Saturday, July 28, 2018

Things Church of God Ministers Need To Think About



From a reader here:



THINGS COG MINISTERS NEED TO THINK ABOUT

As a person who spent decades in the Worldwide Church of God, who was pastored under all sorts of COG-type ministers from the more easy going to the tyrannical strict dictator – and a person who also for several decades lived in “the world”, as they call it – I've developed some personal observations that I wish to pen down.

1 .You Are Placing Yourself As Directly Responsible for Human Lives.

Every decision that you make impacts a human life, a marriage, or a family. You are placing it on yourself a family's stability every second of your ministry. Every time you give a mandate, you take their entire emotional stability into your hands.

I grew up in a family that was impacted severely by every decision that a minister made. One decision by a minister could easily cause a domino effect that could change the mood, emotions, events – every aspect of the life of a person or a family. It can't be underestimated what this can do to a person's emotional or spiritual stability as a person. Your simple order to “quit a job” can have consequences that can last a decade. Your order to “stop seeing a person” can have consequences that can last a lifetime, or it could be the best thing to happen to a person. The simplest “correction” could be the very thing that could throw a fragile person over the edge. The control you have over a person is directly proportional to who the person believes that you are. And you ministers in the COG have taught them that you act as a direct representative of God and Jesus Christ. They feel, through your teachings, that disobeying you is the same as disobeying God. That's an extremely heavy responsibility to carry for any person, especially if it was even possible to be true. But it's not a matter of concern, in reality, if it is true or not – it's what they believe. So if it's real or if it's a master deception – the impact is the same, because they're acting on that belief. Therefore, the power you have is nearly god-like, and too many COG pastors let that power go to their heads, directly affecting the entire lives of their congregation. You have them write down every word you say in notes. You issue edicts and orders with lectern-pounding authority. Don't underestimate the power you've convinced them you have – and you are responsible for the decisions you have made on every single life that passes through your congregation – good, or bad. Every moment of depression, every moment of tears, every moment of inner hate, worry, and fear. You've put yourself in a huge position that I would be terrified every second of every day to be in. You've put yourself between a person and God. Too many COG ministers take that with a grain of salt, consumed and drunk with the power and control they've convinced the congregation they have.
2. Most of You are Drunk with Power and Control.
Instead of being a representative of the love of Jesus Christ, too many of you are drunk with the power and the control that you have with people. What's important to you is not so much what happens in the lives of the people you pastor, but how well they listen and obey YOU. It's not so much the impact of what happens in their lives that's the issue – it's how much they listen to what you have to say and do it. Your concern is “who's in charge”, not what your decisions do to people. Your concern is “government”, and sheriff-like authority. Your concern is if they are obedient or disobedient, not what it does to their lives, their families, their everything.
3. These people pay your bills.
How many times do you think about the fact that you are directly supported by your congregation? Putting aside your constant commands to tithe you say are biblical, do you ever take time to consider the fact they these are the people who put food on your table? Who pays your bills? Who pays for the clothes on your children's back, or the car your drive? Does it ever click to you just how much they sacrifice so you can live in the house you live in, or enjoy the life that you have? Do you ever think about the laborer in your congregation who works 12 hours a day in back-breaking work so you can live a posh live as a church pastor? Do you ever think about the plumber or the electrician in their skill? These people pay for you to live the life you have, and yet most of you are more concerned about how much they obey your every word about even their jobs or their life yet you forget if they all decided to get up and walk out, you'd be in a creek without a paddle.

