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RADIO CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
Broadcasting
The WORLD TOMORROW
Publishers of
The PLAIN TRUTH
December 10, 1959
Dear Brethren in Christ:
I have to write you a special letter about a most ALARMING
situation. Frankly I am grieved to the point of suffering over the
situation in God's Church!
Jesus said plainly: "Where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also." Ever since the Feast of Tabernacles, more and more
of you brethren have been neglecting, more and more, the very
necessary SPECIAL offerings for the property and building fund.
Does this mean you have your heart less and less in GOD'S WORK?
We still are obligated to pay the Behlen Manufacturing Co.
$18,000 per month--and there are always other building and property
expenses to be met besides. For example, we now are obligated to
regular monthly payments, for five years, on the 250 steel booth-
cabins on our new housing district at the Festival grounds near
Gladewater, Texas. The two new sanitary buildings in this new
district have had to be paid for on a 90-day basis--the last
payment now due. It became necessary this year to pave our
entrance and drive-way into the grounds--and that was a few
thousand dollars, to be met during these few immediate months. All
told, God's Church NEEDS, and must PAY out, about $25,000 per month
on these building operations.
And yet, as I look at the report from our business office of
last week's income, I find that our brethren--God's own people on
earth--sent in only $1,938.76 for this building fund for last week.
That is only at the rate of about $8,000 for the month--and we have
to pay the Behlen company, alone, $10,000 more than that!
This means we are now having to take more than half of these
necessary expenditures out of THE GOSPEL WORK. I am not going to
allow God's Church to default or get behind on these payments, as
long as God makes possible a way to avoid it. But these
expenditures ought not to take away from the preaching of the
Gospel to the world! These needs are FOR THE CHURCH ALONE. We
ought to meet our own needs entirely outside of tithes and
offerings for spreading the Gospel!
Brethren, there is a mighty, heavy load on my shoulders, and
I need your prayers and your encouragement--but it is truly
discouraging when so many of our brethren become so careless, or
neglectful, or lukewarm in their zeal for God's work that the