LCG: Dr. Meredith’s Prayer Request

Dr. Meredith and I in his office (January 2008)

Yesterday’s official LCG announcements began with a prayer request from its presiding evangelist, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith:

Your Prayers are NEEDED!

Dear Fellow Ministers and Brethren,

Our Father in heaven has given us a great deal more growth in the last year or two! We have given you the statistics on this—including a ten percent increase in our average Church attendance here in the United States! We are very grateful for this and thank God for it! Nevertheless, this brings up an obvious need for more co-workers, more members and more ministers to serve the increasing number of brethren and the greater needs of God’s Work overall. Jesus Christ Himself was “moved with compassion” when He saw multitudes all around Him who were confused and lacking true Christian leadership. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).

So our living Head, Jesus Christ, has directly instructed His followers to pray about these very things. Each of us should deeply realize that, now, we really are near the end of an age. We must be absolutely committed to preaching the “Ezekiel Warning” to our peoples, to preach the Good News of Christ’s coming World Government and in preparing a “people for God!”

Therefore, I ask all of you faithful members of God’s Church to join with us here in Charlotte and literally “cry out” to God to provide more co-workers, more members and more ministers to serve the many newer members who are even now beginning to come with us from every direction! God Himself is granting us this growth—and God Himself wants every one of us to be concerned, to be involved and to be active members of the “team” Jesus Christ is using to finish the Work.

So please pray fervently about all these needs! Encourage each other to get involved and specifically pray for the other members and co-workers you may know personally. Ask God—over and over—to open new “doors” for us to reach out to this world while we have the opportunity. And beseech God to bring with us more ministers to serve these people. Most of our new ministry will come up through the ranks from our own membership in the Living Church of God. We are grateful that quite a number of men are already doing this. We encourage all who may be qualified to dedicate themselves to “growing” in every way through the Advanced Leadership Program, the Spokesman Club and other avenues of Christian training—certainly including taking courses from the Living University as God makes possible.

Also, quite a number of “new” ministers may come with us in years to come as various “splits” begin to occur in the other Church of God fellowships. This, in fact, has already happened! Many of you are well acquainted with the fact that our Regional Director for Britain, Europe and parts of Africa, Mr. Rod King, literally jumped “through the hoops” by being—first of all—a minister in Worldwide, later in United, later in David Hulme’s church and—feeling none of them were really “doing the Work”—finally came with us about eight years ago. We did not make him “wait for years” in order to get involved. Within a very few months he was preaching and serving God’s people in Australia. Later, he and his wife were willing to move to Great Britain to head the Work there—as I needed to bring Dr. Douglas Winnail back here to Charlotte to become Director of Church Administration worldwide. A number of other ministers have come to us from other groups—and still more are on the way. So we need to pray fervently that God will bring with us those whom He chooses—without in any way trying to “pressure” other ministers to come with us. Yet, if God guides them to come wholeheartedly—and they sincerely desire to be “part of the Work”—we should try to welcome them warmly and give them every help and encouragement in this transition to a new ministry in the Living Church of God.

All of us need to pray for one another and pray for these new brethren and ministers who may come, and to “reach out” through our loving concern and prayers to help them in every way. As we grow together as a “family” in Christ’s service, He will bless us, empower us and enlarge us a great deal in years to come. So let’s put our hearts in our prayers and do all we can to reach out to these people and to God to make all of this growth possible.

More than ever, God’s Spirit is moving things ahead in the Living Church of God. But we must become filled with zeal and a genuine passion for God as we ask for His extra help, His love and His faith that we may “be strong and carry out great exploits” as Christ leads the way (Daniel 11:32).

LCG has had a fairly strong year or two, despite the world (and the USA’s) economic problems. Both income and attendance have been up, as have responses to its telecast.

An article of possibly related interest may be: There are Many COGs: Why Support the Living Church of God?