Philadelphia Church of God is running it's latest summer indoctrination camp for the church youth. According to PCG the kids are there to learn how to be perfect in all things and to live lives of perfection.
I feel sorry for these kids that their lives are stripped of fun at this camp from hell. Talk about sucking the pleasure of summer camp out of a person!
I went to SEP Orr, in 1971 and had the time of my life. While there was some churchy stuff, it was not the main focus of every single activity. Theological indoctrination was usually relegated to Saturdays and that was minor. Of course this was during the time GTA had been banished to Orr for sexual indiscretions and the time the church was going through major upheavals because of Rod Meredith's hatred of GTA.
PCG writes:
Director Wayne Turgeon kicked off orientation by presenting a camp theme that would unify the sports, classes, activities and dorm life of PYC 2012: “Focus on perfection.”Of all the people to be discussing perfection, it should not have been this butt kisser. Oy!
They continue on with this fun sucking agenda:
Campers said they found the theme reinforced in every type of activity they participated in, from flag football to campus improvement to Bible and leadership according to camper Mahariel Rosario. Instructors found the theme applicable to their activities as well. Preaching Elder Ryan Malone, who oversaw speech class and the Jeremiah musical, said, “The camp theme applies to pretty much anything, whether you’re thinking about archery or prayer.”
The focus on perfection gave a very clear direction for Mr. Malone when approaching speech class. His instructional lecture focused on James 3:2, and used the example of entrepreneur Steve Jobs’s focus on perfecting his presentations.
Sports instructors also zoned in on the focused effort towards perfection. Assistant softball instructor Jessie Beezley said that the staff emphasized the importance of “not just getting through it, but to focus on the game, and pay attention.” Campers were taught to “think ahead, know where the play is going, what is happening next and what to do.”
On the archery range, perfection was a crucial part of the class. “Most of the other sports deal with several different skill sets,” said archery instructor Mark Jenkins. “Archery is about taking one isolated skill and perfecting it,” he said, adding that “making your shot perfect and repeatable” applies to other skills as well.
Counselors took the camp theme and Mr. Flurry’s message to encourage their campers in the dorm as well. AC junior Tabitha Burks, the counselor to dorm 3G, said that Ecclesiastes 9:10 and Matthew 5:48 were two key scriptures that she reinforced with her dorm, to show them the effort it takes to reach perfection. Campers Focus on PerfectionAll that's missing from this picture is the PCG ministers running around in bike shorts like they did a few years ago.
29 comments:
"Assistant softball instructor Mrs. Beezley..."
OMG!
I hope she doesn't team up with her boyfriend Chucky to make it the "Worst Camp Ever" as the evil Mr. French french-kisses all the campers!
Norm
Is Mr. Woodcock on the staff?
Why, that'd be perfect!
Any word yet whether the bows for archery are strung backwards?
And parents, rest assured, the Camp is PERFECTLY SAFE!
Have no fears!
Your precious children are in the hands of qualifed professionals!
And hey, you just have to expect a few injuries or deaths at camp now and then....
SAFE... PERFECTLY SAFE!!!
"Is Mr. Woodcock on the staff?"
You mean the minister who likes to wear tight bike shorts around the kids?
You people are disgusting! Go ahead and mock God's church because you will soon find your sorry asses in the lake of fire! The Bible tells us that we are to "become perfect" and that is what we are trying to do. God is using Mr. Flurry for a mighty message to the world and to our youth. We do not want to see our kids lost to the lake of fire as will be happening to the other youth in the Churches of God. Because they have all turned their backs on the true church their salvation is no longer assured them or to their parents. Mock us all you want, you will soon be like those nasty kids who mocked the prophet and the bears came out to devour them all. Maybe you will be like the pigs possessed by the demons who jumped off the cliff. Satan is your daddy now anyway so go jump off a cliff!
I had fun at original SEP in Tejas and Orr. Some of it was due to the activities, and some of it was illicit fun kind of on the side. We really enjoyed the pack of Export A cigarettes my buddy found while we were playing softball during a field trip up into Canada, and the shaving cream fights as well.
If anything, discipline was more lax there at camp than it was in my WCG home. Fewer "swats" during the entire summer than I generally got in any 4 hour period at home.
But, apparently a lot has changed.
It sounds from the report like the more legalistic groups might be making things intolerable for the kids. It'd be nicer if they'd concentrate on the 9 fruits of the Spirit, but they're stuck at Sinai and can't make it to Calvary.
BB
God is using Mr. Flurry for a mighty message to the world and to our youth.
Mr. Flurry does indeed offer the world a mighty message:
DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!
DON'T EVEN DRINK AND PARK!
