005 Aug 10th My Email to Stephen
Dear bro. Genusa,
Greetings in Christ our Lord,
I am very happy that you are going to undertake this. I am excited to see where this exercise takes us. Perhaps you were quite blessed that you had someone to explain to you how the writings in the Fellowship Booklet are harmonious with the practices of Central. I have never had anyone do that for me. I can't remember the Central brother who even has mentioned it to me. I am quite anxious to see what it is that persuaded you, that has escaped me.
I am visiting my mother in California, right now, as she is quite sick with a cancer. She is sis. Themla Phillips of the Santa Barbara, Central meeting. The reason I bring this up is that I do not know how much time I will be able to devote to this at this moment, but I will be back in Austin on Tuesday, and will be back to my normal schedule.
Just a little bit about the booklet since I have a little time, and how it came to be. Bro. Julio desired to do something about educating ones concerning the doctrine of fellowship, and I was quite willing to help. What I did was to go through my collection of Berean Magazines, cut out the articles on fellowship, paste them up, and produce it off of a copier in my garage. (I work in copier sales and repair, so it was easy to do.) I sent the copies to bro. Julio, who spiral bound it and distributed it.
I bring this up just to clarify that bro. Julio was not a co-compiler, not did he have any input into the booklet at all. It is entirely my responsibility. Bro. Julio did provided some funding.
I will address the more relevant portions of your last email as time allows this weekend.
And one other quick thing: I'm not writing with the motive you suggest. It matters nothing to me if our correspondance goes beyond our emails, but I have no objection whatsoever, to your posting them, if you feel they will be instructive to others struggling with this question.
I do not remember if I forwarded our last emails or not. I usually won't, even when requested, without asking permission. I rather think I didn't. If I did, it would only have been to bro. Freddie Higham, but as I say, I don't think I did. I will check my email record before I write back, and can be more accurate.
Sincerely,
Jim Phillips
