Re: Membership numbers for major WCG remnant groups...Thanks to quite a few of you who messaged me privately with some responses to my questions about membership of current WCG remnant/splinter groups...no one seemed to be sure, though one person put Thiel's Continuing Church of God around 3800.In the meantime I checked with Dixon Cartwright, thinking he might have the best finger on the pulse...here are his guesses--and he emphasizes these are just estimates:
United Church of God An International Association (12K)The Church of God a Worldwide Association (9K)The Living Church of God (3K)The Philadelphia Church of God (2K)The Restored Church of God (2K)My query was not a theological one (as if "larger" means better) but more a kind of curiosity question, or even along the lines of the sociology of religion--what happens when an "high demand imminent apocalypse group" falls apart...The WCG is one of the dominant examples in American religions, wheras JWs, SDAs, and LDS, despite breakaways and fragments, managed to maintain their core group--which I think the WCG/Grace Communion would have done had they not abandoned and even opposed ALL the major teachings of Mr. Armstrong. If the mother group had continued to strongly teach and advocate the core teachings of "Mystery of the Ages" my guess is they would have adjusted to failed prophecy but continued to grow strongly with a sharp and unique message.
Note: Tabor's numbers for LCG are wrong above.I think this is a kind of new phenomenon in the history of most American apocalyptic movements. They shift and change but usually maintain the core or essence of their founders (Charles Taze Russell, Ellen G. White, Joseph Smith)...
Later COGNews had this:
United Church of God: 12,360 according to Peter Eddington on 26th February 2018.
Church of God a Worldwide Association: approx.11,000 (5,500 in the USA), according to Jim Franks on 29th November 2018.
Continuing Church of God: 3,800 according to Robert Thiel. (Over 3600 are in Africa.)(It should also be noted that Tinfoil Bob's improperly named "continuing" Church of God is the only COG that actually pays most of its members to be part of their group. If we can trust Bawana's church count of 3,800, it means that he is funding 3,600 members in Africa who do not have the funds to send money to his awesome HQ's in Arroyo Grande, CA. From computers to seeds to financial funds, the Great Bawana keeps his church-hopping African members happy, even as they keep demanding more resources from him.)
The LCG, PCG and RCG do not give out numbers, but attendances for all three have been declining significantly.
Living Church of God: 6,000? 9,000 was presumably the attendance when Robert Thiel left LCG to form his own church, and it surely hasn’t sunk to 3,000 today. The only membership loss announced publicly was the transfer of the Geneva, Switzerland, congregation to COGWA.
Philadelphia Church of God: 3,500? Stephen Flurry commented a couple of years ago that PCG had levelled out at around 5,000. In 2017 The Philadelphian magazine listed 143 congregations, indicating that 2,000 must be on the low side.
Restored Church of God: 1,000? If it isn’t down to this figure (or lower) now, it surely will be soon – David Pack is continually losing members and ministers – even his second-in-command left recently.
COGWA has benefited greatly from the losses of LCG, PCG and RCG, because it decided to be more welcoming towards newcomers. Prospective members are no longer vetted before being allowed to attend. Instead COGWA has copied the United Church of God in introducing a standardized website for each congregation, stating location and times of services, and welcoming people to visit. Whereas the Festival of Tabernacles in LCG, PCG and RCG is restricted to members and their families, COGWA has an open attendance policy.COGNews
30 comments:
The Gods, Father-Son and Holy Ghost could do a lot better with "Go us therefore into all the world" if they cut out the middlemen and just show up in person for real. Never going to happen. Sad..š
LCG is semi-open. Official attendance figures not published but seem to be around 9,000 to 10,000. If you want to attend a congregation of Tabernacle site, I think you can still just show up, but LCG will want to know who you are and record your name.
IMO - if you don't like one, it may be hard to like the others. If your friends and or family are at one, you may as well go there. Some people at LCG believe they are the only ones doing the work - same as some of the other more restrictive groups.
Love your neighbor does not seem to include love your brother - don't actually hate them, but don't mix with them. People not in a COG are all right to be friendly with.
It's amazing the pompous prophecy weaver,Dave Pack, has the smallest church. That's gotta sting not to mention figuring out how to pay for "Send It In Headquarters" You can only send it in once. After that you gotta share all things common until you can't afford the heat and freeze in an Ohio Winter
LCG's published audit shows that its 2017 U.S. income dropped by approximately 10 percent from 2016. Rod Meredith was alive for half of 2017, so we can guess that LCG's 2018 income will be at the late-2017 level or below, or 20 percent below 2016, indicating a roughly 20 percent drop in membership. If you count actual members (not Feast attendance), I don't believe LCG in the USA ever reached 7,000, so this means a drop of maybe 1,300 members, putting LCG's current USA membership no higher than 5,500 and probably below 5,000.