Sounds a lot like the LCG camps I remember. Of course, at LCG camp you could get away with lots of drinking and fornicating if you were friends with a top minister's kid. Flurry at least seems to be performing an equal opportunity mind**ck on ministers' and nonministers' kids alike.
Frank said...
"You people are disgusting! Go ahead and mock God's church because you will soon find your sorry asses in the lake of fire! The Bible tells us that we are to 'become perfect' and that is what we are trying to do. God is using Mr. Flurry for a mighty message to the world and to our youth."
You say you are Frank. Well, I'll be even franker.
It is Gerald Flurry and his PCG cult that are truly disgusting in every way. This is not an exaggeration.
This is not mocking God's church. The PCG is NOT God's church. It never was and never will be. The PCG is Satan's impostor cult. It always was and always will be.
One of the best descriptions around of the PCG is that each lying, slandering local tyrant gets to pass off his own satanic abuse as the "government of God." When no WCG ministers went with Gerald and his PCG, Gerald set up all sorts of unfit, power-hungry, dishonest BUMS as "ministers." These fake PCG "ministers" have never had any interest whatsoever in truth, or decency, or justice. Rather, each one of them just saw an opportunity to pursue his own selfish and evil agenda.
God is NOT using Gerald Flurry to take any message anywhere to anyone. Satan is using Gerald Flurry to spread lies and to do evil in the name of Herbert W. Armstrong and God to try to make them look bad.
The people in the PCG are NOT even trying to be perfect. All the lying, slandering sex maniacs, sex perverts, and predators in the PCG just pretend to be doing good while pursuing their own vile agendas. Anyone who made the mistake of going to the PCG and really truly trying to be perfect got kicked out years ago.
Seriously, you need to take a frank look at Gerald and his PCG. The latest ploy is for Gerald and his fake PCG "ministers" to call all their own evil behavior "being perfect." Whenever they teach outrageous, new, satanic heresies, and break up families for no good reason, they can pretend that they are just being perfect.
Frankly, Franky, YOU need to smarten up to what is going on before YOUR butt ends up being sorry in the lake of fire. Do YOU really want the guilt of having supported such an evil fraud on your record and conscience. IF--and notice that it is a big IF--you are sincere and serious, you will look into the matter and learn the truth about that greedy, little, tithe-stealing fraud known as That Runt and his impostor cult.
Frank,
Do you remember that fake PCG "minister" who counseled a married woman to divorce her husband, join the PCG, and then marry him, after he divorced his own wife?
He was probably thinking it was the ***perfect*** set up even back then.
Now his behavior is really, officially "perfect" in the PCG.
Frank, thanks for the levity. Cracked me up, dude.
"God is using Mr. Flurry..."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Seriously, no more, my sides hurt....
Or Anonymous, how about the Ohio abomination, when a member impregnated his wife's girlfriend? The young wife/mother fleed the church in disgust, then the concubine was brought into the fold. She was soon baptised, and married without fanfare, just in time for a feast-honeymoon, and gave birth a couple of months thereafter; all like it was the most natural relationship set-up to ever be esteemed.
From what I witnessed, all PCG "ministers" were/are perfectionist (in their own rotten minds) when it came to the seventh commandment. Adultery is their speciality.
Forget the WCG Summer Camps. The FEMA camps will remove those trivia from your bitter thoughts.
Goodness, an elementary study of scripture would reveal how egregious PCG's application of "perfect" really is.
Ignore Frank's hate-filled rant. Hot air, nothing more.
Are the Laodiceans still gushing over the wizardry of Steve Jobs? They took HWA as their worthless idol; so what more is required to be brought into complete perfection with Satan? They just need to continue riding the HWA plateau; it alone will get them to their desired destination.
As for myself, I took an arrow to the knee at Camp Flurry.
You know, when a religion doesn't give you any peace, it's time to look for other options.
Douglas Becker said...
You know, when a religion doesn't give you any peace, it's time to look for other options."
Nicely stated...
Philadelphian: One who does exactly as Gerald Flurry says, when Gerald Flurry says it, and actually smiles while doing it. One who accepts every word Gerald Flurry utters as having been inspired by God Himself, and considers it the most supreme privilege of life to be under Gerald's authority.
Gerald's Trinity: YHWH, Herbert W. Armstrong, Gerald.
Everyone not in the above described mental condition is either Lao, or of Satan.
(I speak as a fool!)
BB
P.S., I believe Frank is a manufactured cybercharacter that someone is using to rattle everyone's cages here. Nobody is that totally messed up!
BB
Not a cybercharacter, BB. A real Flurry follower. Of course, somebody had to inspire him to write those things. We humbly take credit.
