It is now well into the third year of existence for the Church of God a Worldwide Association.
During their formation they deliberately worked behind the scenes seeking to fracture and destroy the United Church of God. They felt the need to be more loyal to the teachings of Herbert Armstrong than they thought United Church of God was doing. Once more, families were broken, marriages ruined, friendships destroyed, all so that another group of ministers could do what they wanted to do and keep getting paid.
Since that breakup and the formation of COGWA, it has been doing one of the most earth shattering works. Even Dave Pack trembles at their awesomeness!
From their web site:
From Cecil Maranville: The PC Department emailed 40 people and telephoned an additional person for a total of 41 outgoing contacts for December 2012.
From Cecil Maranville: The Personal Correspondence Department mailed 77 responses (including one surface mail letter) in January 2013, making the month’s activity one of our highest.
From Cecil Maranville: We sent out 49 emails and one surface mail letter in February, for a total of 50. Counseling issues required the most involved replies.
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In other media news, we are in the process of printing our first booklet for all of the members in the United States! (We are working out how the international areas will receive their copies.) In another week or so these booklets and a letter from Jim Franks will be in the mail to all members, and we are shipping an advance copy to all pastors. (The pastors’ copies will be sent first-class; but the others are mailed at a nonprofit rate, which will be a bit slower). We’ve had three booklets available on our websites for a long time, but this is the first one in print. As Jim explains in his letter, we chose to print “From Holidays to Holy Days: God’s Plan for You,” because of the timeliness with the new annual cycle of God’s holy days, beginning in just a few weeks.
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We have to carefully control print, of course, since print and postage gets very expensive very quickly.
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We have a lot of work and planning to do before we can start producing an online magazine, though, so we’re being very cautious not to set a target launch date just yet. It will be as soon as possible ...
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The seven festivals outline in symbolic form the seven steps in God’s plan of salvation.
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The greatest obstacle to printing more material isn’t the cost of printing itself, which is relatively inexpensive, but the cost of postage. Even using our nonprofit status, postage is still expensive. To print each 46-page, full-color booklet cost about 88 cents, but to mail it costs an additional $1.52 if sent first-class from the office or about 35 cents for the nonprofit bulk rate (which we used). The cost of postage will continue to be our biggest hurdle for distributing more literature.
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I met two new couples who found us on the Internet a few months back and began attending services. One couple was looking for a group that kept the holy days, and the other had prior Church of God background from the 1990s. It was refreshing to see new people actually attending!
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I am reminded of the words of Christ to His disciples in John 4:35: “Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”
Yep! The field is ripe for harvest and you are raking them in! Will they actually attend church?
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It is humbling to see a world with a population of over 7 billion and compare that number to the size of the Church today. How many will God yet call? We simply don’t know. What impact will we have on this world? The honest answer is that we don’t know exactly what our impact will be.Anyone with a COG background or from a COG can answer that question. The impact has been ZERO. No one cares! There is no earth shattering work and never will be.
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Then there is this about the weekly newsletter:
One last note: In last week’s In Accord I encouraged everyone to subscribe to the Life, Hope & Truth Weekly Newsletter. While having over 1,100 subscribers is good, that means that most of the Church members do not receive this weekly email, sent every Friday, that keeps you up to date on the new postings on LHT.
You know things are pretty bad with COGWA literature that they cant even get their own members to sign up!
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COGWA's college is up and going and making a huge impact upon the world and the COG! The numbers attending are earth-shattering! Quite amazing actually!
From David Johnson: On Monday, Jan. 7 Foundation Institute, Center for Biblical Education, began its second semester of operation. We added one student to the roster and now have 21 students attending classes.
Twenty-one students. I stand in amazement! I am in awe!
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As more people become unable to drive long distances to attend the Feast, the need for the Church to provide live services into specific small sites or homes via computer continues to increase.
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As impotent as these reports for COGWA are,...
ReplyDelete... it can be reported that ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of all ministerial salary checks were received and cashed.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
Those crazy fields white for harvest are still unharvested due to lack of combines, tractors and actual farmers.
ReplyDeleteThe COGs have mastered the fine art of three rows forward, nine rows back.....
M.T.Silos
Are a lesser percentage of UCG "minister" scumbags cashing their checks?
ReplyDeleteI doubt it!
Leaked news article:
ReplyDeleteAllen, TX. For the first time in it's history, the amount of money spent by COGWA on minister salaries, employee salaries, corner offices, and perks fell below 100% of church revenues.
After more than three years of operations and millions of dollars spent on "preaching the gospel," COGWA has decided to issue it's first tangible product. Clyde Kilough said, "We're so excited. We've been working toward this goal, off and on, for a long time. It's one small step for God's one true church, one giant leap for mankind."
