The Education Task Force (ETF) of United Church of God met for the first time in face to face meetings in three years. The ETF is composed of Dan Salcedo, Keith Tomes, Randy and Kay Schreiber, John Cafourek, Lewis and Lena VanAusdle, Jim and Sue Kocher and Gary Antion. Our non-ETF-member wives are always welcome to join us and contribute. In addition, Vic and Beverly Kubik, Frank McCrady, Randy Stiver, Darris and Debbie McNeely and Michelle Dean joined the meetings. Jim and Sue Kocher were unable to make the meetings due to illness. Randy Schreiber joined us via WebEx.

The task force is responsible for reviewing, revising, recommending and assessing educational programs for United Church of God. Since most of the members are volunteers from the Church, they are not able to bring the suggestions to fruition. That takes the cooperation of the home office staff to achieve.

Since all education, including ABC, is under the oversight of the president’s office, Mr. Kubik was anxious to learn about what the ETF does. Saturday evening, each person explained to Mr. Kubik and each other the various duties and projects we each oversee to advance the education for the Church. We had a short night of sleep before resuming our meetings at the home office at 9 a.m. The first presentation was made by Mr. Salcedo, who presented material on how to reach an audience effectively as a teacher. This applies to our speakers in Sabbath services, presenters in our seminars and Sabbath school instructors.

Mr. Cafourek discussed briefly the plans for the Feast educational seminars. The festival locations and seminar presenters can be found on page 2.

Mr. McCrady and Mr. and Mrs. Schreiber brought reports of their successful presentations at Marriage Enrichment Workshops. More than 1,000 brethren have been reached by their combined presentations.

There was a brief discussion about improving the Feast youth education booklets. This task has been assigned to Mr. and Mrs. VanAusdle. These had previously been under the oversight of Mr. and Mrs. Kocher, but they have asked to take a more supervisory role for the time being. The Schreibers brought forth an exciting proposal about how we teach our children on Sabbath. It was called the Deuteronomy 6 model. It was well presented and brought an interesting approach to Sabbath instruction. You’ll be reading and hearing more about this in the future.

Finally, Jeff and Julie Brown brought forth their work over the last several years to bring ABC classes online via Moodle. This will eventually be available to the brethren. They, along with their team of volunteers, have put many hours into preparing the test class, general epistles. They are building this from the notes and audio of the class. Initially this will be tested in a very limited way to see how it is received before making it available to the brethren. Be on the lookout for more information in the future. This program will include self-grading tests, resources, and handouts. After the test of this first class, the hope is that we will soon be able to complete more classes for the online format.

The meetings concluded just after 2 p.m., at which point several departed for the airport and their trip home. Thanks to all of the task force members for their efforts to support and add to the education of the brethren in United Church of God. Special thanks go to Barb Antion for all her work to prepare and serve delicious meals to the education task force members. The savings from not eating out are amazing. Prayers for the education task force are appreciated as they complete their roles in this Church-wide endeavor.

Here are two comments from ETF members after returning home.

“Julie and I thank all of you in Cincinnati who had a hand in making the weekend so warm, enjoyable, exciting, and productive. We had simply a marvelous time in your homes, a wonderful Sabbath, and inspiring meetings. It sure helps to see what everyone is doing and it inspires us to push on and continue working on our own little piece of the education puzzle”—Jeff and Julie Brown.

“We were all kept on the task of working together to meet and accomplish the goals of the agenda items. It was apparent that there was a desire to cooperate in working together to bring about unity and consensus throughout the times we met. It certainly was nice to continue to develop our friendship with one another! I felt a positive attitude from each person to do his/her part in helping to create a successful teamwork approach throughout the weekend. I believe that all of us will continue to strive for excellence in future opportunities to work together, as we focus on the Educational Vision of UCG.

What an exciting and profitable weekend!” —Dan Salcedo.