4. You've put yourself in a place of high judgement.

I don't think most of you in COG minister positions take seriously the place you are in. Everything you do in the name of Jesus Christ in the lives of your congregation is being recorded – not just in a legal sense – but in the emotions, the lives, the results, the decisions, the mindset, and the spiritual well-being of every man, women, child, and baby in the congregation. Every time you yell and pound on the lectern, scaring a little baby, to every time you throw someone out your doors for something trivial that causes a break-up of a family or a fight when they get home. To the teenager who is depressed because you don't “get it”. To the dating couple you order to break up. To the chastisement that you give them that causes discouragement, despair, sadness, feelings of failure, loss of confidence – you've set yourself in a place of watching that any person should take with the highest level of humility. Sadly, most are so drunk with the power they yield with rods of iron that the impact they have on lives, and the judgement they bring on themselves is blinded by their love of power and control. How many of your people have you turned from God and Jesus Christ by your ego, your pride, your hubris, and your love of power and control? How many of your people are gone to this day because of the decisions you've made? Have you even tried to bring them back? What would Jesus do? Does it concern you about the place of high judgement you're in, and the impact of human lives that is in your hands every single day?

5. Have you ever put yourself in their shoes before?

Many of you just don't understand what your congregation goes through every day. Many of you came right out of Ambassador College decades ago, and have lived quite the nice life. Maybe you were a Young Ambassador, met your Young Ambassador wife right there in the college, got married, went right to the field, and have lived a life of relative luxury and ease as a pastor, with everyone admiring and looking up to you your whole life. Maybe you just went straight into the field, and never had a real hardship. You've always had everything taken care of – your job, your car, your expenses. You've lived a relatively easy life. But do you, or can you say, that you truly understand the lifelong pressures of the ordinary person in your congregation?

Have you ever woken up worried and scared that your electricity might be shut off because they couldn't afford to pay the bill? Have you ever worked 12 hours a day, worried that one mistake could get you fired? Have you ever not had food on the table, where even buying a 2-liter of soda is a luxury? Have you ever been worried that you would be made fun of going to church because you just don't have the money to buy the clothes that are required of you? Do you understand the pressures and the tension that one of your teens is under? Do you understand what it is like to live in a chronic, lifelong medical condition with constant pain or immobility? 

Have YOU, as a COG pastor, ever looked at a fellow minister, not with admiration, but with fear? That one false thing you say could get you kicked out of the only church you have ever known? Or that one bad thing you do could, in your mind, cost you your very eternal salvation forever and ever? Have you, as a COG pastor, ever understood the pain that is felt when you are wrongly accused – and your pastor will not even listen to you over the word of someone else? Have YOU, as a COG pastor, ever even experienced a tenth of the things one of your members have? Or do you, as a COG pastor, simply brush off their very real concerns and fears and issues as just signs of weakness, or an attitude problem?

Have YOU, as a COG pastor, ever tried to “get rid” of someone because they aren't meeting what you want them to become? Have YOU, as a COG pastor, ever ignored a certain type of person, or treated them like dirt under your feet, because they are different? Or because you just know they aren't paying half or all of their tithe? Have you EVER put yourself in their shoes, or ever had even a little bit of understanding of their everyday issues? Or do you live in a bubble of ignorance because of the easy life that the Church has given you from day one – and just don't get what “their problem is”?

Have YOU, as a COG pastor, ever been so consumed with pride about who you are, that it concerns you? Have you ever walked up to the podium and thought “Oh, look at me, I'm a PASTOR, and I'm walking up to the podium, I'm so blessed...”? Have you ever thought to yourself how good you sound in the PA system when you speak, and hear your own voice? Have you ever yelled in the PA just to hear the power you have over people? Do you ever sit in your chair of power in your home office, with arrogance and cockiness about who you are? Do you ever get enraged when someone doesn't show you the respect you think you deserve, not realizing how hurt that the person might be over something they've never been able to tell you before, because they are afraid you'll kick them out?

Do YOU, as a COG pastor, even care if you hear rumors from your congregation that you might be prideful, arrogant, conceited, stubborn, cold, calloused, power-hungry, or even abusive? Or you dismiss those rumors as simply bitter, angry people who have attitude problems and don't have the proper attitude toward government? Are you more protective over your power than you are over their concerns? Is your love of your paycheck of more concern than their impressions of who you are, and the way they think and feel about you? Does it even concern you that they feel bound to go to your church, not because of any type of spiritual nurturing and food they get from you, but simply because they have to because they feel it's the only way they have to worship God, but inwardly know that you are thought of as corrupt, hard, and even maybe anti-Christ? Does that even matter to you? It should.