Jim Franks said, "We ministers, living in the manner to which we have become accustomed and then some, while only working part-time, if that, instead of spending all of that extra cash, which God, in his infinite wisdom, continually blesses us with, on alcohol and catered lunches here at the home office like we usually do, we decided to redistribute some of it in the form of a $2.40 dividend booklet (.88 + 1.52). We debated as to whether to pay it in cash, or in the form of a booklet, but concluded that since members already seem to have plenty of cash, but not so much of the wisdom that God has endowed the ministry with so abundantly, so they would probably prefer to receive a booklet. So we put pen to paper. You're welcome."
All ministers will be receiving the booklet first-class, like usual, while the regular members just get the slower bulk-mail rate postal service.
But the benefits don't end there. Franks also noted that this booklet could also be used in other ways in the future. "At some point, this glossy booklet might also help draw in extra tithepayers from other organizations, or even from the world, if we're lucky. We just don't know yet. It's a win-win for everyone. It demonstrates how much wisdom God has bestowed upon his servants, the ministers."
Franks was in an exceptionally good mood and added, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, we could never have done it without the faithful and generous support from all of the members too."
In response to Annonymous above:
ReplyDeleteThe point is what percentage of the operation is going to managerial overhead?
It appears that in COGWA that 80% or more of its operation is going to salary.
COGWA took 2/3rds or the ministry from UCG , but only 1/3rd of its members. They are obviously top heavy on the salary side and must reduce their paid ministerial crew if it dreams of accomplishing any kind of outreach.
UCG by comparison now finds its ministry stretched very thin, with most pastoring 3 or more congregations. They earn their pay, and UCG can be argued to have a much larger "output" in terms of public proclamation as well. Literally 1000s of new contacts per week.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
The COGS are dying. Who could believe there is a God behind any of them? Just men...puny, prattling little men. Like the wizard of oz. LOL. Bye bye COGs! I wish I could say "it's been nice," but it hasn't.
ReplyDeletebelieve NO2HWA should be pleased that this site goes it therefore into all the world and influences thousands a day in white ripe fields of COG doubt, goofiness and unaccountability.
ReplyDeleteNO2HWA reaches more people in a day than UCG does all year lol.
And yes brethren....NO2HWA IS an Apostle!!!
"Literally 1000s of new contacts per week."
ReplyDeleteWOW! UCG comes up with information for thousands of people who don't want to join Armstrongism every single week! This kind of information is harder to come up with now, since they've all but stopped printing local white pages.
Maybe you guys at UCG could take a suggestion from James Malm and start figuring out how Rick Warren created his megachurch. He thinks that's what UCG is up to already, so you guys might as well give it a shot. He has 10 times as many members as UCG has worldwide, attending in one location. It's obvious that none of the splinters have any clue what Rick Warren did to build up his megachurch, because the COGs are all busy shrinking theirs. Heck, they don't even have a clue how Herbert Armstrong did it, and he's the guy everyone is trying to imitate (as opposed to Jesus Christ)!
Q: How does a COG build a big church?
A: Start with an even bigger one.
"UCG...finds its ministry stretched very thin, with most pastoring 3 or more congregations."
ReplyDeleteNot by choice.
It's called entropy.
ReplyDeleteHa! I am more of a thorn in the flesh than a prophet....this is all too much fun!
ReplyDeleteTo the tune of the young ambassadors
ReplyDelete"HOWDY Y'ALL"
Festival 1980?
When Arenas Were Full LOL
Make yourself right at home
In your living room throne
In the COG world of today
Wear a suit if it's best
As you log on the net
To watch COG preachers all day
From the
La-Z-Boy sofa you watch all the feeds
The days of arenas
Are gone yes indeed
Wearing suits with a briefcase
While the cats play with glee
This is the state of the
COG!!!
These guys are mouse milking. Expending a lot of time and energy for very little result. My word, they could get a larger response by standing on a street corner.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be nice if just once, an emerging ACOG did something original. Most try to replicate the HWA virus, and of course that lost its effectiveness back in the '70s.
ReplyDeleteThis COGWA group, so far, hasn't begun ordaining themselves apostle, hasn't set up cookie cutter booklets, magazines, or media broadcasts, and hasn't announced WCG style building programs. So, are they thinking outside of the box? Or, are they simply in wait of an influx of capital so that they can afford to imitate HWA?
I guess we'll need to wait for answers.
BB
The COGWA leaders are the ones that planned and purchased the land for an AC style college campus/headquarters. They want SO bad to be WCG redux, but don't have the money.
