Raising the Ruins (43 page)

In 2005, the college’s Choral Union gave its first-ever public performance, together with members of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra and professional soloists. On April 10, the 49-member chorus, 28-piece Baroque orchestra and four soloists packed the field house stage to perform Handel’s
Messiah
.

In the fall, we began our fifth year at the college—our first with a full four-year load of courses offered. We accepted 18 students, upping the student body size to 54. And with every student working for the church part-time, student labor was beginning to really flex its muscle. As our chief financial officer, Andrew Locher, explained,

Part of each student’s education comes through the work-study program, which places them in responsible positions in nearly all departments of church operations. The church in turn benefits from quality labor at a very reasonable cost. Altogether, the students combine to equal 25 full-time employees—at a fraction of the cost! The students are rewarded by earning their way through college and graduating without financial obligation to the church. This is truly a win-win situation conceived by Mr. Armstrong for Ambassador College.
²⁶

Yet another program we had raised from the ruins.

Later in 2005, we changed the name of our school to “Herbert W. Armstrong College.” Imperial College
of London
had wanted us to make the change years earlier, so as to avoid any confusion over the name. So we proposed various ways to use “Imperial,” but in a way that would make the name distinctly different, like “Imperial College of Edmond.” After our litigation ended with the
WCG
, however, we considered going in a completely different direction. Herbert W. Armstrong College was a name we almost used when we started the college in 2001, but since we were then embroiled in a lawsuit over Mr. Armstrong’s literature, we didn’t think it would be wise to use his name for our college as well. But by the end of 2005, after winning all that literature, and with our first crop of seniors months away from graduating—changing the name to Herbert W. Armstrong College seemed like a perfect ending to the story of our legal struggle—and what a fitting tribute to Mr. Armstrong’s legacy.

Growth of the Work

In his autobiography, Mr. Armstrong repeatedly said the growth of the work “directly paralleled” the development of the college. He said, “Without the college, the work of thundering Christ’s gospel around the whole world could not have been possible. It could never have gone around the world. It was the development of the college in Pasadena that made possible the growth of the whole gospel work!”
²⁷
The same has been true with our work as we raise up the ruins.

After obtaining all the literature in March of 2003, we saw an immediate need for a multi-purpose facility where we could store huge quantities of literature and process mail. We also wanted to update and expand our
TV
studio in anticipation of offering Mr. Armstrong’s literature on
The Key of David
.
In a matter of months, we completed plans for a 17,400 square-foot Mail Processing Center. Today, the building anchors the northeast corner of the church’s property and can be seen from nearly anywhere on campus. Two thirds of the structure is an enclosed warehouse for all our literature, stored on double-pallet storage racks. Adjacent to the warehouse, under the same roof, are the centers for processing mail and answering calls for the
TV
program. There are also six offices for
MPC
employees. Above the offices, there is a 2,400 square-foot mezzanine, soundproofed and enclosed for our state-of-the-art television studio and editing equipment.

In the spring of 2004, a year after the victory, we began the piecemeal process of moving our headquarters staff from the Waterwood complex out to the 168 acres, beginning with those assigned to work at the
MPC
. We also unveiled plans for a two-story, 22,825 square-foot Hall of Administration to serve as our new headquarters.

Later that year, after we acquired the piano and candelabra from the
WCG
auction, my father took the purchase as God’s signal for us to begin thinking about building an auditorium in the tradition of Ambassador. It would be smaller and less expensive than Ambassador Auditorium, but a beautiful centerpiece on the campus landscape nonetheless. “I do believe … that with God giving us these beautiful furnishings right out of the house of God [Ambassador Auditorium], that He does want us to build an auditorium,” he said just three months before we were scheduled to begin construction on the $3.7 million Hall of Administration.
²⁸
My dad said that because of the urgency of time, we might have to consider building our facilities, not successively, but perhaps concurrently.

In October 2004, during the same week we broke ground on the Hall of Administration, the
Pasadena Star-News
revealed the
WCG
’s plan to move its headquarters operations
off
the Ambassador College campus in Pasadena and onto the “smaller, less expensive trappings of an industrial building” in Glendora, California.
²⁹
Even as Tkachism prepared for its last ruinous act, selling off the formerly great Pasadena headquarters, God showed His mighty hand by raising the ruins in Edmond
—and during the very same week
.

In the summer of 2005, with construction on the Hall of Administration in full swing, we broke ground on a $2 million college building that would provide housing for 34 more students downstairs and serve as an academic center upstairs. Thus, we had two huge structures going up concurrently on campus in 2005, just as my father had indicated might happen.

Meanwhile, the work of the church was experiencing explosive growth. The year the lawsuit ended,
The Key of David
aired weekly on just one station:
WGN
. In March of 2005, two years later, we were on 92 television stations around the world. And with all of Mr. Armstrong’s works printed except his autobiography, we were churning out an average of 45,000 pieces of mail per month (not counting any of our magazines). Perhaps the biggest step forward in 2005, as far as literature is concerned, came in January when we started updating and revising Mr. Armstrong’s Bible correspondence course
.
By the time 2005 ended, we had sent out twice as much mail as in 2004 and had received 50 percent more phone calls from the
TV
program than we had the year before.

In January 2006, exactly 20 years after Mr. Armstrong’s death, all that was left from the pcg operations at the old Waterwood complex moved into the new Hall of Administration. Herbert W. Armstrong College and the church’s headquarters were now completely joined together.

