Living Church of God has had a rough patch lately with one mishap after another. While this has been a long term problem in the LCG, it has been pronounced over the last few weeks, leading many to ponder whether God is displeased with the church and its leaders.
An LCG source reports:
Two Sabbaths ago, Rand Milach (Kansas City pastor and member of the COE) passed out during his sermon as if he were being struck down. That same Sabbath Mrs. Byersdorfer, wife of another LCG minister fell at Sabbath services and fractured her hip. Last Sabbath, Bruce Tyler (head of LCG's work in Europe, Australia and Asia) had a major stroke and is not expected to recover. (Tyler has since died) Then a couple of days ago Scott Winnail (son of Doug Winnail, LCG headquarters minister) fell and broke one of his legs in 3 places. All of this on top of LCG member from Paris dying on her flight to Egypt.Mishaps happen every day in life, but when one thing after another happens in church leadership members start taking notice. Many are asking, "How could God be letting this happens to his "True Church?" Many members know first hand how dysfunctional the church has become over the last few years as Rod Meredith ages and how he has lost the capacity to make sound leadership decisions.
This dissatisfaction has carried over into the ministry and church leadership too. In the past the ministry got up at the following Sabbath service after the COE meetings and reported on the "best COE meeting ever" and that the "COE has never been more unified." That has not been the case this time around. One individual remarked that the COE was a compete mess. One COE member said that the the COE was NOT unified and another said that there were a lot of "issues" right now.
The COE meeting that took place in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago was a total disaster as tensions mount over doctrinal changes and budget cuts due to LCG's failing income. Normally after a COE meeting, the ministers talk about how unified and wonderful everything was. This time, there were no comments from the pulpit.Things have become so dysfunctional that members and ministers are leaving LCG congregations. There have been several ministers of late that have left LCG and taken their members with them. This has been confirmed by more than one person. The Charlotte Boy's are keeping a tight lid on this. They are concerned that if word leaked out about these defections that it would cause more division in the lay membership. Roland Lequoc's defection is just the tip of the iceberg.
The disunity of the ministry and membership of the LCG is having huge ramifications right now. Reports of coming doctrinal changes, possible church mergers, the appointment of rules enforcer extraordinaire as Meredith's successor, issues with financial abuse and waste in the Charlotte offices, the purchase of new luxury homes for the useless Living Church of God "university", and Rod Meredith's rapid mental/physical health decline, are creating a coming hurricane of upheaval.
25 comments:
How often have we seen this circus? I'm very happy to be able to say, ever since 1975, "Not my circus! Not my monkeys!" I really feel sorry for the deluded holdouts who have never wised up and put up with this nonsense and manipulative abuse day after day, week after week, year after year, throwing their hard earned treasure away to a bunch of larcenous con men. Get it through your heads that there is no god, the Bible is a hodge podge of suoperstition and fiction, there will be no second coming just like thwre never was a real first, and you're wasting your lives on garbage.
Watch out....Dave Pack will start taking credit for their "accidents" and give a "96 Shockingly Clear Points from Scripture Why Time is Running Out to Come Ye Unto Me."
3.31PM continuing answered prayer refutes everything you say.
"3.31PM continuing answered prayer refutes everything you say."
Really? Where were the answers to the prayers of all those people headed to the concentration camp extermination rooms? Where are all the answered prayers of the people who die every day because they think it's idolatry to trust medical science?
Prayer is about as effective as homeopathic medicine. Successes are pure blind luck deluded people grab onto.
No, 8:05, continued answered prayer only refutes 3:31's last sentence. The earlier portion of his comment was a valid critique of Armstrongism.
BB
I think these unfortunate events are more a sign of how old and aged brethren are rather than perhaps divine punishment. May God have mercy on us all.
"there will be no second coming"
Of course there will bed no second coming. Read Scripture.
According to the Bible, Jesus ascended and came back on the day of the Wave Sheaf Offering.
So if anything, we're looking for the Third Coming and Second Return.
Or maybe not.
But the rest of the news is exciting. It reminds you of when Aaron Dean was bitten by a rattlesnake as he stepped from his trailer.
The signs of Christ's followers is that that they will not be hurt by deadly things, and, frankly, we're just not seeing it.
"Mishaps happen every day in life, but when one thing after another happens in church leadership members start taking notice. Many are asking, 'How could God be letting this happens to his 'True Church?''"
Why bad things happen in general, or why bad things happen to "good" people has been a problem that nobody has been able to satisfactorily explain for millennia. It's called theodicy, and it's still debated today.