ReplyDeleteI honestly wonder what they think when they write this stuff, and what their members think when they read it.
ReplyDeleteIt's like a tragicomedy.
Leo'tard is reaching more people than the COGWA and he has no money, no job, no brains, and no blog (he just hijacks this one). He must be David Ben Ariel back from the dead.
ReplyDelete"...they could get a larger response by standing on a street corner."
ReplyDeleteThat's what Paul did. They claim to follow the bible example, so why don't they do the same? They are just hypocrites with excuses.
"In COGWA there are a lot of steps to go through before one reaches salvation...The seven festivals outline in symbolic form the seven steps in God’s plan of salvation."
ReplyDeleteObviously this is not just COGWA, but for the most part, all the COGs.
This is what bothers me about Armstrongism as much as anything, how, unless you're participating in all this symbolism, you're only destined for a big lake of fire. You can be a good person, but without all the ritual, you're going in the deep fryer. But if you perform all the symbolic rituals, you can be a horrible person and I guess god won't even notice, because as they see it, you're still going to get into heaven anyway, or so their preaching leaves any attending person to assume.
The thing that makes me most leery of religion is how religious leaders of all persuasions would have their followers assume that they know for sure exactly what happens after you die, and they know exactly what you have to do now in order to cash in after death. Since there's so much disagreement from one sect to another and from one religion to another, it's pretty obvious that no one knows anything about any of these things.
Even if there were a god, and even if he were handing out goodies afterward, the one thing I am pretty certain about is that every religious person in the entire world would be pretty surprised about who god was, what he wanted them to be doing during this life, and what the afterlife was really like.
From Babylonian kings to Chinese rulers, to Egyptian pharaohs to Roman Pagans, Roman Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, African tribesmen, and yes, even COG members, given they all awoke to the same afterlife, they would all be surprised, and most importantly, unprepared, despite, in some cases, some pretty impressive preparations. Sooo, what would a real deity really want me to do during this life? Die heroically in battle? Build a pyramid? Make 10,000 terracotta soldiers? Say a rosary and 10 Hail Marys per day? Stop eating beef? Stop eating pork? Wear a turban? Keep the Jewish days of worship? Put on a mask and dance around a fire? There are some overlaps, but just as many mutually exclusive aspects to these religions. You can't do it all. How do I decide which of these symbolic, ritual preparations is best, if any?
Assuming that there is a real god and a single consistent afterlife for all humanity, given the total lack of consensus among even the most sincere and devoted, the one conclusion that seems to stand out is that maybe this god wants us all to become better people, but otherwise, to approach that afterlife unprepared. (Oh, and send money. Can't forget that.) Anyway, given this, it seems following Armstrongism would tend to lead it's "faithful" away from perhaps the only preparation a person could realistically make. I wouldn't say Armstrongism is alone in that, just well below average.
The acknowledgement of uncertainty doesn't feel very satisfying, but it's at least as satisfying as the obviously false certainty I was raised with. Denying uncertainty doesn't make it go away any more than ignoring a crocodile will stop it from eating you. False certainty is the one falsehood all religions (even the ones which tell you lying is a sin) seem to be founded upon.
WCG and its off-shoot legacy churches are certainly obviously assuredly dying. It just shows this is not the true church, and its members were but taken for a ride by HWA. These off-shoot ministers should try other strategies because HWA already tried them when there was but yet no internet. We live in a different time than during HWA's lifetime. Or best, these off-shoot ministers should find jobs and earn a decent living rather than milk those gullible enough to believe them with multiple tithes.
ReplyDeleteHead Usher, religious gurus who claim to have the the answers to the mystery of life and death don't KNOW, they ardently BELIEVE. I keep harping on this central distinction because it's so vital. Knowing is based on a high degree of probability grounded in reasonable empirical evidence. Believing is based on faith in the assertions of ancient documents, that include passages of talking animals, and other patent absurdities that often are in sharp contrast to the nature of the world as we currently understand it through the eyes of science.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with you that if some kind of Superbeing truly does exist, he/she/it/they most likely won't be a god in the traditional human conception of one. Perhaps such a Being might even prove most disagreeable to the religious mindset. Now that's something to consider, isn't it? I can't help but thinking that intellectual honesty would be a prime virtue of such a Being, though this mindset is rarely found among the ardently religious.
"Leotard has hijacked this blog"
ReplyDeleteNow that's really funny. Funny because it so misses what has actually happened. Didn't you notice that all the new people came in with Velveeta? They are all her sockpuppets, and have appeared on pretty much every blog where she's been. Before you get into a stupid internet feud or argument, you might want to consider that you could be arguing with a fake person.
