Poor UCG. Try as they might, they still cannot seem to make much of an impact in the world. Even though they are now a streaming presence on Roku they still are an unknown church. It seems that the Roku viewers tune out after the first 6 minutes or so.
From the Council of Elders report
The dedicated Roku Beyond Today (BT) channel went live on Jan. 29, and we’ve had 25,000 video views with an average of 6.19 minutes each. About 4,600 people have the Beyond Today channel installed on their Roku boxes. We’re finding that people are willing watch video on an internet connected television longer than they do on their computer or Internet browser.
More from the UCG Council of Elders report:
Mr. Eddington stated that the Church works every day preaching the gospel. He said that, as a job for us, outside of God and family, it is the most important thing we do. We have a disciplined staff and a systematic plan to deliver a stable and consistent effort to preach the gospel. There is no single defining action to get to the world but hard work and varied approaches, like radio, TV, and Internet.
The process can be likened to a giant concrete flywheel that is ever so hard to get turning, and yet with years of pushing it slowly gathers momentum—until eventually it turns powerfully, hard to even stop, with just a push every revolution. One day, by consistent work in preaching the gospel, we would hope to find ourselves catapulted onto the world stage—suddenly in the public eye as the Church of God makes a mark on religion.
UCG is in 18th place in website hits amongst ALL denominational websites in the world.
ReplyDeleteWhether you like UCG or not, this is impressive for a little group of people of just 8000 in the USA.
The impact per member is perhaps the HIGHEST of any religious group to be found anywhere.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
The publications present themselves much better than the tv shows. They derail their efforts with Beyond Today early in the process by signing off on train wrecks for scripts. They are so mealy-mouthed and poorly reasoned. They're trying to convince you of something with anecdotal evidence and circular logic and it just doesn't amount to anything. Then the "experts" on subjects they bring on to interview are always UCG ministers. Big whoop! Next, the presenters seem so nice and wishy-washy, they sound like they're made to be aired in a time slot between Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and Sesame Street or something. It definitely seems like they're pitching it to 5 year olds. Who knows, maybe they are, but if so, Jelly might help. It would certainly help them feel less strange. The technical aspect of the production values seems pretty high, and they have a sort of glossyness about them, but a) it doesn't "fix" any of the much more fundamental problems, and b) it's just the "fake" icing on the "fake" cake. Altogether, it feels like there's an ulterior motive and they're trying to pull something over on you, which, IMHO, they are, like, the fact that they're a toxic cult. But hey, one man's anthrax is another man's musical entertainment, right? But I think it's actually more a symptom of the old WCG fake happy culture, which was predicated on the idea that if someone lives "god's way" then their dark and troubled life will instantly be transformed into the happiest place on earth--next stop, Fantasyland! All aboaaaaaard! It was WCG's version of the gospel of health and wealth, which as a kid, I only remember being condemned verbally, even though it was all around them. It just seemed like if you didn't call it that, then it wasn't there. Anyway, UCG definitely took that idea with them and they use it as one of the cornerstones of their marketing strategy, whether they realize it or not. I'm sure they think that idea is going to be appealing, but it isn't, which is part of the reason why they've been swinging and missing (no growth) for all these years. You definitely feel that same fake happy all over their new glossy website as well. I assume they think that spending millions of dollars on airtime purchases is going to begin filling their ranks and their coffers, but the shows are so bad they're not doing themselves any favors by letting the general public see them and form an impression about UCG based upon them. The more cash they burn on broadcast airtime, the sooner they'll have to declare bankruptcy, so, definitely, keep up the good work guys!
ReplyDeleteYour impact per member statistics are misleading Joe, because their website was launched, I believe, just as the COGWA split was happening, so it was built by a group of nearly twice that size. UCG as it is since the split would not have been able to afford to build that website. Perhaps some other metric might be more revealing about the awesomeness of UCG and their impressive "work".
ReplyDeleteHere's a thought: UCG could preach to have people accept Jesus as their personal savior.
ReplyDeleteWho gives a flying f---k that UCG or some other ACOG cult has had so many downloads or views or whatever on their website! I mean seriously it's inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. And this obsessive fixation they always seem to have on statistics or "the numbers" is so ASD/OCD! It's like the f--king jobless rate in the US, which is nothing, but a f--king con job! It's not like any of these "we're the true church" "no you're not we're the true church" sects and cults are actually manifesting the signs of the real thing (e.g. miraculous healings, speaking in tongues, 100% accurate prophecies etc) probably because they're definition of "preaching the gospel" is from the relative safety of behind an impersonal computer screen. Why don't they go out evangelizing to the public on the streets, the poor and homeless, jobless, sick, druggies and prosties? Didn't the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples do that?! Anything, but face to face(!!!) otherwise you actually might come across some REAL people with human feelings and emotions, and different opinions, that may even come closer to Bible truth than the standard superficial fare of Armstrongist theology--shock horror!
ReplyDelete