Advancing the Kingdom

As a result of the long holiday weekend I have spent a good deal of time thinking of organizational matters.

The truth is, I feel certain that more people will be attracted to our efforts and one must be prepared for "growth". We are seeing more people joining in every Sabbath.  I am also aware that some of you are not at all involved with what we are doing. I would like to think that all of you are joining us every Sabbath or at least downloading the classes and listening later, but I know that this is not the case. I want to enlist many of you to assist me, since I know that within our small group we have much talent that is waiting to be engaged in something worthwhile.

Since forming Roots of Faith I have had great clarity around what the vision is. What is needed is a "fleshing out" of some of the details.

Here are some things that are foundational to what I see as our "mission" and to our path forward.

The Torah and the prophets must be taught to the world. One of the greatest lies of our age, especially among Christians is that the Torah has been abolished, superseded, etc. I believe that every week, we should be reading aloud the Torah and the prophets. I believe that in doing so, the faith of those who hear will be increased and lives will be changed. I think that this needs to be expanded over what we are currently doing. We need more of the same.

We need to find more ways to share the message of the Hebrew Bible. I would like to figure out a way to share more of the Bible's message.  I think that my weekly teaching is unique and I have much more to share than I am currently doing in my one hour lesson every Saturday. I want to do more teaching since in the cycle of Torah readings I rarely have time to branch out into other very important teachings. I have more to say than 1 class every Saturday allows me to say.

Hebrew studies need to continue. Anne and Stephen McLeod as well as my own teacher Johnny have much to offer in this and many of their students are well beyond basic studies at this point. I would love to see the Hebrew Torah Reading Team become more integrated into what we are doing. I have some ideas here. Perhaps we could put together some nice learning tools. I have already written a vocabulary guide for the top 1,000 words. I would like to see this cleaned up and published for distribution to anyone who wants to learn. I would also like to see this material in the form of flash cards, etc. My goals go beyond what I am writing here, but sharing too much at this point might seem a bit overwhelming and so we will leave it here for now.

Charity and giving to those in need is something that is near and dear to my heart. I have always believed that our generosity and help should flow outwards and not inwards to some coffers or to a leadership that wears nice suits and drives fancy cars. I would like to see the development of a special "committee" that would help us establish a fund of sorts that would be used to provide for those less fortunate within our own community. Quite often various religious groups raise funds for far away places and people within their own gates are in need. I am not sure what this will look like, but I think it is essential. There have been examples where I have been approached by members who have asked me to privately pass along help to another while asking me to withhold from the receiver where the help came from. This is an indication to me that (a) this can work, and (b) that maybe my teaching is getting through to people.

Written publications are needed. We have been blessed with many wonderful truths. I see us with many handsome publications on essentials teachings, from charts of the holy days, to calendars (with holy days, and Torah readings), tracts for lack of a better word on subjects such as the Sabbath, the festivals, the dietary laws, etc. Jeff and Teri Peacock have introduced an idea to me of a monthly magazine published on the web (an E-zine). The content would be in line with our overall mission and would be able to be downloaded and printed by anyone with an internet connection and a printer, or read on line. There would be no publication costs per se and the readership potential would be limited only so far as access to the internet is.

I want to correct misinformation. Rather than engage in picking apart what is wrong I want our materials to focus on teaching what is good and right. I am convinced that our mission is to teach the truth and that in doing so we will provide correction, instruction and direction to those who have been led astray. It is far more effective in my mind than spending our time refuting false teaching. This can be a distraction and the teachings will be less clear.

I want to expand our outreach via the web / Internet. I want to use every opportunity provided by our technological advances to spread truth. This includes a better management of SWW, the social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc). I want us to be at the front edge of this field. Churches are using this media to their advantage. We need to do the same. I have not even begun to use YouTube, but see this as a great opportunity. I am thinking that we should begin to do cyber conferences where people can log in and learn without the expense of travel. I, like many of you enjoy seeing others in the flesh, but there are many that can't afford to make the trip. We have been able to webcast some of our conferences in the past and so this would be an expansion of that.

Musical talent is something that we are blessed with. We have musicians, singers, and songwriters. We need more music that is biblical and doctrinally acceptable. I would love to see albums from our group on iTunes.

As always I want people to be able to learn without money or expense. So far, we have never had to beg for money. If it ever got to that I would close the doors and accept that Yehovah was not with us.

I plan on working on this some more tonight and tomorrow. I would appreciate some help. Does anything that I have said here ring true to any of you?

Within this group is a whole army of talent. Are you doing what you have been gifted to do? Do you have skills and talents that should be used to advance the Kingdom?

I look forward to your responses.

Shalom, Ross