Arvin Pirness | The Voice of Zion February 2025 - News & Notes Article --
The activities of February have a strong planning focus. These include developing the 2026 operating plan, joint congregation board meetings in the Northwest and Southwest Mission areas, opening all camps for sign up, and preparing for LLC Winter Services just around the corner.
Amidst all these activities, I often marvel at the wonderful connections to dear brothers and sisters across Zion and the willingness to serve one another. Please consider serving at camps as part of your summer plans. Jesus gave this teaching, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34). The greatest demonstration of this love is serving each other.
Update on LLC Activities
Pastoral
The second Bible translation communication has been distributed to congregations. We have experienced the benefit of these communications and the importance for congregations to visit about this topic.
Service events have been scheduled for 2025 and we look forward to the opportunities to gather and listen to God’s Word. Currently there are around four hundred individual service event requests of ministers in North America coordinated by the Area Mission Committees and LLC Mission Department. In addition to these service event requests, many also serve at camp events and in their home congregations regularly. We want to remember these ministers and their families as these requests usually entail travel away from home and their home congregations.
Our brother Jorma Vuorma of Finland is scheduled to serve in North America from March 5 through April 8. On this trip he will serve in many congregations and at LLC Winter Services in Phoenix and attend the Ministers Camp at Stony Lake Camp.
Mission Work
God continues to bless His work throughout the world; He calls and gathers those who personally desire to believe into His kingdom. As the work expands, we have begun reorganizing our approach to mission work. The reorganized work will include additional volunteers in various teams to support the work that board members, ministers, teachers and others do in their own home areas and congregations. We continue to experience the need for interpretation and translation in numerous languages.
The kingdomofpeace.net webpage and accompanying social media platforms are broadly accessed by people throughout the world. In 2025 there are plans for a regular schedule of broadcasted sermons. Some of the sermons and repentance experiences on this website have been viewed 30–50 million times. The sermon with the most views has been played for the equivalent of 2814 days.
Education
There is an Education Seminar scheduled for February 8, 2025, during Monticello’s Winter Service weekend at the Monticello church. The focus of this workshop is to provide support for local congregations’ Sunday School teachers, Bible Class leaders and others that are asked to teach in their congregations.
2025 Camp Season
Registration for the 2025 camp season was approached in three phases this year, with Confirmation/Pre-Confirmation first, secondly Youth Camps and then for general enrollment. For the most part, registration was relatively smooth; LLC staff meanwhile continues to find ways to improve the registration process for camps.
Silver Springs Pavilion
A Silver Springs building committee has been formed to further plan for the construction of a pavilion at Silver Springs. There are several steps necessary prior to a final decision being made. Next steps include final design, cost estimation and a determination of support.
Communication
Our publications app Hearken is nearly 3 years old! The app has over 2000 subscribers, with a total of over 3000 users who benefit from the new content added weekly as well as the wide variety of previously posted content. Recent efforts to improve usability, especially on Android devices, have yielded promising results. We are continually looking for ways to make the app better and easier to use, and we welcome your feedback and ideas! Send Shanna an email at spirness@llchurch.org
To learn more about Hearken, how it works and how to subscribe, visit www.llchurch.org/hearken
We’ve received a number of inquiries on how or where to purchase audio tracks of LLC recordings, specifically to make cards for Yoto devices. While we don’t directly sell audio tracks on the LLC website, you can purchase and download them on most major digital music platforms, such as Google Music, Apple Music or Amazon.
For the sixth year in a row, the Winter and Summer Services broadcasts will contain a variety of audio programs that will be played during breaks between service blocks. Volunteers have worked diligently to produce many hours of audio content for listeners of all ages! For Winter Services, Radio for Kids segments will focus on happiness. The We Gather Here series will feature Florida, Wyoming, Rolla, N.D, and Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado. We will hear interviews about joy in a series called Joyful Voices, and there will be interviews of LLC staff members about their work. The Hold My Hand series will feature programs on living away from other believers and on different personalities. There will also be discussion of doctrinal topics in the How We Believe segments.
Tune in to Winter Services to hear God’s Word, and keep the broadcast on in between to hear these other programs as well! Here is the planned broadcast schedule:
Thursday, March 13: 6:00–8:30 p.m.
Friday, March 14: 12:00–9:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 15: 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 16: 9:50 a.m.–3:00 p.m.