Announcements for October 8, 2011

Next Weekly Update. Due to the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day, we will be sending out the next Weekly Update on Thursday, Oct. 27.

Submitted by Ministerial Services

Hymnal distribution at the Feast of Tabernacles. The new Church of God, a Worldwide Association, hymnal will be distributed at the Feast! A great deal of God’s intervention and blessing has been evident throughout the process. A dedicated team of volunteers from six states has worked tirelessly to make this hymnal a reality. Many, many long days have been given—and many hours of sleep have been sacrificed—to bring this gift to God and the brethren.

Unfortunately, due to the extremely tight production schedule, we are unable to provide hymnals to our international sites at this time; but we will be providing them as soon as possible after the Feast of Tabernacles. We will make electronic copies available for international sites along with a slide presentation that can be used to display the words on a big screen.

Important: These congregational hymnals will not be opened and used at the Feast sites. Only personal hymnals and projection of lyrics will be used during the Feast. It would be too difficult to attempt to open, distribute, break in, use, then collect, rebox and redistribute these copies to get them back to the local church areas. These congregational copies will be shipped to the Festival sites, left in their cases and carried by volunteers back to the local congregations to be used there.

Distribution plan—personal copies. An orderly plan for distributing free copies of the personal hymnal has been established. Pastors have been asked to print and distribute a Personal Hymnal Voucher to each head-of-household in their congregations. Pastors received a PDF file in order to print the Personal Hymnal Vouchers.

What about those U.S. members traveling internationally or members who are unable to attend the Feast? These members may fill out a voucher from their pastor and then give it to a local member who will be attending a U.S. Feast site. That member will claim their copy for them and bring it back after the Feast.

Those who, for some reason, never received a voucher in their local church or who have forgotten or lost it may come to the booth on the fourth day of the Feast and receive their personal copy (provided there are sufficient hymnals available at the Feast site).

Pianist’s version. We have also printed wire-bound copies for pianists and song leaders. We have calculated our printing of these copies assuming we will have an average of three song leaders and two pianists per congregation for a total of 500 copies. Pastors have been polled to see how many copies they feel they need to adequately serve the brethren. These copies will be sent back to the local areas via the volunteers that are carrying the congregational copies.

Donations to offset cost. The administration has approved the accepting of donations to offset the cost of developing our hymnal. Feast coordinators will be asked to prepare to accept donations at the Hymnal Donation Booth and/or the Information Table during the Feast. We recommend collecting donations every day except the Sabbath and holy days.

Summary. With a good dose of organization and cooperation, the hymnal distribution should go very smoothly. It will be a great boost to the members and a great joy to sing praises to God from our own hymnal at the Feast of Tabernacles!

Submitted by Dave Myers

Feast webcast. This year we will be webcasting services live from three U.S. Feast sites—in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones. The webcasts will be available from the www.cogwa.tv website. A link to that site will also be prominently posted on the Feast website (http://feast.cogwa.org).

The Feast webcast page will display audio, video and replay icons for all three sites that are webcasting. All sites will use the same password, and replays will be available for each site for seven days. We do not want to post the password, as that negates the reason for using a password. However, the password has been sent to all pastors, so check with your pastor if you will need to watch a webcast of services.

In addition, there will be a phone hookup to the St. Augustine, Florida, site (Eastern Daylight Time). It is not a toll-free call, but it will allow those without Internet access an option to listen. Your pastor has those details as well. We will also be posting sermons from two U.S. Feast sites on the Feast website during the Feast. Then after the Feast we plan to post sermons from all U.S. Feast sites, making the Feast website a useful resource for messages.

Submitted by Ministerial Services

Donation tax deduction for those traveling outside the U.S. for the Feast. Several have asked about obtaining a tax deduction for their holy day offerings if they are traveling outside the U.S. for the Feast of Tabernacles. In order to deduct your holy day offering on your U.S. federal income tax return, you will need to either (1) give another family member or friend your offering so that it can be collected at a U.S. Feast site or (2) mail your offering to the donation address in Dallas in advance of the Feast.

We do believe that God expects us to bring an offering with us to the Feast (Deuteronomy 16:16), so we would also encourage you to give an offering in the area where you will be attending. Please remember, though, that any amount given in another country will not be deductible for U.S. income taxes. If you have any questions, please contact Jason Lovelady via email at [email protected].

Submitted by Ministerial Services