Hill Announces Theme for International General Assembly
Cleveland, TN—Church of God General Overseer Timothy M. Hill revealed what will be the theme for the International General Assembly of the Church of God later this summer.
Meeting in a joint session with leaders of the International Offices and state overseers on site for a leadership summit, Hill took the morning session to share his heart for the future of the Church of God as, “The Church on Mission.”
Hill peppered his presentation with vital statistics that is reality for all church movements today.
“Each day around the globe, 158,857 men, women and children die,” Hill began. “This includes approximately 66,000 who have never had access to the Gospel. That’s 2,750 people per hour and 49 people per minute who go to their graves without ever hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ! These numbers don’t even count those who have heard the Gospel in their lifetimes but died lost. How would the world respond to the crashing of 264 airplanes and the killing of 66,000 people day after day after day? You can be sure that a massive and strategic coordination of the time, energy and resources of the world’s top aviation experts would be applied in a race to stop such a horrible and unacceptable loss of life.”
“As I dwell on the thoughts of where we’ve been and considering what must be done, it prompts the question: ‘Will What GOT Us Here GET Us There?’”
General Overseer Tim Hill addresses leaders at the International Offices on Monday, January 20, 2020 (click photo to enlarge)
Hill admonished the room of leaders stating, “if we in the Church do not adjust our evangelization paradigms but rather simply continue with our present strategies, the world will only be 83.25% evangelized —in AD 2200! That may seem to some like great progress. But the world population will exceed 9.5 billion by 2050 and will reach nearly 11 billion by 2100. That means, in raw numbers and in consideration of the remaining 3,000 Unreached people groups, the unevangelized population will continue to increase over the next 100 years.”
Hill continued with the research that reveals the rise of Islam that threatens to overtake Christianity in the decades to come.
“Again,” Hill stated. “This prompts the question: ‘Will What GOT Us Here GET Us There?’” He outlined several points that it must bring us to a place where we 1) re-affirm our mission power; 2) re-align our man power; 3) release our media power; 4) re-focus our money power and 5) reclaim our ministry power.
“However,” Hill emphasized, “All the human resources one can gather, all the data, all the brilliance and energy, and all the combined efforts of the millions of believers count for nothing without factoring in the power and authority of God’s Holy Spirit.”
Hill continued his presentation citing points raised at the 2018 General Assembly that involve the review, recalibration, repurposing, and re-acclimating to Great Commission Priority. The series of resolutions and appointed task forces included commitments to:
Doctrinal Affirmation
Visional Actualization
Ministerial Activation
Generational Assimilation
Structural Acclimation
Spiritual Acceleration
“As we have moved through these processes, we have come to understand more clearly that God has indeed raised the Church of God to be the Church on mission and not to allow any Weapons of Mass Distraction rob us of our Kingdom Assignment. It brings us to the place of embracing our calling, our role, our destiny. We are the Church on Mission!”
The announcement was met with applause from the packed room as Hill confirmed he phrase as the theme for the General Assembly, to be held July 21-24, 2020 at the Indianapolis Convention Center.
Hill continued his remarks listing three priorities which we must think and act:
Prayer is Vital
Souls are Eternal
Global Involvement is Essential
“The reality is, what GOT Us Here Won’t GET Us There unless, and until, we embrace the principle of Divine Multiplication. Only when Jesus employed Divine Multiplication, could the insurmountable challenge of feeding five thousand men be met with a little child’s lunch. When He did, a basket lunch became a banquet that fed the multitude. The Church of God must give God our basket, for within it lies the seed of everything needed to reach the world. But it must be multiplied through the touch of the Father’s hand. We must allow the Lord to multiply our sizable membership and participation in the Global harvest today…We must permit the Holy Spirit to maximize the supernatural momentum the church has around the world today and move at ‘the speed of favor’ instead of ‘the speed of labor.’ Approximately 160,000 people are coming to Christ and more than 1,400 new churches are being planted around the world every day! We must play a major role in those evangelistic accomplishments. We must merge synergistic mindsets with others and be willing to cross denominational lines in missional partnerships in order to fulfill the Great Commission. We must magnify strategic models and methods and release ourselves to embrace every one of them that God is using to reap an end-time harvest.”
Hill shared how the Church of God will become “The Church on Mission” with ten summarizing points:
Accelerate Spiritual Renewal Through Prayer and Discipleship
Address Relevant Issues through transparent Communication
Advance Global Church Growth Through New churches, church revitalization and revival
Activate Budget Missionality for Harvest Impact
Achieve Debt Elimination and Release Harvest Resources
Acquire Endowments for Church Planting
Attain Optimum Ministerial Effectiveness through resources training
Assist in Identifying and empowering new generations
Align for International, State and Regional impact
Arrange for Maximum Gospel Delivery
In the weeks and months leading to the General Assembly, the theme and its components will be highlighted in a number of venues, including through the 40-week prayer focus, #wepraycog.