You are a pastor. You are occupying a place between them and God. Your congregations look to you on a level that is far higher than any pastor of a mainstream church normally has. They look at you as their intermediary between them and God. And it is no secret that many in the COG's right now, at this moment, are frustrated, discouraged, depressed, disheartened, sad, and in despair because they are not being spiritually nurtured or fed in their congregations. They can see your power-hungry, dictatorial, out-of-touch ways. Yet they feel if they say anything at all, they'll be summarily dismissed, or thrown to the curb because you do not understand them, nor do you listen to them. You are a pastor. Yet most of you don't act like it. You sit there, collect your paychecks, without regard of the immensity of your position or of your job. You are supposed to represent Jesus Christ. Most of you do not.

I'm speaking out for those who can't. I don't have those concerns they have – my security is in Christ, not in any man. You will likely dismiss everything I have said here. That's your prerogative. But you cannot ever say you have not been told. It's being told right here. Stop the corruption. Stop the hubris. Stop the pride. Stop the attitudes. Stop the arrogance. Stop the lack of compassion. Start acting like the role you play – start acting like you know Jesus Christ like you claim you do. Because the way many you act right now makes you look like you are servants of the devil not of God. And that's something that should make you get on your knees, begging for forgiveness.

I can say these things because I don't have to fear your hand of dis-fellowshipment. It's too bad that those frustrated and sad in your churches who endure your heavy hands of spiritual abuse cannot say the same. More than this, I can say these things as a Christian in the spirit of love for those who don't feel they have a voice.
  • A Former Member of WCG, who sees what's happening to the minds and hearts of your congregations.

30 comments:

Byker Bob said...

They won’t think about it. Most of them won’t even read it, and the ones who do will probably dismiss it. It goes against their programming and their dna which laid them susceptible to this programming. The worst of them will probably be thinking to themselves, “Wow! Satan surely IS the accuser of the brethren!” And then, they’ll go out and do more of the same, and worse.

BB

Unknown said...

These people pay your bills....
How many times do you think about the fact that you are directly supported by your congregation? Putting aside your constant commands to tithe you say are biblical, do you ever take time to consider the fact they these are the people who put food on your table

MY COMMENT- The congregant and the servant minister are separated by too many levels of buffering in the classic COG model. As far as I know of, there are no other churches around that collect money on a national level, in one reception spot, and then attempt to remotely control their pastors and pay their pastors from those "HQs".

In healthier churches, the money is collected locally, accounted for locally, and dispersed (and salary paid) under the oversight of an elected board. This system provides the necessary stimuli to the pastor that his "bread and butter" depends on serving the locals, and is a proper "feedback loop" that keeps the system in check.

Seldom is a paid minister in any COG released due to incompetence or lack of due diligence. There is no cleansing system for such, and no legitimate review or oversight from the very "customers" they are supposedly serving.

No, HWA himself was fearful of such an accountability, and created a ministerial hierarchical system that removed any and all, "bottom up" peer review, voting, rating, or right to refusal.

Anonymous said...

TL; DR. At least I don't know of any ACOG minister who would read such a lengthy rant from a member. He would simply judge the member to be in a "bad attitude" and would neglect the too-lengthy litany of complaints.

Instead, may I suggest a much shorter and simpler "thing ACOG ministers need to think about"?

2 Corinthians 1:24 describes the ministers' duty as follows:

Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.

If you are a minister and you are the shepherd of a member who lacks sufficient joy, it is your job to help that member's joy. It is NOT your job to increase the member's subjection to your dominion. Christ assured us that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:27). So, if you are a minister and your flock isn't hearing you, it is because they don't recognize Christ in your words and actions. Remember, brethren are required to imitate their ministers only as those ministers imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). If a minister instead imitates Donald Trump or Glenn Beck, or any other powerful or charismatic human leader, it is no surprise that Spirit-filled brethren will fail to follow those individuals' non-Christlike words and actions.

