper Columbia Conference was down on the year by .42% - less than 1/2%. We are thankful to the Lord for His blessing. The Conference recognizes that though tithe giving is slightly down from last year, more energies and resources need to be put on the front-lines of our work because in times of financial uncertainty, many are willing to turn to God and listen to His voice.

Reminds me of the story of General Ferdinand Foch, who at one point in a particularly bad situation during World War I radiod his central command these memorable words: "Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I attack." This is not the time to fall back. This is the time to press ahead with our mission. To lift Jesus even higher! To boldly share the life!

New Office Update

Spokane, WA, November 5, 2009

The Office Building Committee, set up by the Conference Executive Committee, has been working hard in the plans and development of our new Conference office building. The following has been accomplished to date:

• On July 30, we settled with the insurance company in a very favorable way.
• The committee, with the approval of the Executive Committee has signed a contract with a contractor (Leone & Keeble) and architect (Archetects West) who have been working hard in partnerthip with the committee in developing plans and budgets for the new building.
• Finalized on new site plan and schematic design for building, including elevation plans (see pictures)

The new building will be a little smaller than the previous building. It will have a lot of natural light and space allocation has been carefully studied and assigned. Completion date all depends on the severity of the winters ahead. Worse case scenario states that we should move into our new building in April, 2011.

Please continue to pray for this project, that the final building will serve to positively support the mission of Christ church in the Inland Northwest!

General Conference Annual Council

Silver Springs, MD, October 9-13, 2009

God is certainly working in and through His church! One cannot but stand amazed at how God is moving all around the world to prepare a people to meet the Lord! Three things really jumped out at me during the course of the meetings:

• For the fifth year in a row church growth exceeded one million new members
• Strong emphasis placed on discipleship and the need to do redemptive church membership audits. The South American Division did just this and in the course of last year dropped more 300,000 members. Other world Divisions have been doing the same. The audit is not meant to just arrive at a realistic number of active members; rather it is an attempt to intentionally find and visit all missing members and invite them back to the family.
• ADRA received an award for being the most effective denominational relief and development agency in the world.

Let's continue to pray for the Lord's blessing on His world-wide church!

UCC Pathfinders Hold Jamboree at Sun Lakes

Sun Lakes, WA. September 18-20, 2009

UCC Executive Committee Meets

Spokane, WA. August 18, 2009

The Lord truly blessed the Executive Committee which met today at the Upper Columbia Conference Office. As the body commissioned by the membership at large to lead in the mission of the church in our area, they dealt with some major issues that will help focus our combined attention on the task of taking the Gospel of Christ to our territory in our time. One of the main items that was voted was the new Conference-wide initiative called Won by One. At the heart of this plan is a focus of both our time and resources on calling, equipping and mobilizing our church membership to live an ongoing lifestyle of evangelism. More on this initiative will be presented in the very near future.

A new job description for our Hispanic Coordinator was also voted. The main change was in placing Elder Walter Pintos-Schmidt as an Associate Ministerial Director as well as granting him clear coordinator responsibilities in developing the Hispanic work in the Conference.

Other items were also voted, including new pastoral assignements for various churches.

UCC Well Represented at Oshkosh

Spokane, WA. August 24, 2009

Unbelievable! Awesome! Incredible! These are all words that come to mind to describe what being at Oshkosh was like. When you have over 35,000 Pathfinders plus thousands of support staff all camped in one place; when you have a group of people equal to the population of some respectable-size people all singing and worshiping together. If you have ever been to a GC Session - this was very similar. Clubs were there from dozens of different countries. It was truly a wonderful experience.

The Upper Columbia Conference clubs were well represented. I was so excited and proud to visit with them and note that every morning at 7:30am, all of our clubs gathered together for a combined worship. It set such a wonderful spiritual tone for the whole day and helped bring a sense of cohesion to our clubs as a whole.

The August 27 issue of the Adventist Review is dedicated solely to reporting on this wonderful event.

Wenatchee Hispanic Members Mobilize for the Harvest

East Wenatchee, WA. August 29, 2009

In preperation for their upcoming evangelistic meetings by Elder Alejandro Bullon, the members of the Wenatchee Hispanic church, along with members from Hermiston, Walla Walla and other neighboring church, went out door to door handing out audio CD's of Bullon's sermons and enlisting Bible studies from the surrounding communities. Their goal was to find 300 Bible Study interests.