Dear Pacific Union Member:

Some 2,000 years ago, Jesus commissioned His disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations.” In the 34 Pacific Union churches in which I preached in 2006, I found a deep longing to fulfill that Great Commission, finish Christ’s work on earth and hasten His Second Coming. Let me share a few ideas with you that I believe will help realize that outcome.

Be Disciples

First, we must be disciples of the biblical Jesus, emulate His values, proclaim His message, use His methods and adopt His self-sacrificing lifestyle. His message was the good news that God loved undeserving humanity.

Jesus taught the principles of the kingdom in three-and-a-half years of public ministry by healing broken bodies, blessing the children, forgiving sinners and embracing the unworthy. He condescended to become our Sin-Bearer and Savior by atoning for our sins in Gethsemane, on Calvary and in Joseph’s tomb. He has been interceding on our behalf for almost 2,000 years, giving us repentance, forgiveness and assurance.

As His disciples, our message and methods must reflect our Master and be effused with grace. Our entire lives should be dedicated to finishing His work on the earth. Soul-winning must be the lifestyle, the dominating element of our church culture.

Measure Up

Second, we must be willing measure what Jesus values. While we must continue to count baptisms, membership and tithing, I think we must add measures of accessions, retentions, disciples and children’s decisions. The accession rate is a measure of the relationship between membership and baptisms/professions-of-faith. A 10 percent rate would mean that it takes 100 members to win 10 new members. This measure is an indicator of the effectiveness of our soul-winning efforts.

However, it is also imperative that attention be focused on retaining members. In the period from 2001 to 2005, 23,735 Pacific Union members were lost through apostasies and missing. Appalling! By developing a measure of retention we can monitor our efforts to confront this problem.

Discipleship needs to be defined, identified, celebrated, certified, recorded and tracked. In most instances, a newly-baptized member is not yet a disciple. Discipling Small Groups, which are growing in a number of Pacific Union churches, offer exciting possibilities for members to grow into disciples.

Jesus loves children. According to George Barna, Christian researcher and author, children aged 5 to 12 are eight times more receptive to the gospel in that stage of life than at any other time in their lives. Yet they are rarely the intentional focus of evangelistic efforts. The programs now targeted to children must be purposeful in leading children to accept Christ. These decisions need to be celebrated, certified, recorded and tracked, just like adult baptisms. By beginning earlier, we should be able to disciple and retain significantly more of our children.

Launch New Initiatives

Third, we must be willing to launch new initiatives. I have already mentioned four: accession rate, retention rate, discipling small groups and an integrated children’s ministry. Another initiative that offers exciting possibilities is the use of the web as a dynamic communication and management tool. If you have not visited the Pacific Union website recently, I urge you to go to www.puconline.org soon and often.

I look forward to hearing about your exciting new initiatives for the coming year!

Yours for a finished work NOW,

Arnold Trujillo, Vice President

Pacific Union Conference