Think about that, ministers!

"1-EX- sheeple" said...

Amen with a capital A. You've said so it so eloquently. Been UNDER their MISRULE & MORE so I
can truly empathize with so many of us "sheeples". Have a daughter whose 24 year marriage
was dumped down the "crapper" by one such as you describe so well ("PAY common" or it's the
Lake of Fire for you-an in your face LIE). It'll take the rest of my life to ever (IF I ever do) recover from all the (dare I say BS?) I've been infected with. NO amount of tears can
WASH AWAY the grief these so called "ministers of righteousness" have ( & some even knowingly)
have caused. Well said, Brother!

Bufford Tinglewaddle said...

I am always amazed to read comments by people who complain that when people share their stories or ideas that it is "too long." If your attention span is too short or are too lazy to read it then don't! Stop bitching in order to discredit the authors. Stories need to be long since we have all endured decades of abuse at the hands of the ministry and the church. If you want to read short crap then go to Bob Thiel's blog and read it and then comment. Oh, what's that you say, "But I can't comment there!" Exactly!

Anonymous said...

Bufford, please work on your reading comprehension! Anon 5:48 correctly pointed out that the original comments would never get read by a minister, who would simply dismiss them as a rant. You complain that someone who won't read the piece is lazy or has a too-short attention span, but one could just as easily complain that the writer was too lazy to write more concisely. The point is that neither the writer nor the reader is at fault. The point I got from Anon 5:48 is that no minister would care enough about a disgruntled member to read that long piece, however incisive and on-point you and I may find it. And it isn't the minister's laziness or attention span that disincline him from reading it; it is his pre-judgment that if you see a problem you ARE a problem.

Anonymous said...

A pastor who resigned in 1980 showed his last check stub, and I was shocked how little he was paid.
It does not seem like the field ministry was paid that well. There are certain tax benefits for being a minister which I would think helped. Since Dennis was a field minister, maybe he can comment on his "luxurious" lifestyle as a WCG employee.

Hoss said...

In a Bible study, Ron Dart read Matt 23:11, "The greatest among you will be your servant", and commented that he considered that to be the only Biblical instruction on "church governance".

Anonymous said...

I know that many ministers are not going to read this, and will easily dismiss this. This was not the point of the writing. It was something that simply put, needed to be said. It was not about being concise, or being too long, or any other critical opinion from readers and/or ministers. It's out there, and that's all that was needed. Thank you to Gary for allowing the use of his platform.

I also want to state it's not just about the "check stub". For at least a time, they had far more taken care of then just a paycheck. For at least a few years (I don't know the length of time), even utilities were taken care of. The car was owned by the fleet. It was more than just the gross amount of a weekly or biweekly salary. It was all the other perks that went along with it. And there were plenty.

When I said "posh", I didn't mean luxurious. Though SOME of the higher-uppers no doubt did have such a lifestyle. I'm sure those who worked in Pasadena can second this. The point made was simply this: When you go directly from AC to the field as a minister at 22 or 23 without having a lick of life experience to build character or compassion - it's much easier to become a you-know-what then if you had been through the school of hard knocks.

DennisCDiehl said...

"Since Dennis was a field minister, maybe he can comment on his "luxurious" lifestyle as a WCG employee."


It was all very average for me personally. I averaged $28,000 to 32,000 over the later years. My first paycheck in Minneapolis as an assistant to Keith Thomas was $264 for two weeks. That was 1972. Apartments and the basics pretty much took most of it. I "owned" two homes in five moves and both with the aid of my parents and not the church. Moving so much did not make anything profitable. My wife at the time worked in the late 80's to 90's but kept that quiet as it was frowned on. It was necessary with boys going to culinary school which I paid for over ten years.