LCG's 2017 feast reports announced just over 4,000 attendees in the USA, at sites ranging from 210 to 1,000 in attendance. Two USA sites didn't report attendance, but based on prior years would have had no more than 800 attending, and likely closer to half of that. Even if a couple hundred of Canada's 773 reported attendees came from the USA, this doesn't get us above 5,000 for a USA LCG membership figure.
so what about GCI? The 'apostates'. Do they even count people if they don't have tithing, or do they?
If size matters, you can join the 1.3 billion Catholics and learn new neat things like praying the rosary to a dead women, kissing relics, learning Latin, ringing bells, making the sign of the cross using holy water and keeping your little boys from getting to close to the priests in black in back rooms.
RE: The Ever Shrinking Churches of God
Understand and remember that the PCG, RCG, COG-PKG, CCG, etc. are NOT God's churches. They are the Devil's counterfeit churches. This is obvious from the heretical things that their leaders GRF, DCP, REW, RJT, etc. teach and do.
From the COGNews link:
Church of God – Preparing for the Kingdom of God
Membership of COG-PKG is down to around 200. That might seem surprisingly high, given his track record, but there are always those who struggle to accept that they have been deceived.
It was reported on 7 July 2018 that: “Ronald Weinland has undergone quadruple bypass surgery. He is still at hospital under observation due to afib (atrial fibrillation) issues.”
In the past 10 years Ronald Weinland has announced 4 dates for the return of Jesus Christ, made many rambling and contradictory prophetic statements, and been imprisoned for 3½ years for failing to pay tax on millions of dollars of church funds that he and his wife spent on themselves and their family.
12.18 PM
The morally challenged leader of LCG dies, resulting in a drop of membership. One would expect that from a criminal gang rather than a Christian church.
From the COGNews link (bolding emphasis mine):
David Hulme’s ‘Vision’
As the church that David Hulme founded slides slowly from obscurity into oblivion....
Anon 1:25 PM wrote:
and keeping your little boys from getting to close to the priests in black in back rooms.
Don't go there. You know that UCG, PCG, and LCG are compromised in that area, and probably others are as well. Pope Francis has been fairly good about defrocking sexually abusive priests when he learns of them, unlike Meredith, Weston, Flurry, Luker, and others who have knowingly kept boy-rapers on the payroll.
People would flock to the Churches of God if they saw people becoming more loving, more moral, and more successful after years of membership. Instead, they see that when someone joins an ACOG, he gradually becomes more reclusive, more depressed, more harsh and judgmental, and more of a loser at life.
The morally challenged leader of LCG dies, resulting in a drop of membership. One would expect that from a criminal gang rather than a Christian church.
Why would you expect anything different? Weston's entire legitimacy to serve as Presiding Evangelist is based on Rod Meredith's legitimacy to serve and to appoint him. If Weston announces that he must repent of Rod Meredith's mistakes, he is admitting that his own appointment may have been one of Meredith's mistakes. This means that Weston cannot do much to make LCG better, while the thousands who found Meredith inspiring will think that the dull-as-paint Weston is making things worse.
So we now know the membership stats of PCG, LCG, UCG and RCG. What about CGI & ICG ?
LCG is getting very few new members - the trend is way down - they may not ask next year who is attending FOT for the first time, because it is too embarrassing.
Since Weston said in a sermon that he is not another Joe Tkach, plus people after WCG are wary of changes, he is very limited on what changes he can make.
True servant leadership could make a difference, but a culture change like that may be too hard for them to make.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megachurches_in_the_United_States
Small Sample:
Ada Bible Church, Ada Michigan - 12,000 in Average Weekly Attendance (throughout)
Angelus Temple, Los Angeles - 8,300
Bayside Covenant - Palo Alto - 11,300
Brooklyn Baptist - West Columbia, SC - 8,100
Calvary Chapel - Ft. Lauderdale, FL 18,500
Calvary of Albuquerque - Albuquerque, NM - 16,800
Central Christian Church, Henderson, NV 21,100
Christ's Church of the Valley, Peoria, AZ 31,000
Church of the Highlands, Birmingham, AL 51,900
Elevation Church, Charlotte, NC/Toronto, CN, 30,000
Fact: Most of these Churches have a weekly average attendance as large as or larger than HWA's Yearly FOT Attendance at any given Feast Site (including the largest)
Bob has noticed this article, lamenting that it "made negative comments about CCOG and Africans".
Bob notes that "If fruits can be defined as people in the Church of God, then CCOG has those." It seems "fruits" and other qualities become defined as what the particular COG claims to have.
And claims, "Thus, the only group of the six listed [in the Banned article] that claims to have a prophet that has the fruits of a prophet Jesus referred to is the CCOG." Using Bob's definition of "fruits", does that make sense?
Meanwhile at the Church of God Seventh Day ---the supposed "Dead Church" , AKA "Sardis Church" as was declared by HWA in many of his writings and in person rantings has...
200,000 members around the world!