Marco DeBeest (formerly known as Legion)
We should'nt be hard on Frank or any Armstrongite that is visiting this blog.
Ohh I just realized, if you are an Armstrongite your not supposed to be visiting this blog!!
I hate to say it, but this whole "Focus on perfection" thing is a total misinterpretation of scripture and completely misguided. Putting a halo of godliness around perfectionism is nothing more than the previously alluded to "...equal opportunity mind**ck..."
You won't find a word in either the Hebrew or Greek scriptures that has the meaning that the word "perfect" does in modern English. A much better approximation in modern English would be "maturity." But what do these mind**ckers know about maturity?
"Tabitha Burks, the counselor to dorm 3G, said that Ecclesiastes 9:10 and Matthew 5:48 were two key scriptures that she reinforced with her dorm, to show them the effort it takes to reach perfection."
And what sort of effort does it take to reach to "perfection"? What "perfection" has young Tabitha reached in her scant two decades of life? What "perfection" has Gerald reached in his 6+ decades? These are people groping around in the dark, who don't even seem to know that they have eyes or that light itself exists. What sort of perfection is any human being capable of, regardless of the herculean effort expended? I'd be willing to bet that in their misguided quest for perfectionism they've neglected to work on their maturity as well. Tabitha can be excused from being mature since she's so young. Gerald, on the other hand, cannot.
These COG types don't seem to have a sufficient sense of general bearings not to mistakenly preach perfectionism instead of maturity. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this idea is totally false. If you take their message and try to apply it, you will quickly realize it has no useful application. Obviously nobody in PCG, including Gerald himself, is trying to apply the ideas they're preaching and teaching. A proportion of these kids will have enough horse sense to realize it, which is why they'll leave as soon as they go to college and get out from under their parent's roof.
PCG is not alone though, all the COGs are so confused that every summer they all do their best to misdirect their young minions on a wild goose chase after unattainable goals. I feel sorry for these young people, being indoctrinated into utter nonsense by such blind fools.
Marco,
His attitudes and behavior are certainly not very Christlike, are they? Frank either hasn't read the parables about the good shepherd or the prodigal son, or even Paul's instructions as to how to help in restoring someone who has fallen back to faith.
It almost sounds as if Frank is just salivating over the idea that people will be thrown into TLOF!
BB
Douglas Becker said...
"You know, when a religion doesn't give you any peace, it's time to look for other options."
DennisCDiehl said...
"Nicely stated..."
Some people would like peace and quiet. However, that might not be the way life is. Consider what Jesus said to his twelve apostles. He warned about serious troubles.
Jesus said (to his twelve apostles)...
"Do NOT suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did NOT come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household."
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
(Matthew 10:34-39, NIV)
Come on, Anyonymous, you are part of the problem here! You're implying half truths, even though your quote tells the tale. What part of "to the earth" do you not understand.
A Christian does have constant trial, as that is part of the sanctification process we are put through so that ultimately we will become holy as God is holy. However, a Christian's peace comes from knowing that God is in control, and as a mentor, working for our ultimate good. This is why a Christian feels deep inner peace and joy even as he is going through severe trials or challenges of interpersonal relationships.
Over the past five years, I've become of so much depth that was simply missed and not taught by Armstrongism. It's stuff you miss out on if you idolize legalism, just the Pharisees were blinded to so much deep spiritual truth in Jesus' time!
BB
The Bible may be a coded book, but Flurry and his mentor HWA, have done a piss poor job of properly decoding it.
LOL @ August 20, 5:14 PM.
Yup, the Christian religion is sure blood-obsessed, just like the pagan religions it came from. After Jesus comes back on his white horsey and does all that smitin', they'll be a river of blood 200 miles long and as deep as horse's bridles! (I do hope they're mini-horses.)
But at least, with most blood-obsessed religions, the silver lining is that we can feel a "deep inner peace and joy" and "know that God is in control"
(You know, whatever God your chosen religion happens to have.)
It's just super-duper to be able to have a "deep inner peace and joy" and "know that God is in control" after your wife and children have been burnt alive in a horrific traffic accident!
Norm
PS: I thought we were talking about church camp, LOL!
Norm,
You may want to factor in the story behind Horatio Spafford's classic hymn, "It is Well with my Soul" which the WCG misappropriated for the old purple hymnal. Check out the Wikipedia article on it. It's very consistent with the inner peace and joy which you seem to be having difficulty grasping.
BB
The boys over at theTrumpet.com never approve of my comments. They're very sensitive to criticism of their HWA idol god. But, it's OK, I still find it amusing, if not edifying, to keep up with all the COG folks. I, for one, am looking forward to the fireside chats with the apostle Malm. I'm sure, he'll allow me to opine on YouTube.
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