We did have fleet vehicles for which I paid $50 to 75 a month for to cover personal stuff and also paid personal gas. We lost the cars in the 90's and had to buy our own and still pastor as in the past. I did have a used secondary car so that worked as I was realizing I made a terrible choice when younger with WCG.

I dutifully paid first tithe and the church kept 3rd tithe out of my pay and sent a part in the spring and the rest in the fall. It was about 3-4000 dollars towards the end . I did share a lot of it with members in need as well as did not return any "excess" as I needed the excess to live on in my view.

I did marvel at some ministers who seemed to have plenty of money. Earl Williams in Atlanta had a garage full of expensive radio controlled airplanes like a hanger and a very expensive house. I assume he had other kinds of income. Doug Winnail seemed to have all he needed plus as well when I visited him. Some, I think the in crowd, got "housing subsidies" in addition to pay but I never could or did. I lived where I could afford to live and it was not always easy. I went were I was told and the price for doing that is with me to this day.

I never made more than my dad did at Kodak and all the moving had a nice way of cancelling any benefit to any kind of investment in a home.

Last year or so Joe Tkach Jr and CGI settled out with my sister who was a surviving ministerial widow in the group. Jim Rosenthal was my brother in law and died leaving her his "retirement" which was news to me even existed. When they could no longer or would no longer pay, they settled out for $60,000. Somehow that Jesus who worked a miracle and left Joe with no money as Ron Kelly told me when I asked about retirement, reworked the numbers and performed another miracle for those who hung on. Jim died of a broken heart from all I can tell. She kept her nursing career and credentials from her youth and was doing fine anyway.

DennisCDiehl said...

I guess I have to be careful going over and through all this kind of stuff as it rekindles emotions I can't afford to entertain. I live simply , renting a room in a nice home for about the same a one bedroom rented for in South Carolina. I feel a bit guilty being away from my boys and grand kids in SC but I simply hate that place for many reasons. I grew up in Upstate NY and am no Southern boy. I went there because I was told to. I should have said no and ended it earlier in the game but I would not be here if I had not been there I suppose. I came to Portland to date a really amazing person who survived AC and WCG, and read my writings along the way. I lost my heart to her. We really got along well and I was very hopeful. But it failed and I blame AC/Church and abandonment in past relationships for that in many ways.. I suppose I should not talk about this out of respect for her. I did love her very much. That's how I am. I came 3000 miles and fell 4 short. LOL (he said because there is nothing left to do but say LOL)… or as Buddha is said to have said, "Sometimes in life there is nothing left to do but have a good laugh"

DennisCDiehl said...

Having this experience in Portland, right down the road from the Portland Library where HWA did his "Six months of intensive study", blocks form where GTA was born and the Hinson Baptist Church seems more like Karma Fairy shenanigans to me! I suppose it is a fitting place to come full circle to for me and my WCG experience.

Tessa said...

Great letter. Tithing should have been done only if you had an increase, if it is in fact a law for today. God gave Israelite families homes and farms and flocks He gave them everything they needed and they tithed on their abundance. If you had nine cows born in one year, you didn't tithe. Ten was a titheable amount. We shouldn't have tithed on everything we earned. Many
did not have an abundance and suffered a lot of hardship. The ministers I saw lived it up. It was wrong.

Alllen Dexter said...

You had to be in the "in" group to do well in the WCG. It was an exclusive group as in all fascist organizations, including the Mafia. I often mull over the similarities between the Mob and Worldwide. Nothing has changed in those splinters. They mine their adherents and the top echelon lives in luxury. Others, not so much. They're lucky to barely survive.

Anonymous said...

I appreciate the article, it has taken a lot of thought and effort. But i think it is outdated. A very small percentage of people look at the ministry in that way. As an all knowing pope.
Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack may have followers like that. But they are becoming increasingly thin on the ground.
Heck Gerald Weston has to humiliate himself by admitting his own brethren don't even read their own church publications. What does that tell you? It tells you a lot.

administrator said...

Ron Dart seemed to be one of the very few good ones.