If you read the OT prophets, their god was a punishing god. You might think you're cruising along just fine, but just like ancient Israel, when bad things start happening to you, that proves you've actually been screwing up and displeasing the gods. On the flip side, when good things happen, you know you've been pleasing them, and so they're blessing you. Today we call this prophetic viewpoint on why good and bad things happen the "gospel of health and wealth." This is how Judaism was forced to explain events prior to the development of iconic figures of evil.
If you read the NT authors, they took the apocalyptic viewpoint, influenced by gnostics and zoroastrians, that "the world" is ruled by hostile forces. For them, it was much easier to explain theodicy. They believed you will punished by lower, evil orders of deities for doing the will of the higher, good deities, exactly the opposite reason that the prophets said.
Today we know that the heavenly bodies we see in the night sky are not demiurges, archons, angels or daemons, and that we live in a universe that is fundamentally random. So today we don't need to invent "spiritual" forces to explain why bad things happens to good people. Everything that can happen eventually will happen, and it will eventually happen to everyone if you wait long enough.
From LCG's Facebook page:
Mr. Tyler suffered a severe stroke several days ago and never recovered from its effects. He died peacefully in the hospital on Tuesday, May 24, 2016....
Mr. Rod King has stage four cancer and is in very serious condition and unable to travel much. Mr. Michael Gill, Mr. Darrell Tanner and a number of the other older men have had serious health problems as well and are probably very glad that this overall administrative responsibility is being placed in the hands of a younger minister such as Robert Tyler. So please pray fervently for Robert Tyler and his family! Ask God to guide him, inspire him, protect him and strengthen him so that he can assume this responsibility in a very capable way. Although he is only in his early 40s, it is interesting that he is almost the exact age as two of the most outstanding Presidents of the United States—Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. So he is certainly “old enough” to carry on this responsibility in God’s Church in that area...
The interesting thing is that we're in the middle of a cycle of the typical Armstrong prophecy triggers that normally are so helpful in terms of recruitment, and in the galvanizing of the faithful, yet here they all are with disunity, bad financial situations, and aging leaders who have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Plus the infrastructure they have in place to get out an acknowledgeably powerful message is virtually invisible, and by their own reports ineffective.
What a spiritual buzzkiller!
BB
Stephen, there are those who counter that the universe only looks fundamentally random. Remember the song that says "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me." It could be that this sentiment is correct. Perhaps the omnipotent general manager oversees every smallest detail, right down past small songbirds to the subatomic level, keeping track of it all so he can assure that his rigidly controlled universe is indistinguishable from a random one.
So if a good person gets cruelly done in by a miraculous phenomenon like a lightning strike or a gaping sinkhole, we can take comfort, realizing that the catastrophe was regrettably necessary to balance out a good miracle on behalf of somebody else. For example, another person somewhere sometime might have been only lightly crippled by a lightning bolt or saved from a sinkhole by grasping the root of a tree that clung to the edge. That other person might or might not be a good one. Makes no difference, as long as the sum total of events does not violate the law of averages.
This is why the "thy will be done" clause in the Lord's Prayer is so important. We can look around and see our prayer answered continuously every day.
Robert Tyler's appointment over far more senior and experienced men proves that Armstrongism once again is nothing more than a family business. Gerald Weston has no children of his own who could seize power, otherwise Rod Meredith would never have made him his temporary successor. Mark my words, any of you doubters. In the most private and secret of LCG documents, the Canons which Rod Meredith refuses to show to his own church members, Jim Meredith's succession of his father has been enshrined for several years, even though the few remaining Meredith loyalists claim otherwise.
Black Ops Mickey May 27, 2016 at 6:05 AM wrote:
..."there will be no second coming"
Of course there will bed no second coming. Read Scripture.
According to the Bible, Jesus ascended and came back on the day of the Wave Sheaf Offering.
So if anything, we're looking for the Third Coming and Second Return.
Or maybe not....
And you are absolutely correct with stating that a/the "second coming" already occurred. The xcog leaders continue to mislead their followers in getting them to believe in their false theory about their "second coming" where Jesus Christ supposedly soon comes to reign on earth for a millennium period.
All of those leaders continue to turn a blind eye to the truth as they push their thoughts about their "second coming," a phrase nowhere found in the Bible. Their theory is junk food. It is a satanic counterfeit used to back up their Mickey Mouse Millennium (MMM). They turn a blind eye to the 40-day period during which Jesus Christ remained on earth before departing earth once again.
And there may be more than a third coming, because don't scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ will be at His Father's right hand UNTIL God the Father makes all enemies become subdued, be a footstool? Satan is an enemy. Death is an enemy. After the MMM, Satan is loosed from the pit and then that vile, evil, thing causes human beings to again "learn war" once again! One might ask: "Where was Jesus Christ during the MMM? Why did Jesus Christ, if He were reigning on earth, allow Satan to take over Jerusalem (Zech 14) and create such a mess there? etc.
