Record-breaking Growth:

The following are excerpts from Mr. David Pack’s April Brethren/Co-Worker Letter: “Last month, 661 households asked to attend services at a local congregation, the second-highest total we have seen, after January’s 674. Even more important, the Church grew in membership by an absolutely incredible full 6.0 percent in March alone. To appreciate what this means, the growth would annualize at 101.6 percent were this rate to continue for a solid year. We have grown over 14 percent so far in this calendar year!

“Also note that in the first three months of 2011, the Church grew as much numerically as 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 COMBINED! And this is not because the Church declined in any of those previous years. We have grown every year since our beginning, and in all of those early years we averaged over 15 percent growth. It will be exciting and inspiring to see what happens through this year—but maybe even more in the time remaining after that.

“This growth is permitting us to step out in faith and add more fulltime ministers this summer—and then perhaps two or three more by November 1, just in the United States. By September 1, we now plan to also put an Associate Pastor in Sacramento, CA, in or near Gulfport, MS, Boston, MA, and possibly Minneapolis, MN, as well. These would be in addition to Cincinnati, OH, Washington D.C., and Miami, FL, on July 1, and Dallas, TX, on August 1. We also plan to hire our elder in Phoenix, AZ, by September 1. We need to continue to add more shepherds in all corners of the world, and halls in which more and more congregations can meet, for the Church to be able to sustain the kind of marvelous growth we are seeing.

“The above ministers are just one (albeit big) item on our list of needs that have been and are being met. Others include (2) hiring staff in crucial areas of need, (3) an increased budget for local halls, (4) an already significantly bigger advertising budget, (5) a potentially much larger Newsstand Distribution Program beginning in the fall, (6) a bigger literature budget for those who request hardcopies, (7) a larger travel budget that allows ministers, including the Pastor General, to visit congregations in more places and more often, (8) more funds to meet the rising cost of fuel that our ministers need, and (9) we have been able to upgrade our equipment capability in a whole array of areas.

“On our websites, the March total download count was 1,180,565. This number is a record, about 144,000 above our high just two months ago in January 2011, and over 15 percent above last month. And visitors to all three websites rose by about 18 percent from February to March. Consider that our first website was launched in May 2000. In 2004, we reached one million total downloads since that website had launched. Therefore, we did more in just the month of March than in the first four years of RCG’s existence! Even with no additional growth, March would annualize at over 13.9 million downloads.

“The World to Come downloads increased in all categories—videos, MP3s, YouTube videos and daily audios. Interestingly, 590,000 World to Come broadcasts were viewed or heard (again, a record), exactly half of the 1.18 million total downloads. These categories collectively were up 10 percent over February, setting another record.”

We look forward to announcing continued growth in the months ahead!