Anonymous said...

Good ole Ron Dart, he did a lot to help the brethren over the years. Both in his sermons and in personal correspondence. He was genuine and 'said it like it was' and the brethren loved him for it.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:59AM, the problem is that Weston and other LCG ministers want followers like that. Weston wants more people like Mike DeSimone, the young HQ minister who more than once told people, "If Dr. Meredith said it, it's as good as if it was written in the Bible."

Anonymous said...

"I appreciate the article, it has taken a lot of thought and effort. But i think it is outdated. A very small percentage of people look at the ministry in that way. As an all knowing pope.
Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack may have followers like that. But they are becoming increasingly thin on the ground. "


Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack indeed do have followers like that. Also, I know for a fact that others simply can not live without taking every life question directly to the minister. It's a lot more than just a minister having "pope-like" powers.It's about a culture of co-dependency and the ability to make decisions stolen.

It's true that none of them - Pack and Flurry included - have the extreme, spell-inducing, trance-like attention-grabbing-power of Herbert Armstrong. You can tell that they are doing everything they can to try - right down to the gestures and the mannerisms - but end up looking ridiculous, like a six-year old trying to do the evening weather forecast. But it does not change the fact that ministerial dependence is still a huge problem.

As much as the intensity of the Severe Herbert Storm Warning that dominated the Church of God for over four decades has waned and weakened - it's still storming out, and for many in the Churches of God, it's still thundering from the pulpit and many are still quivering in the closets. No, it's not as bad as it was under Severe Storm Herbert. But it's still bad. Or this site would not need to be here. And I have no doubt that many ministers STILL carry the same attitudes and dictatorial hands to this day in their local churches - and to this day there are continuing accounts of corruption, deception, and arrogance that pour down the gutters.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:59AM, the problem is that Weston and other LCG ministers want followers like that

Exactly. The current crop of COG ministers is tempered by the internet, failed prophecies, and a generation that is much bolder than the generations prior under HWA. They constantly seek and search for ways to bring back the glory days.

You cannot tell me that if they had the means to do so, the glory days would come back with a vengeance, and so would the increase of the abuses of power. The only thing keeping them down from rapidly becoming what they were is circumstantial.

Anonymous said...

I believe God intervened and splintered the church after HWAs death. The reason is to limit minister abuse. It the oppression becomes too great, a member can leave and join another sliver. The ministers know this, so they pull their punches.

Morally, if a person has to live with the consequences of a decision, that decision belongs to the person, not the minister - an example of swapping.

Anonymous said...

9:24 anon I hear what your saying but I don't see the ministerial dependence as much as you do. I'm sure ministerial dependance is demanded in RCG and PCG groups and is a way of life. But in the rest i see no such dependance. I do not know anyone who takes their everyday life decisions to the ministry.
I'm sure there are many in the ministry who would love to dictate the brethrens everyday life but the brethren have changed in the last 40 years. I know brethren who take not one bit of notice of the political sermons and the church politics and are only interested in worshipping God.

Anonymous said...

"9:24 anon I hear what your saying but I don't see the ministerial dependence as much as you do. I'm sure ministerial dependance is demanded in RCG and PCG groups and is a way of life. But in the rest i see no such dependance. I do not know anyone who takes their everyday life decisions to the ministry."

Okay, then I would assume then, that being disfellowshipped from LCG or UCG or any other COG would then be "no big deal" to the members. I'm also assuming then, that if one does get "disfellowshipped" than all the members still in will ignore the "shunning" process that happens with a marked/disfellowshipped person. The assumption then is that the church has no power at all.

Many times I hear the church person say they would leave if they could. They either have no place to go, or they'd lose their friends - the only friends they've ever known. If there was no ministerial dependence, I just don't see this being an issue. Because something is keeping people in when they want to go.

If someone needs to leave living, why then do they stay?
Is it that they are afraid people will ignore them? That they would lose friends?
It can't be because there's no other Sabbath-oriented COG. There are hundreds.
What is it then that they fear?
If there's no ministerial dependence, then why not go somewhere else?