...and more than any of the previous mentioned groups post WCG groups/spinoffs in USA attandance with more than 8000 in the COG 7 in the USA!
Call this another HWA prophecy gone wrong!
Over on his Cogwriter site, Bob wrote:
As far as LCG goes, I felt that the 6,000 estimate was low, so I called its Charlotte HQ today and the one I spoke with stated that they have a little over 10,000.
LCG just created a problem for itself. Their Feast attendance and annual income numbers indicate far fewer than 10,000 members. If the 10,000 number is correct, an increasing number of LCG members are choosing not to tithe and/or not to attend an LCG Feast site. That doesn't bode well for the future of LCG. On the other hand, if the 10,000 number is a lie, the fact that LCG chooses to lie about its membership doesn't bode well for the future of LCG.
Grace Communion has about 6,500 active members in the U.S. (there may be more on the rolls but that’s about the number showing up each week.) They have about 250 churches and “fellowship groups” (that’s what they call congregations of less than 15) and the average attendance in each one is about 25. Go to their newly redesigned website and look at the congregations listed by state. In most states about half the listed congregations are fellowship groups and if you poke around on the local websites of most congregations, even in major urban areas, you’ll see there are about 25-30 people in the congregation. Not sure what the numbers are outside the U.S., but Australia, Canada and Europe are very sparse while Africa and the Philippines are quite large by comparison to the U.S.
HWA claiming that The Church Of God (7th Day) "is dead" was one lie on top of yet other lies.
I seriously doubt the PCG leveled out at 5,000. They maxed out at 6,000 in the mid 90's and, so far as I know, from there they seemed to lose about 5% to 10% every year. After two decades of losing just 5% a year you only have 36% of what you started with.
Back in the ‘90s, my ex wife and I could be seen at various of the local dirt track stock car races, usually every Saturday night during the Summer and Fall. We were there primarily to see the sprint car races, but there were lesser cars, smaller and not as fast, which raced as the big cars were cooling down and being serviced in between the events. One time, my wife left to visit the restroom and snack stand while some of these lesser cars were racing. When she returned, she asked “Hey, who is winning?”
I smiled and replied “It doesn’t matter.” I didn’t think my reply was really all that witty, it’s just that I hated watching the “leaf blowers.” The fact is, to the families and friends of the drivers of the little cars, many of whom were in the stands, it actually did matter.
But there’s a lesson in that. Amongst the ACOGs, who is winning? When you stop and think about it, in the greater scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. That is, except to the members of those ACOGs who need to rationalize and justify their particular choice of ACOG to themselves. That’s most likely why we can’t get accurate or uniform facts and figures pertaining to a single one of them. These are people whose track record in hyperbole extends back over 85 years.
BB
The average age in the ACOG is the mid 70s, making many members frail and/or wheelchair bound. So one would expect fewer of these folks to attend the FOT as time progresses.
NO2HWA,
"The WCG is one of the dominant examples in American religions, wheras JWs, SDAs, and LDS, despite breakaways and fragments, managed to maintain their core group--which I think the WCG/Grace Communion would have done had they not abandoned and even opposed ALL the major teachings of Mr. Armstrong. If the mother group had continued to strongly teach and advocate the core teachings of "Mystery of the Ages" my guess is they would have adjusted to failed prophecy but continued to grow strongly with a sharp and unique message."
Clearly, this shows that WCG is the true church by fulfilling "departure of truth" (1974) as prophesied in Rev 3:11. Look for a group that keeps all of God's teachings as taught by HWA before 1974 i.e holding fast to the truth.
as SHT pointed out at 4:29, the larger the organization, the less likely it is that the truth is being taught.
Dennis Diehl said...
The Gods, Father-Son and Holy Ghost could do a lot better with "Go us therefore into all the world" if they cut out the middlemen and just show up in person for real. Never going to happen. Sad..š
December 5, 2018 at 11:29 AM
God appeared in person to Adam and Eve, talked to and proved the Isralites during the Exodus, came in person and talked to the Jews. Did they believe? If God were to appear today in person, do you think people were jump in joy and embrace Him?
Do you think people in the Millennium will have an easy time with all the resurrected beings and Jesus Christ as King of kings?
It is all a question of Faith. You either get it or you don't. Most of us got it but we were "enlightened" not to obey the truth due to reasons best known to ourselves.
I wouldn't trust those numbers. The are many excuses on how they fudge the numbers.
Attendees can be getting counted multiple times by different groups.
Connie Schmidt at 5:36 PM said...“Meanwhile at the Church of God Seventh Day ---the supposed 'Dead Church' , AKA 'Sardis Church' as was declared by HWA in many of his writings and in person rantings has...more than any of the previous mentioned groups post WCG groups/spinoffs in USA attandance with more than 8000 in the COG 7 in the USA!”
After the WCG went kablooey in early 1995, some WCG members went to the COG(7D). If they end up leaving it in the future, the COG(7D) could go back down to about 5,000 people.
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