UCG HQ has a letter out to the ministry of the Church. They are preparing for their upcoming conference where it will be one big happy back slapping fun fest. "Everything is is glorious in the church and we are one big happy family on the verge of bringing in thousands of new members.
After suffering a horrendous exodus of members to Church of God a Worldwide Association and a dramatic drop in income UCG is proposing building new recording studios and other facilities:
Amongst other things, we will be discussing plans for the expansion of the home office to enable the building of a new recording and production studio to increase our broadcasting effectiveness. Also, attention will be given to the annual international reports submitted from every region of the world. These will be particularly interesting this year as we hear of the progress that has been made in different areas following the challenges we faced a year ago.
UCG still has no major impact in the world and is has not drawn in a measurable number of non-COG related members. UCG, like most of the other COG is made up of church hopping COG members who look for a current COG that fits their fancy as they jump from church to church trying to find a home.
UCG like it's mother church the WCG has always been adept at using numbers to their advantage. WCG always boasted about how many read the Plain Truth - over 8,000,000 at one item. But ask them how many of that eight million actually became members and you could probably count them on two hand. The PT and WCG's myriads of booklets never brought in huge numbers of "new" members.
So you have to question UCG's current vision of wasting millions of dollars more in members tithe money for another production studio. Of course there will a few who will willingly deprive themselves in order to send in money to finance this new adventure.
UCG dumped millions of dollars in tithe money for a useless piece of land in Texas that is still sitting empty to this day. There must still be some delusional men sitting at UCG HQ who think the glory days for UCG is yet to come.
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Last year Vic Kubik lamented in a letter he wrote to other ministers in UCG how in fifteen years, virtually no new vict-, I mean, tithep-, I mean, members, had been brought in.
Contrary to this blog post, under Armstrong, between the broadcasts, the PT and the booklets, he was actually pretty good at bringing in fresh meat. However, UCG doesn't have a CLUE how to successfully hook new folks.
One time I watched one of those Beyond Today programs, and was frankly appalled at the TERRIBLE script. The reasoning used was totally illogical and unconvincing. Even if what they were preaching were actually true, they put forward such a fundamentally flawed explanation of why anyone should expect it to be true that anyone in their right mind should NOT have been convinced by their presentation.
When the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc., needs to cover something up, they could probably learn a thing or two from UCG. If they want to convince people that something which is actually true should not be believed, they should produce a program like Beyond Today which promotes the actual truth, but uses logic and reasoning that is as shoddy as that which UCG uses. I guarantee that no one in the world of any consequence would believe it. The sheer brilliance of this scheme is blinding me.
Anyway, I just love the idea of UCG sinking a few million dollars into new production facilities in order to bring higher production values to showcase their HORRIBLE scripts. Meanwhile, they're going to keep on pursuing the same old media strategies that haven't worked for sixteen years already, while pretending that now those tired old broken strategies will suddenly work! Good idea, keep doing what has never worked and keep expecting different results. I'm telling you, these guys are numbskulls, who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. TThey're big fish in a little mud puddle, totally high on their own egos.
We should all thank their unlucky stars that they don't have half the talent that HWA had in his little finger to turn ordinary people into the victims of a pernicious cult. The world is a better place for their incompetence.
Verdict: BAD for UCG. GOOD for everyone else in the whole world!
"UCG still has no major impact in the world and is has not drawn in a measurable number of non-COG related members"
MY COMMENT -For that matter, is there any Armstrong related Church of God that is having a major impact in the world?
Richard
For that matter...is there any fundamentalist religion that has a huge impact on the world?
Still something wrong with their business model, is there?
They adopted what I gave them from the management at Weyerhaeuser. Yet, like little children all grown up, they have only distorted conceptions of what a Church Corporate business should actually be. After all, none of these people actually have been successful in running their own business before becoming mentally distorted Armstrongists.
The business model that Herbert Armstrong had limited success. Certainly, he never really made it to the big leagues like the Seventh Day Adventists and Scientology, but he had made moderate gains, based in a world which paranoia could be manipulated and the "Law and Order" types still existed in sufficient number to persuade to become world changing participants in an impressive looking cult. Well... impressive enough: Like a pretty balloon filled with so much hot air it could fly. These days, such things go over like a lead balloon. Society -- most of it -- has smartened up.
And maybe UCG could be deft enough to change its appeal to the masses. First though, they all have to decide what they believe. It is rather problematic to establish committees to study the belief system to revise it. Uncertain sound of the trumpet and all that. Doing that certainly sounds a sour note.
Directionless, rudderless, wimpy with the added layer of unappealing dregs of advertising. Well did Howard Davis say that the Good News was terrible and that he felt like he was lying every time he came on the Telecast (seen by at least 3 people in every community it was broadcast) and said it was the greatest magazine on the face of the earth, when, in fact (and especially with all the negative garbage about crime in every issue and how terrible the world is) it is utter scrap, fit only to be recycled garbage.
The Church of God Seventh Day has been around for 150+ years as has the Bible Advocate. You would think their business model would be one United would copy, but you would be wrong because they don't have one: They are simply a church and not a business and aren't run like one.
And that is the problem.
The UCG will make no progress from here and is on the decline. They have nothing which would appeal to either the world or believers to make them converts. As long as they still hold British Israelism as valid and have the silly idea of the invalidated church history, they are assuredly doomed as being completely nutty no matter how business-like they seem in drag -- not that people seeking refuge in religion are even looking for a business: They aren't. They are looking for a congregation of like-minded people to share in their dedication to their Creator.
United is nothing like that.
I don't think any of them have made a significant impact. Robert Thiel talks a lot about what Living has done, but it seems that there are more negative things that are really associated with that group. David Pack is his usual narcissistic self, over blowing his claims of reaching the world (through the internet) and announcing building plans that most believe he can't really afford.
Douglas wrote: The Church of God Seventh Day has been around for 150+ years as has the Bible Advocate. You would think their business model would be one United would copy.... They are simply a church and not a business and aren't run like one.
Yet check www.COG7.org right now, and you'll see a year-end appeal for money from Whaid Rose - on the home page.
And he admits in that appeal some "affiliated congregations" don't contribute the expected 15% of member tithes and offerings to COG7 HQ.
It may be "simply a church," but things apparently aren't fully, well, ChurchRight there.
Richard, the last couple of years have been tough on everyone.
OK then, the CoG7 has been working OK for more or less 148 years.
Concerning CoG7, I'm mostly neutral and only use them from time to time as an example of doing things a bit better than the Armstrongists to show the Armstrongists up, but apparently the gap is narrowing, and not in a good way.
Thanks for the head's up.
And I'm truly sorry that except for a couple of people, for the most part, none of the Churches of God have lived up to my expectations.
Yes, there are stories you haven't heard yet, but those will have to wait for another time.
Don't get me wrong, Doug - I find a lot to like in COG-7. Their approach to Biblical preaching seems a lot more Christ-centered, and the ministers aren't afraid to talk about God's grace.
But obviously, no church group is perfect -- and 2011 has shown me some chinks in the COG-7 armor, so to speak.
From the rap tunes presented in Kansas City (check the COG-7 forum) to top church leaders admitting the need for outside mediation (and then actually getting it!), that group clearly has some tension -- to put it mildly.
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