the upc's annual General Conference begins tomorrow in Long Beach California in this special episode upci general superintendent Dr David K Bernard explains how he prepares for this important event and what he does to unwind once it's over welcome to Apostolic life in the 21st century a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day Believers live out the teachings of the first century church this podcast is part of the Teaching Ministry of Dr David K Bernard Dr Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping Believers apply its message to their daily lives in Apostolic life in
the 21st century Dr Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to Everyday Life the upc's annual General Conference begins tomorrow in Long Beach California and we hope people will tune in and watch we're going to be streaming that on our Facebook page and on our uh the upc's Youtube channel so people can watch those services but anybody who knows anything about General Conference knows that not only is it one of the most important events on our organization's annual calendar but it is an extremely busy week for you not
only are you going to be overseeing the upci I's annual business meeting this week but you're also going to be preaching during the Thursday evening service so my question is can you just give us to start with a brief outline of your responsibilities what will you be doing this week at General Conference well there are many components so I'm I'm the chairman of the General Conference of the general board in the executive board so typically the executive board which is a subset of the general board that handles planning for certain things um that meets usually
on Sunday night so I'll have a Sunday the whole week starts for me with Sunday night meeting the executive board then Monday morning all day Monday and through Tuesday usually ending noon or early afternoon in time for service is the meeting of the general board so the executive board meets three times a year in person the general board meets two times a year in person and these meetings can go quite long at time they will typically go very long uh depending on the business but uh the general conference is the highest governing body of the
upci but it only meets once a year so the general board is Works under so it's the highest body subject to the general conference so the various Ministry um the various plans throughout the year uh the various policies the general board handles that so I will chair the general board we also have a general board banquet on Monday night where we honor the new inductees to the order of the faith which is our recognition for ministers who have contributed uh significantly to the kingdom of God we usually honor some who are deceased and honor some
who are still living uh and then Tuesday night is is the actual official beginning of the conference itself with a service and so we have Services Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday at night Thursday Friday in the day so I while I'm not obligated to be in charge I try to go to everyone to show my support I typically preach Thursday night the annual superintendent's address where I try to cast vision and try to hear from God is what God has for our organization as a whole and uh then Friday is also under the Church administration but
we will usually have one or more other speakers we also have a memorial service that I'm uh that I participate in to honor those who've died within the ministers and Minister spouses who passed away in the past conference year so that right there you're talking about Tuesday Wednesday um two services on Thursday actually three services on Friday so so you know that's seven services that I attend and that I'm preaching in one and have oversight of one and participate significantly in one so that's a full week in and of itself but then Wednesday morning is
the annual business session so that will usually cover most of the day and that's where we have the elections that I'm in charge of except if I if my position is being voted on then I turn that over to an assistant general superintendent but otherwise all the other elections I will conduct the resolutions any resolutions that are presented from the resolution committee then I will chair the discussion and the decisions on those and then Thursday we always have a minister session where we have a special presentation for ministers so I'm uh in charge of choosing
those speakers and and having something will be pertinent relevant to all of our ministers so that's another not exactly a service but an event that I have to plan in then Thursday afternoon we have another meeting of the general board so although they met all day Monday and most of the day Tuesday we have to have one more meeting of the of the general board uh to approve the various allocations of the youth Ministries and the Ladies Ministries they've had their committee meetings during the week but they their plans have to be approved by the
general board um and if there's any business that arises because of the business meeting that the general Board needs to act on uh sometimes there's an office to bill that's appointed so let's say someone gets elected so now there's a vacancy in appointed office that the Journal Board has to approve then then we can take action there and then we have a meeting of the executive board to plan the following year because executive board members are charged with overseeing the district conferences and conducting the elections actually it's the general superintendent's job but we have 58
districts there are many district meetings at the same time I can't go to all 58 so in in real reality the we appoint these 15 members of the executive board including me we assign them so it takes time to play in the calendar assigning all uh those so I have in other words multiple meanings then we have seminars on Thursday and Friday and usually I'm asked to speak uh perhaps one or more uh or to make an appearance uh in one or more and there's an annual military chaplain's banquet where I'm always invited to there
is the uren University um Fellowship that I'm always invited to so uh some sometimes they're held simultaneously so go from one to the other or one year go to one one year go to the other so to summarize all day and all night is pretty much booked um with rare rare hours off and I do also schedule to go visit the exhibits just to see I usually don't have time to go very often but I'll just take one trip through them all just to see what's going on and greet people sometimes the Pentecostal Publishing House
will ask me if I'll do an author signing so if it's a new book uh I may spend an hour just uh signing books for people so basically um almost every hour and then after the service there are various receptions uh I'm invited to so I try to go to some that are strategic but usually leave early and one night we try to have a family dinner with family and friends because this may be a time where we can all get together so that's also very important for me during that time how do you go
about preparing for a week like that considering that you have all these responsibilities and your speaking well my speaking I usually start early in the year praying and planning and hopefully you know in the first half of the year I get the message and then I just spend several months just working on it thinking about it Gathering maybe some testimonies or resources and then probably a month before I try to finalize it and in the last couple of weeks I try to rehearse it in my mind or in my pre thinking so I kind of
know the timing and so forth so that's a you know that's uh spending many hours through most of the Year especially in the months leading up to conference but all the other things that I mentioned I have to um I have to appoint the resolutions committee I have to appoint the Parliamentary committee uh if there are any resolutions coming from the general board we have that meeting in March so really I have to be thinking uh pretty much a few weeks after the conference ends I have to start thinking about the next one but certainly
by January I need to be thinking um are there any resolutions we need to consider any special business uh any appointments because there are a lot of uh positions up for reappointment generally the in many cases it's up to me to initiate or at least it has to come to the executive board or general board so I have to be consulted so I have to be in contact with the various leaders who are making the appointments or making the nominations so really from the first the year I'm thinking about what appointments need to be made
what committees need to be appointed uh what kind of business or resolutions we at least need to be discussing um who's going to speak for the minister session who's going to preach in the slots that are designated for Church administration uh so really that that's an ongoing process in the first half of the year and when general conference is over what do you like to do to unwind and recover from all that well my wife and I developed a plan we usually come early so um and we can usually get designated Suite which is complimentary
because of the conference and if we can get it as soon as Friday night we try to come so that we have a whole day Saturday before business starts Sunday evening and sometimes there might be a committee meeting before that you know the executive committee of the top four leaders or an orientation for new leaders so we're already looking at Sunday as starting to get involved in these meetings so if we can have Saturday off and then the conference ends on Friday night but as you heard uh I'm busy day and night and so we
generally just take Saturday off and we don't try to leave until the following Sunday and then we try to take a week's vacation somewhere it can be different places but um in the last few years most recently our favorite go-to place is South Padre Island which is the very southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border and it's really it's on the Gulf of Mexico it's the only place that has uh Caribbean style beaches in Texas so that's a place where we can relax we can get a little place we can actually go out and
be isolated walking and there's a uh place for bird watching it's one of the Premier places in the world because you have tropical birds and semi-tropical and then migrating birds from all over you have you have seabirds and then you have Shore and U Inland bird birds all all converges together some unique species so I like to just do bird watching and photography and walking along the beach and getting out in nature getting totally away from crowds totally away from people and just taking some physical time off reading and spending time with my wife and
eating some good seafood and relaxing because I think it is very important to pace yourself um and uh with all the the work of General Conference I think it's important to take a break so that's what we try to do it's going to be a great conference and it's going to be a well-deserved vacation for you when it's over we pray that God's anointing and blessing and direction will be on the conference thank you for listening to this episode of apostolic life in the 21st century if you enjoy this podcast please take a moment to
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