"Literally 1000s of new contacts per week."
ReplyDeleteNot according to the numbers given out over the Cincy webcast last week, Joe.
"So, are they thinking outside of the box?"
ReplyDeleteNot really, it looks like they're copying Hulme; live webcasts of their sermons can only be accessed with a password.
Well, I did notice that Velvet, Leonardo, and Plasma dude did all show up at the same time, but it's a big world and there's no reason why that couldn't happen. If all three of those are actually just the work of one person, then that one person suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, and also suffers from having no life.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers cited in the COGWA report are dwarfed by the community church down the street from where I live.
ReplyDeleteWhich begs the question: What, exactly, are all of COGWA headquarters people paid to do?
Sermons can be accessed ONLY with a password? Really? Aren't they supposed to be preaching the Gospel to all the world? Can you imagine Wal Mart wanting to sell to all the world, but then locking their front doors? Does this make any sense?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous wrote:
ReplyDelete"Can you imagine Wal Mart wanting to sell to all the world, but then locking their front doors? Does this make any sense?"
It makes sense to WalMart. Their Sam's Club division charges an annual membership fee to would-be customers.
Whether it makes sense for a church is a different question.
Anonymous 1:37 wrote: "Maybe you guys at UCG could take a suggestion from James Malm and start figuring out how Rick Warren created his megachurch...He has 10 times as many members as UCG has worldwide, attending in one location. It's obvious that none of the splinters have any clue what Rick Warren did to build up his megachurch..."
ReplyDeleteBut at what price did Rick Warren build his church? Read the following article, and you'll see that not all is perfect in megachurchville. Not trying to oversimplifiy what probably is a multifaceted issue, but these megachurches are not all they're cracked up to be:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/07/rick-warrens-son-lost-in-wave-of-despair/?iref=allsearch
Oh, don't misunderstand. I never said Rick Warren built a perfect church, just a big one.
ReplyDeleteThat is what Vic Kubik has all but stated in black and white was the purpose for getting rid of all those COGWA people. They wanted to spend money on things besides "preaching the gospel" (read: advertising for new members). They wanted to go to Texas and spend tens of millions of dollars on property and buildings instead. Vic was upset because 15 years went by and there had never been any growth. They wanted to spend millions of dollars putting their lackluster program on expensive, big-time TV stations, like WGN, and now they are since they don't have to ask all those COGWA people's permission to do it anymore. That's why they're having all those "KOG Seminars" where they manage to get 20 new people to show up. Too bad they don't know how to close the deal.
They want people, people, people (read: money, money, money)! I'm sure they know there's going to be problems, but I'm also sure with the substantial salary raises and christmas bonuses they'd give themselves, they'd figure it was all worth it. I don't think they'll ever manage to pull it off though.
The COG's will never go anywhere very far or for very long because they lack the leadership skills. At least give HWA credit where credit is due. He may have been a poor day-to-day manager (which he openly admitted once) but he was a visionary with a domineering personality to get certain things done - like constantly begging members and coworkers for money to fund such visions, and wrapping it in language that made it seem like it was all part of some cosmic plan, such that people responded on a routine basis. Not one leader or group of leaders in any COG today has that capacity. None. And even if they did, the "audience" is very different than it was in HWA's day.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Leo, but that doesn't mean there will never be another leader, or another man raised up to lead the Church and fulfill the prophecies of the return from captivity in Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel; it's just painfully obvious that there is no leader of the Church raised up to do that now. There very well might not be, until the seventy years of captivity are fulfilled. We're not even twenty years in yet (that's this year, if you're going from the date of the "trinity PGR"), there's a half-century yet to go!
ReplyDeleteLMFAO!
ReplyDeleteI have to shake my head at how people can take words out of an ancient text and pile so many unreasonable and unsupportable speculative assumptions one upon another about it to arrive at totally absurd conclusions. It will never cease to amaze me.
Assuming the bible really is the word of god:
A) What makes you think that Herbert Armstrong was who he said he was? Do you believe William Miller (1844) was who he said he was? Ellen G. White? Harold Camping? Bernie Madoff? Why would you believe HWA's claims about himself and not any of these other people's claims about themselves? HWA had no credible connection to jesus or the first century apostles, no credible claim to be a latter-day apostle or a representative of god on earth during his lifetime. There is absolutely no reason to think that HWA was "raised up" by any god to lead anything. Ron Weinland and his wife's claims to be the two witnesses is made upon exactly the same basis, with just as much supporting evidence (none), and are equally credible. If you believe HWA was a valid latter-day apostle, then you can't even-handedly reject the Weinland's claims to be the two witnesses either. They've both had prophecies fail pretty spectacularly, btw. If HWA gets a pass, so should Ron.