Is it ministerial dependence or church dependence? Or are they both the same?

I just don't see many of the problems that exist today would exist with people who want to leave but cannot - because if they were not dependent on the minister (or the church) - they'd be up and gone. There's fear of something there that's keeping them in. And that's dependence.



Anonymous said...

Thanks Dennis for sharing your heart felt information here. You are a winner as far as most of us are concerned. Wish this were not such a confidential site so we could all share openly whom we are and then build some additional support. I agree with the article as well for the most part, it seems that this applies more to the ACOGs today than to "all" of the ministers back in the day. Now in the ACOGs they have the retirements that Jr. denied or was planning to deny them. Hirelings as the scripture says. J

Anonymous said...

4:30PM wrote:

Now in the ACOGs they have the retirements that Jr. denied or was planning to deny them.

Which ACOGs have this? In LCG, there is "discretionary" retirement money, usually given to the widows of favored ministers, as ministers are typically given reduced workloads in lieu of retirement as they age and become more frail. That retirement pay, when it comes, is usually 60 percent of what the minister earned while working, and it can be withheld if the retiree displeases the Presiding Evangelist or Director of Church Administration. Just as was the case in WCG, retirement in LCG is contingent on parroting the party line until death.

Anonymous said...

@ anon 9:27 AM

I would also note that members these days are indeed much bolder and especially the younger generation because of the power of this information age. The youth who are old enough to question what they are told no longer have to just believe what they are told. They can look up and learn the real truth of just about anything while sitting in church(I've done it LOL,I actually discovered this site while sitting in church).
Especially when they are old enough to start realizing about failed prophecies they have been hearing about since childhood. Combined with the fact that the laws/rules are so harsh and different compared to how most of society is today it will make them push back even harder. which will of course make the church try to get you in line and lead to that youth leaving as soon as they are able.
Since i left lcg i have been in contact with some friends still i have known since birth and they have been telling me that the youth have been leaving at an alarming rate. One of them actually discovered this site and others like it and left the church.

These churches are soon going to cease to exist once the older generation dies off i honestly believe.

Also id like to just take a second to thank yall for having this site current on events and all the info that has been made available here. This site is literally Saving lives.

Anonymous said...

You changed the debate because you don't really know whats going on amongst the brethren in 2018.

Anonymous said...

" They can look up and learn the real truth of just about anything while sitting in church(I've done it LOL,I actually discovered this site while sitting in church)."

A while back I made a comment about how people sneak on their cell phones during services - I guess I didn't realize how much of an understatement that was, that Banned actually made its way into a COG church service ;)

I can hear it now....

"Thank you (name) for that inspiring special music. Certainly a great piece, certainly good to hear such a beautiful rendition, so thank you very much for that. Before I get to the sermon, I would like to address an issue about people who are using their cell phones during services to look at dissident information....It has come to my attention that a few of you have been attempting to "Fact check" my messages with Google or with that one site so critical of God's Church, even during my sermons, so instead of the sermon I was going to preach, I'm going to preach today on "How God's Truth Became Twisted In The World", and how "That Site" got it all wrong. You know, brethren, we live in truly awful times of great persecution and great hatred of God's Truth in this generation.........."

Anonymous said...

Dennis' comments match what I have been told by several field ministers in WCG. The few that shared a range of salary told me that they never made more than 30K. There were other perks of course (fleet cars and expenses), but those guys were not really raking it in!

Anonymous said...

Anon 433 Get the violins out because the poor WCG ministry were not really raking it in. They were only making 30k. Practically on the breadline eh ?
What about those perks that barely get mentioned here. The fuel allowance, the top of the range fleet cars with the latest mod cons. The Apple Mac laptops, the regional pastors with their church credid cards (with no limit) to treat the poor field ministry during tabernacles.
No second tithe. Not to mention all the church volenteers to weed their drives.