CLEVELAND, TN–The newly elected Executive Council convened September 10-11, 2008 at the Leadership and Communications Center in Cleveland, Tennessee. Dr. Raymond F. Culpepper, the new general overseer, opened the meeting by sharing the vision of the International Executive Committee to lead the denomination in three key priorities: Prayer, the Great Commission and a Quest for Trust.

Church of God World Missions has no missionaries, money, or prayer force outside of the local church. We exist to help every local church fulfill the Great Commission. There are seven particular things that World Missions offers the local church in doing missions:

INDIA — Several church buildings have been burned down and destroyed by a Hindu militant group called the F´Bajrang Dal. Many pastors have been beaten and jailed, including our own Church of God pastors.

By Dr. Jerry McNabb, Assistant Director, Chaplains Commission

The USS Mount Whitney arrived in Poti, Georgia recently with its cargo holds full of humanitarian supplies. Georgia, a sovereign nation which is under attack by another nation, Russia, is suffering from lack of food and supplies to keep its country functioning. It is a Democratic nation that is being threatened by its larger neighbor who wishes it to return to the servitude of their ever increasing socialistic system.

“India is being destroyed,”says K.P.Yohannan, president and founder of Texas- based Gospel for Asia. “What we are seeing is a breakdown of the rule of law, and the Christians are suffering because of it.”

By J. Lee Grady

I’m a big fan of newspapers, but I haven’t enjoyed reading mine lately. The news has been intensely negative for the last few months.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The homeland of newly elected World Missions Assistant Director, Víctor M. Pagán served as host for a service of celebration of the first Hispanic elected by the Church of God International General Assembly on Friday, September 18, 2008.

Four men viewed events in the life of Jesus Christ, each from his own perspective, and wrote about them. These are the gospel accounts we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The book of John is the only one that’s written chronologically, so the random sequences of events found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke make it difficult to get a complete and accurate picture of Jesus’ life.

Lee University welcomed the largest freshman class in its history to campus this fall. Registration closed earlier this month, officially fixing the number of freshman at 848, compared to 788 in 2007.