In closing this series of studies, I want to give you a little clearer view of how we carry on the work here at headquarters. Needless to tell you, the General Conference in stated session elects the General Conference Committee, it being understood that there are a number of ex-officio members. Between sessions of the General Conference, the General Conference Committee has full administrative powers. That is made plain in the constitution itself.
We might illustrate the workings of the plan as operative here at headquarters. In some ways a local conference president has more powers than does the president of the General Conference. That may seem rather singular, but it is true. Let me give you an illustration. Here is Brother Moffett, president of the Chesapeake Conference. I suppose, Brother Moffett, if you and the members of your committee wanted to meet at some place in your conference other than at your headquarters in Baltimore, you could have a conference committee meeting, couldn't you? [Brother Moffett: "Yes."] But if I were in New York City and we had thirty or forty members of our General Conference Committee there, I as General Conference president could not call a meeting of the General Conference Committee. On the other hand, if I have seven men present here at headquarters, I can call a meeting and transact business.
You will perhaps wonder why that is, but I think that if you study it, you will see that it is a wise provision. Otherwise, with the large corps of officers we have in different sections of the world, we might have a number of meetings of the General Conference Committee being held here and there at virtually the same time. It is a safeguard laid down in our constitution, that in case a session of the General Conference Committee needs to be held somewhere else than at headquarters, there must be an action taken here beforehand authorizing such a meeting.
With the world-wide extent of our work, you can all see that there must be a vast volume of business constantly coming in for the attention of the Committee. Usually we hold meetings here in this room twice a week for committee sessions, on Monday and Thursday mornings. At times we have matters of such urgency arising that we are obliged to call the committee into special session at once, in order to make decisions. There are several channels through which items of business may come to the committee: from the president, the secretaries, the treasurers, other officers, or an officers' council. From department leaders, also, matters may find their way onto the agenda for the study of the Committee. If any of these brethren feel they have an item that requires the study and attention of the Committee, they have the privilege of going to the secretary and asking that the item be placed on the agenda.
Various Standing Committees
In addition to the work of the General Committee, there are special administrative features that we carry on here for the dispatch of the work. In all departments, we have departmental councils. You will notice in the Year Book, where these departments are listed, that there is often found a departmental council in connection with the department. The departmental secretary and his associates call on this council for advice, and they work out their problems together. In this way they keep their work moving efficiently. We also have special committees to take care of other features of the work. With something like a thousand people on our Sustentation Fund, we find it necessary to have a special standing committee, called the Sustentation Committee, to look after this work. We do not attempt to bring all these matters to the General Committee, for it would be overwhelmed with such a great multitude of details to handle. If, in connection with the work, any of these committees feel the need of special advice and counsel from the full minority committee, they are privileged to ask that such items be placed on the agenda of the General Committee, and these are then given consideration by the whole body.
We also have a standing Appointees' Committee. This committee considers all the calls that come in for workers. For instance, we receive a communication from the Southern African Division asking us to find an evangelist for work among the English-speaking peoples in one of their fields. The Appointees' Committee take this call under consideration and discuss workers who they feel have the necessary qualifications. When they have decided on a name, they bring that name to the General Committee. Action is then taken on the name, and a call goes to the individual through the proper organization. Along with that call go several inquiries. For instance, medical blanks, with the request that the worker and the members of his family have a medical examination. If they pass that examination and send back word accepting the call, all other things being equal, then the secretary advises the Treasury Department to send him means to go forward: And soon he is on his way out to a far corner of the earth.
We have an Insurance Department and an Insurance Committee in this building. At the present time, a large part of the insurance on our denominationally owned institutions in this country is placed by this department, and we have a special committee that deals with that work. These and other standing committees take care of all these details that would otherwise overburden the General Committee.
Periodic Officers' Meetings
To the president's desk there come almost every day a large number of important matters. It may be an air-mail letter across the Pacific from China. It may be a cable from South America. Many of these things require the advice and counsel of the other officers. It is impossible for one individual to make decisions in all the important matters that come up, and so I find the need of calling in my fellow officers to counsel with me. We do this in much the same way as the departmental leaders call their associates to counsel with them. These officers' meetings for counsel are not committee meetings. We do not attempt to settle questions that belong to the General Committee itself.
The General Conference Committee is the executive authority. It is the group or committee to which has been delegated the highest executive authority in this cause. No one, not even the officers, binds the committee in the actions it shall take. The chairman encourages all to express their convictions and opinions. These do not always agree with his own. But it must be recognized that the value of committee counsel is that it helps to develop policies and decisions that are helpful to the cause as a whole. The chairman has no right to expect or demand that his own opinions shall be the sole guide for the committee. No officer can of himself make any promises of financial help to any field. Such help can be given only by the vote of the committee. That same administrative principle would be a good thing to apply all down the line in all our organizations.
We invite all of you to familiarize yourselves with the workings of this office. We would like for you to go around and get acquainted, and know what the Educational Department is doing, the Missionary Volunteer Department, the Home Missionary, and all these others that are functioning here. We would like for you to go down to the Treasury Department, and let them explain to you how they keep in touch in a financial way with the whole world field. You will see that there are many problems confronting the work in various parts of the great field.
To me, it is of very serious importance that this building and the work carried on in it are really a symbol of God's cause throughout the world. While we recognize that this is the center from which this movement is administered, it is but a symbol of a great work that God is carrying on throughout the whole world. From this building radiate the impulses that stimulate the work out to the uttermost parts of the earth. I thought of it the other day. We were sending a cable message to our division council for the China field, in session in Hong Kong. I think you all know something of the discouragements and the distractions that field has had to meet. Some of the brethren over there have wondered whether. the General Conference was going to withdraw from the field. So the other day, right in the midst of that council, we sent them a message telling them that the General Conference proposes to carry on work in China to the very end, and that we were praying for them that they might have strength and courage to carry on.
In our telephone operator's room is a little machine with a special wire that leads directly to the telegraph office, and from there to all the world. That wire is a symbol of the fact that this message is worldwide, and over that wire go out our messages to the world. But above all that, and more than all that, are the spiritual impulses that go out from this place. I want you always to pray that God may grant that every impulse going out from this place to the ends of the earth, will be one of courage, faith, and determination to finish God's work.
What is it that makes all this possible? It is one of those heritages of this movement that is beyond the price of gold in value. It is the Heaven-sent system of order and organization and administration that helps to bind this movement together around the world. Today we see the full development of those basic, fundamental principles that we have been studying about, that through all ages past God has used in directing His work on earth. I believe He has brought them to their fullest development in connection with this advent movement. Let us strive to keep in orderly step with our great Leader Himself. I thank God today for the principles of administration and organization that He in His great wisdom and mercy has imparted to this people, They are a priceless heritage. May God help us all to appreciate them as we should.
