Wanted: Reader Feedback
The Almighty has not given us an infinite amount of time, money, and resources. That is for our good, because we need to learn to have the character to set our priorities in accordance with His will. I find it increasingly evident that I do not have the ability to do everything that I want to do. I must learn patience, and leave everything in His hands. I also need wise counsel from our readers to help determine which projects we should address first.
Because of the overwhelming number of requests that
Giving & Sharing has received in recent months, inventories of our books
and articles have become a critical problem.
As you know, our “suggested donation” approximately covers our cost of
printing and mailing materials. We make
no profit, and pay no salaries. In over
eighteen years that I have been involved with Giving & Sharing, working
10-20 hours a week or more, I have not taken a penny of personal
remuneration. I work full time as an
accountant. Giving & Sharing is a
labor of love.
In order to take advantage of economies of scale, we
need to reprint our materials in quantities of 1,000 or more. Perfect binding, 8.5 x 11 inch, with a high
quality, glossy laminated cover, is best.
Several items are either out of stock, or nearly so:
Biblical Holy Days has approximately
500 pages. It was issued serially in
1986, and additional articles have been added since then. The ten sections cover the Sabbath,
Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of
Tabernacles, New Moons, Sacred Calendar, and Pagan Holidays. It is perhaps the most comprehensive book on
Biblical Holy Days in existence. To
print 1,000 copies would cost about $8,000, not counting postage from the
printer to our bookstore in Missouri.
To cover the cost of postage and mailing individual copies to
requestors, the suggested donation for a single copy would have to be about
$12.50.
Biblical Law, originally published in
1986, has been updated. It is a
comprehensive analysis of the laws and statutes of the first five books of the
Bible, showing how God’s laws relate to one or more of the Ten
Commandments. The new 1996 laser
printed version is 72 pages. One
thousand copies perfect bound would cost about $2,200 to print.
History of the True Church,
by Andrew N. Dugger and Clarence O. Dodd, was originally published in
1936. This classic history briefly
covers the history of Sabbath-keepers from the first century to the 1930s. Our Church of God view of Church history
comes from this book, which is truly a classic. With the help of a team of typists and proofreaders, we have
retyped the book, and have a camera- ready, laser printed original. It has 116 pages, and would cost about
$3,000 to print 1,000 perfect bound copies.
Biblical Doctrine compares the fundamentals
of belief of many Sabbath-keeping organizations. The 1996 edition has 96 pages, and it would cost about $2,500 to
print 1,000 perfect bound copies.
These books are excellent material for group Bible
study, local evangelism, and international outreach. We would like to reprint these books now, but lack the $15,700 to
print them at this time. Do you have
any ideas? Can you help us? Which book(s) should we print first?
If some are interested in bulk quantities, of 100 or
several hundred, it would help us greatly to keep these books in print. We are requesting a number of individuals
to prepay for bulk quantities. The
printer will ship the books directly to you.
You pay only for the actual cost of printing and postage, the same
amount we pay.
This type of co-operation has recently enabled us to
reprint the exemplary group Bible Study book of the Church of God, Seventh Day,
The Bible Home Instructor.
Originally published about 1920 by Andrew N. Dugger, this comprehensive
compilation of Church of God doctrines has likewise been retyped and laser
printed. Two relatives of the late
Elder Dugger ordered 700 copies at cost, leaving 300 for us to distribute
through Giving & Sharing. They plan
to send 100 copies directly to a Sabbath-keeping church in Kenya, Africa. If these zealous folks had not stepped
forward to work with us, we would have had to pay $9.12 per copy to print 300
copies. As it was, we both shared
savings in the cost of printing 1,000 copies, which was only $3.80 per copy, a
tremendous savings!
If you are interested in helping to keep this material
in print, please call me at 307-686-5191. Please complete the “Reader Survey” contained in this Newsletter.
Another newsletter of merit! We encourage church history lovers to subscribe to Sabbath
History Newsletter, edited and published by Leon Lyell of LaTrobe
University, Melbourne, Australia. I met
this fine gentleman at the Friends of the Sabbath seminar at Sydney, in July,
1996. You will enjoy his interesting,
and well-researched, writing style.
Subscription is $18.00 per year.
Send your order to: Sabbath History, PO Box 206, Bundoora, Victoria
3083, AUSTRALIA.
I have recently been engaged in written and telephone
discussions with Joseph Tkach, Jr., leader of the Worldwide Church of God. This contact, initiated by Mr. Tkach, has
centered on his view of Church history.
Mr. Tkach believes that there has not been a continuous thread of
Sabbath-keepers from the first century to present. In his view, modern Sabbath-keeping churches stem from
seventeenth century British separatists and Puritans.
Of course, Dugger and Dodd’s History of the True
Church gives the lie to this theory.
However, the scholarship of this book has been held up to question. The Bible Sabbath Association has recently
obtained copies of a most remarkable scholarly book which gives a death blow to
Mr. Tkach’s theory that Sabbath-keeping has only a recent history. The Celtic Church in Britain,
a review which follows, demonstrates that for six hundred years the Celtic
Church in the British Isles generally observed the seventh day Sabbath, kept
the quartodeciman Passover, eschewed unclean meats, and avoided a hierarchical
government like that of Rome. Even the
famous “Saint” Patrick, the supposedly “Catholic” patron saint of Ireland, was
a Sabbath-keeper, and was NOT a Roman Catholic!
We encourage you to order this eye-opening book for
$9.00 from The Bible Sabbath Association, 3316 Alberta Drive, Gillette,
WY 82718.
— written by Richard C. Nickels
Giving & Sharing, PO Box 100, Neck City,
MO 64849
Reader
Survey
1.
Please check the “Yes” box below to keep your name on our mailing list.
[ ] YES! Please continue to send the free Giving
& Sharing Newsletter.
[ ] NO, please take my
name off your mailing list.
2. Please give us your
feedback as to which book(s) we should reprint first. Rank the following books according to your preference (1 = high
priority, 4 = lowest priority).
___ Biblical Holy Days ___ Biblical Law
___ History of the True
Church ___ Biblical Doctrine
3. Would you, or your
church group, be interested in pre-paying for bulk copies of a hundred or
several hundred copies of any of the above books? Books will be sent directly from the printer to any address you
specify.
Estimated * Cost does not include postage.
QuantityUnit Cost*Book
______$8.00 Biblical Holy
Days
______$2.20 Biblical Law
______$3.00 History of the
True Church
______$2.50 Biblical
Doctrine
4. Do you own, or know
brethren who own, copying and/or printing equipment? Would you or they be willing to make copies for Giving &
Sharing at cost, for “low volume” (up to 300 copies) print jobs?
[ ] YES, their address and
phone number is:
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
5. Request directly from
me the special items mentioned in this Newsletter:
[ ] The Celtic
Church in Britain (please enclose a donation of at least $9.00, payable
to Bible Sabbath Association)
[ ] Seventh Day
Adventist material, FREE.
6. Are you satisfied with
Giving & Sharing’s service to you?
Please give us suggestions for improvement.
Return to:
Richard C. Nickels, 3316 Alberta Dr, Gillette, WY 82718