FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014
Pastor General's Yearly Letter
Pastor General David C. Pack’s fifth annual “Fruits Letter,” written for those with a background in the Worldwide Church of God and its offshoots, will be available early next week. Once again, this year’s letter is loaded with statistics that reflect the explosive growth unique to The Restored Church of God.
Wrong fruits Dave
Galatians 5:22-23
New International Version (NIV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; (Or blow up in your addled theological speculations face)where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes,what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. (You still do and no offense to children) When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
...And not overarching, mind boggling internet hits and statistics , seat gyrating announcements, mahogany trim, Steuben Crystal, and now I even hear you are toying with the Plane for Dave ego buster. You could use some pastoral lessons from the current Pope. He is far ahead of you in things you know nothing about.
It's always been about the numbers Dave no matter your denial. I was going to send you a New Testament for Christmas but you'd probably not understand it. Not even that Revelation part.
Amen
1 Corinthians 13
New International Version (NIV)
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy (you don't obviously) and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, (Not even close) and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor (I think you said RCG didn't do such things so no problem here) and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. Iit is not proud.5 It does not it does not envy, it does not boast, dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; (Or blow up in your addled theological speculations face)where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes,what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. (You still do and no offense to children) When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
...And not overarching, mind boggling internet hits and statistics , seat gyrating announcements, mahogany trim, Steuben Crystal, and now I even hear you are toying with the Plane for Dave ego buster. You could use some pastoral lessons from the current Pope. He is far ahead of you in things you know nothing about.
It's always been about the numbers Dave no matter your denial. I was going to send you a New Testament for Christmas but you'd probably not understand it. Not even that Revelation part.
Amen
Dave is considering buying a private jet? Does he have any idea what the total cost of ownership of a private jet is? I hope he doesn't and gets one.
ReplyDeleteYou know that the lifespan of these splinters is short, before they are riven with "discord" and subdivide yet again, resulting in subdividing the cash flows.
It's just a matter of time, and not very much of it, until all mortgaged RCG assets have to be sold off, either by Dave or else by the bank. I don't know if Dave's ego will allow him to sell anything...
"Once again, this year’s letter is loaded with statistics that reflect the explosive growth unique to The Restored Church of God."
ReplyDeleteOooh can't wait for the news of "explosive" growth.... :-)
Just what are Pack & Co. going to do when their buildings are complete, and no massive member growth magically appears? A large mail processing center with no large volume of mail to process? (= no large volume of donations).
A "state-of-the-art" media center, with only minimal funds to produce programs?
A Hall of Administration, with very little to Administer?
He should join the church of Scientology. John Travolta owns 11 jets.
ReplyDeleteBB
Someone mentioned the aircraft in another posting as something that was said in a private church sermon. Since Dave copies HWA down to the Steuben, I'd think this has credibility. I just wonder where he thinks he's going with it? I supppose he will soon be paying "Kings" to see him and get some publicity shots. Maybe he could go see Larry King...and be on the show. That would count for fulfilled prophecy in his world I am sure.
ReplyDeleteWhen the old PLAIN TRUTH had a "circulation" of 8 million, that included -- was mostly -- those copies left on "newsstands," so the final figure included magazines that were picked up by the handful and tossed in the nearest waste container, something I was hearing, from the stand monitors, had probably happened.
ReplyDelete(There were, I believe, never more than about 1 million SUBSCRIBERS, though Flurry and son, and perhaps others, are careless sometimes and say "8 million subscribers.")
In the Internet era, there is no way to count what percentage of "hits" are those where the person, just curious as are we here, merely takes a quick look and says, "Is he still putting forth with that stupid ----?" before moving on. It's probably most of them.
The circulation figures were accurate; they represented the number of copies of each issue that were mailed to subscribers. However, until the early 1970's they never required anyone to renew their subscription. Once a person subscribed, they continued receiving the magazine until they wrote in asking to be removed from the mailing list or until the Post Office returned it marked as undeliverable.
ReplyDeleteWhen they finally decided to clean up the mailing list and asked subscribers to renew, they were shocked at how few people returned the renewal card. The number of subscribers dropped by two-thirds from one issue to the next.
(If you were a member or coworker at this time, you were excluded from having to renew and probably never knew that this was being done. Donors may also have been excluded; I don't remember.)
This was before the newsstand program got underway. I moved away from Pasadena around that time and I don't know if the figures from the newsstand era included those copies or not.
So while the number of copies mailed out exceeded eight million in the early 1970's, the number of people actually reading their copy probably never exceeded two million.
Plain Truth magazine subscribed circulation was around a base of 3 million for several years. It only spiked to 8 million for a very short period of time, and a lot of it was due to PT Blitz programs.
ReplyDeleteThe Good News magazine had a subscribed steady base of about 1 million , and was never part of the newsstand program.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
Used 1980s Gulfstream 3s are about $1 Million dollars...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.globalplanesearch.com/usa/vip/jets/bizjets/medium/gulfstream/g3.htm
A Brand Spanking new deluxe one , (which Armstrong's was, with gold leaf on the ceiling etc) would cost $65 Million...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/businessaviation/2012/10/24/who-is-buying-those-65-million-gulfstream-g650s/
The cost to operate such a jet would be about $3-4000 an hour, or about $8 a mile.
Heck, even the Apostle and Jesus didn't even use a horse or a chariot, and accomplished a lot more just using shoe leather! Imagine that!
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
This Armstrong weirdness has often caused me to fondly remember what everything was like before it entered my life. Thanks to the internet, the glimpses into a wonderful innocent past often burst forth, bringing with them a warm feeling that is difficult to describe.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was first discovering the wonderful worlds of reading and writing, I became aware of the comic pages of our local newspaper. One of the first comics which piqued my interest was Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy". Gould would spend many frames allowing his readers to get to know the various criminals Tracy was investigating, and the first one I became aware of was Flattop Jr. Flattop had customized his car so that it had a Hi Fi, a television, a safe, a sink, a refrigerator, a hot plate, and a short wave radio. Given my fascination with cars and motorcycles, this was one comic strip which reached out and grabbed me. Sometime during that story loop, my parents joined Armstrongism and moved us to another town, away from family.
Last night, I ran across a website on which the entire Dick Tracy Flattop Jr. story loop had been preserved. The comics were not like television, in that there were no reruns. Once the newspapers had been thrown away, they were forever gone. It was tremendously enjoyable, and not just a little therapeutic, discovering such a wonderful archive, one that I thought I would never see again!
BB