The new administration building—rising 41 feet above the mostly residential countryside—instantly doubled the pcg’s executive office space and made for a tremendous upgrade in quality. Ron Fraser said, “Mr. Armstrong knew that by lifting the tone and quality of environment to the highest possible standard, humans would be inspired to lift themselves to meet that standard.”
³⁰

The 40-office building has several open spaces for numerous cubicles as well as an elegant and spacious library on the ground floor which wraps around the central staircase. Commenting on the building’s breathtaking beauty, my father told members, “Shouldn’t the most wonderful message people could ever hear … come out of a building like that—something that is worthy of God?”
³¹
As with every other structure on campus, the
building itself
is a message—a testament to our work of raising Mr. Armstrong’s ruins. God has raised the ruins so we might give a powerful warning to this dying world.

Our First Graduates

Of course, we will always have our critics. Mr. Armstrong certainly had his share. In 1951, after Mr. Armstrong had labored for four years to get the college off and running, there were some, even in the Worldwide Church of God, who could not see the vision Mr. Armstrong had for the college and the work. Mr. Armstrong wrote,

When God first started Ambassador College, many brethren and co-workers lacked faith. They couldn’t see God’s hand in it. Some felt your pastor’s duty was solely to preach the gospel to the world—not realizing that one man alone can’t do it all!

They had forgotten that Jesus, Peter and Paul surrounded themselves with specially God-called men whom they trained to assist them in their great mission.

Some said, “Why, there isn’t time! It will be four years before the first students graduate, and even then they will still be just youths without maturity or actual experience.” …

But there was, and still is, enough time—though there is not a day to lose. The end of this age can’t come until this very gospel of the kingdom has been preached and published in all the world as a witness to all nations (Matt. 24:3, 14).
³²

This had been his lifelong approach: preach God’s message to the largest audience possible while surrounding himself with specially called individuals he could train in order for the work to expand further. Mr. Armstrong went on to explain how Ambassador’s first graduates were already having a strong impact on the work after only four years.

The same has been true of our work. We had 13 seniors graduate from Herbert W. Armstrong College in May 2006. And from that group, nine were hired by the church. Three of them were given positions in Editorial, two in Mail Processing, and one each in the business office, Information Technology, the call center and college administration. With only 66 full-time employees working at headquarters, that nine of them are ac graduates is remarkable when you consider that we have only had one senior class to this point.

And even as the college facilitates a more expansive work, we continue upgrading and expanding the college itself. With the completion of the new dormitory/academic center in July 2006, we doubled our classroom space and have enough accommodations on campus for about 90 students. So we have room for growth—and we will certainly need it.

Viewer response to
The Key of David
in 2006 increased by 45 percent over 2005. And with more people being exposed to our literature, it follows that more have requested contact with our ministers. In 2006, ministerial visit requests jumped 80 percent over the previous year.

We also re-launched the public appearance campaigns in 2006 (our first series occurred in the late 1990s).
Public lectures,radio and television broadcasts
and
printed matter
were all part of Mr. Armstrong’s “three-point” plan—the strategy he employed for preaching the gospel message to the largest audience possible. It was yet another of the ruins we have been able to raise up. In describing the initiative to our members on May 6, 2006, my father called it a “new phase” for our work. He explained how Christ’s commission in Matthew 10:23 was actually intended for the Philadelphia Church of God and that we wouldn’t be able to cover all the “cities of Israel” before the return of Jesus Christ. In the first phase of the campaign, from July to September, my father visited Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, New York and Portland.

During this same time period, our architects put the finishing touches on the drawings for the $15 million, 800-seat auditorium we intend to build and dedicate to our great God. We hope to break ground on God’s house in 2007.

The Road Ahead

As I look out my window across campus from my second-floor office in the Hall of Administration, I sit here in absolute awe of
WHAT
G
OD HAS DONE
. To think that all of this started 16 years ago with a Worldwide Church of God minister who was fired and excommunicated, offered no severance pay or pension and then laughed to scorn within the circle of Tkachism for simply believing and teaching what he had always been taught.

That’s what God had to work with at the start of raising these ruins—
that,
AND FAITH
.

Even today, in viewing what God has raised up
already
through a relatively small church with a modest annual income of $14 million or so, the numbers just don’t add up. Yet the work keeps growing and prospering as more doors swing open for us to finish our commission.

Mr. Armstrong introduced one of his books by writing, “No story of fiction ever was so strange, so fascinating, so absorbing, so packed with interest and suspense, as this gripping story .…”
³³
That’s the way I feel about our story. It’s so strange it seems almost unbelievable. And yet, what a fascinating and incredible ride this has been. But we still have a long way to go.

Herbert W. Armstrong died with his mind on reaching the largest audience possible with a message—a commission the Tkaches were dead-set against. They stopped the work and ruined everything God had given Mr. Armstrong
for
the work.

Then God raised it right back up. He began with a small, faith-filled ministry intent on delivering the exact same message Mr. Armstrong did. A few people responded to that message and devoted their lives to support that work. Later, God amplified the message with many of the same tools Mr. Armstrong had used so effectively—radio and television programs, magazines, books and booklets. And when the fledgling work of the Philadelphia Church of God plateaued, God raised up a college to train additional personnel for service in the work—to make it possible for the work to have a worldwide impact. At the same time, God dramatically increased the size of our facilities for doing the work.

Now God has granted us ownership of all that literature
.

It’s as if everything to this point has happened to prepare us for what’s ahead—to make reaching the “largest audience possible,”
possible
. In many ways, to paraphrase the conclusion in
Mystery of the Ages
, it feels like the story is just beginning.