B) What makes you think that the insignificant, tiny little organization founded by HWA on the west coast of the USA in the late 1920's has any claim to be equivalent to an ancient nation located in the middle-east? I know that HWA taught that his little organization was "spiritual Israel," but that's even more ridiculous than his claims to be a latter-day apostle of jesus christ.
C) What makes you think that Jeremiah, Isaiah, or Ezekiel 2500+ years ago, wrote anything about an insignificant, tiny little organization like WCG, CGI, or any of it's splinters?
D) What makes you think that there ought to be any latter-day fulfillment of the captivity of Israel?
E) Even if A, B, C, and D were, by some completely insane stretch of the imagination, all valid assumptions, what would make you think that it would apply in an utterly symbolic way to the way Jr. took WCG in another direction and that the date of the "trinity PGR" was the appropriate start of the count?
Sorry, Velvet, but this is the most totally bonkers thing I've ever seen you write on this blog to date. Surely you did not make this up yourself, but you probably heard someone else say it, and for some bizarre reason it seemed acceptable to you, and now you've latched onto it and have begun to regurgitate it. I just feel like somebody needs to point out how unreasonable, unlikely, and frankly insane such private interpretations of the bible are, for your own good.
Head Usher, and then we shake our heads and wonder WHY ardent believers such as Velvet buy into the completely irrational supernaturalistic nonsense they do. They just refuse to THINK! As Franklin Schaeffer said in that video Gary posted last night (Friday night), such fundamentalists completely disdain thought, real education, intellect, reason, questioning, articulateness, etc. I mean, they try to come across as well-read and deeply-learned folks when defending their corny views, yet time after time keep making utter fools of themselves in the process. It's obvious they read very little, if at all. They research NOTHING. They substantiate NOTHING. Their comments routinely show how dreadfully ill-informed they actually are, in spite of all their claims to knowledge. Out in the wider blogosphere these folks are a dime a dozen. I run into them all the time. They are the prime recruiting fields of religions like the COG's and others.
ReplyDeleteIn simple language, COGs are cults, as are Mormons, JWs, SDAs, and the like.
ReplyDeleteAnon, what exactly is a cult in your definition?
ReplyDelete"Sermons can be accessed ONLY with a password? Really?"
ReplyDeleteReally. Smacks of Hulme's group's insularity, if you ask me.
I think COGWA is super scared of being sued for hate speech and things like that. The sermons and bible studies that are made available all have to be vetted by at least one doctrinal committee before anyone is allowed to hear them, even members. COGWA has invented themselves as a ponderous, bureaucratic organization right from the start. They say they want to preach the gospel, but they get in their own way so much and make everything so labor intensive, they can't hardly put one foot in front of the other. It's okay though, they don't have anything new to say that WCG and it's splinters haven't already been saying for decades already anyway, which has almost no traction in today's world, so they don't have anything to say anyway.
ReplyDeleteI also remember when they first started up the CGWA website, one of the leaders was bragging in his letter about his congregation's potluck the previous weekend...and he mentioned (even posted a photo on the blog) one of the members had brought Jell-O molds. No word on whether or not they got eaten, but that was a pretty big red flag, as far as I was concerned.
ReplyDeleteWhat's up with the UCG?
ReplyDeleteUCG apologist Joe Moeller claims they have, "Literally thousands of new contacts per week."
That would indicate very impressive growth in numbers of members!
Has the UCG really been experiencing such impressive growth?
Or are they just a splinter of Herbie's cult, suffering from the inevitable atrophy of having mostly aging and dying members?
Have they taken down the big portrait of Herbert Armstrong that hangs on the wall at their headquarters?
"UCG apologist Joe Moeller claims they have, "Literally thousands of new contacts per week."
ReplyDeleteJoe is big blowhard too. If the UCG was harvesting and developing as many new prospective members as Joe claims, then they would be able to provide hard numbers. But they don't because there is very little growth.
Regardless of what Joe says, the webcast from "UCG HQ" the Sabbath prior to his comment indicated there were, as far as I recall, only a few HUNDRED contacts that they were crowing over...hardly "thousands" at all. And they only had ONE (count 'em -- ONE) baptism. LOL.
ReplyDeleteAnd I predict that within a couple of years that one person will realize that was a mistake...
ReplyDelete"And I predict that within a couple of years that one person will realize that was a mistake..."
ReplyDeleteWho said it was a person?
Maybe it was one of the donkeys on Joe's ranch.
he he haw haw! :-)