One thing I won’t miss about serving on the United Church of God Council of Elders are the teleconferences.

Conducting a teleconference with fellows living on three continents presents a bit of scheduling challenge. Because of the time difference involved between various time zones in North America, Europe and Australia, someone will wind up being inconvenienced. During my nearly 18 months on the Council of Elders, teleconferences began at 5 p.m. Eastern time in the United States. There is a six hour difference between Cincinnati and Germany, so that meant that I had to be on the line at 11 p.m. and our Australian member was on the line early in the morning. Since no teleconference I participated in from Europe ended in less than an hour, that meant that my participation ended after midnight (in one case it was nearly 2 a.m. by the time the teleconference was over). If you aren’t going anywhere the next morning, that would not be a problem. However, on one occasion I already had a trip scheduled the next morning that I could not postpone, so it meant a very short night’s rest. That is history now, which I have to admit I won’t miss.