With that in mind, I would conclude: So if anything, we're looking for the Third Coming, possibly a fourth coming and maybe even a fifth coming, but time will tell.
Either way, Biblically-speaking, a "second coming" for Jesus Christ is history and the xcog leaders need to revise their theory and stop striving to keep us deceived...and time will tell.
John
LCG is cursed and doomed.
Nepotism rules the day in the Living Church of God.
Actual qualifications such as Christian character matter far less than who your daddy, or uncle or brother are when deciding who gets promoted or moved to favored locations.
That's how corrupt organizations work full of vain, power grubbing men work.
The only good thing to come out of this change of leadership in the Australasia region is that there is now a lovely, gracious Regional Director's wife.
Anonymous 2:12 PM wrote;
"LCG is cursed and doomed"
Certainly under Tyler Snr the Australia region has not seemed to progress and prosper. Let's hope that changes will come.
It was a tragedy that Rod King got ill. He is the logical, qualified successor to B. Tyler. Many qualities and skills that would recommend him and endeared him to members. But Mr King was sent to Britain, a place he admittedly loved. But his family are all in Australia and he longed to return. B Tyler would not let Rod King return to Australia until he was almost a dying man of his cancer. He was finally allowed back. Thankfully, he has continued to serve as his medical condition allows. Recently, he seems to be gathering strength and, with God's help, may conquer his cancer. But it did mean he could be ruled out as the logical successor.
Stephen, Retired Prof, or anybody that wants to write it, should create the "zero-sum prayer".
DBP
DBP, I'm not sure what a "zero-sum prayer" would be. It's worth noting, though, that I have claimed in the past to have prayed once and for all so that I never felt the need to do it again. That ultimate prayer is a rephrasing of the last clause of the Lord's Prayer:
"Go ahead. Do whatever in hell you want to, God. You're going to anyway."
Retired Prof, praying for others is a tool of personal growth. In praying, we are exercising Gods responsibilities in a microcosmic way. We are learning to run the 'family business.' No one can qualify for the kingdom without regular prayer. Christ Himself left the example.
That's my sermonette.
The premise is that there is only so much love, joy, and happiness that exists in the Universe that in order for one to experience love, joy, or happinesss, it must be taken away from somebody else who already has it. Which kind of reminds me of that Twilight Zone or maybe it was an Outer Limits episode about the box with the button that could grant your wish but will only come at the cost of requiring someone's death on earth and you won't be able to know who dies.
And then the stranger returns to pick up the box, not knowing what choice they made.
"Why do you need the box back? I decided to choose----"
"Stop! I don't need to know or care, my job is to pass the box to the next person. Your turn is over!"
DBP
DBP, thanks for the zero-sum explanation.
Anon May 29, I'm glad you posted the sermonette. I don't need to qualify for the kingdom myself because I don't plan to apply for membership in it. However, your observation that prayer is a tool of personal growth is important to consider.
I know a guy who wrestles with incredibly complex problems in theoretical physics. Sometimes he comes to an impasse in his calculations and his understanding of what they imply. He struggles with the problem as long as he can, and finally gives up and prays. He says that often, from a few minutes to an hour later, the solution comes to him. He attributes the solutions to God, and I attribute them to the fertile creative capacity of the mind once it turns loose of tension that freezes preconceptions in place. Makes no difference in practical effect which explanation we use; the prayer does my friend a world of good.
I know an orthodox Jew who claims to find personal growth from davening--uttering ritual prayers in Hebrew. The words of the prayer are fixed, not addressed to particular problems, and yet he feels they make his day go better. Buddhists find that meditation has similar effects. A secular treatment called cognitive behavioral therapy is said to help some people get along better in this world.
I don't meditate, daven, or pray to a personal god. Closest thing for me is deer hunting. To fill up the boring hours watching and listening for the approach of a deer there's nothing else to do except think about stuff. If I have been researching facts related to some analytical problem, these periods give me respite from wrestling with the puzzle. Focusing on sights and sounds in the woods around me allows the things I have been studying to fall into place by surprise, the same effect my physicist friend experiences.
None of those realizations would qualify me for the kingdom, of course. But then according to Armstrong's followers, neither will prayer to any personal god except the one they worship.
You see, you see similarities, you can make more use of the ways that work.
They only see differences, and all the ways that don't work for them or that shouldn't work for you. Who wins in the end? lol
I think we can start to tell by now.
DBP
the ministers of lcg have not believed 1 Samuel 3:12-14; eli was a minister of God, and God brought clamity upon the family of eli because of his disobedience...
instead of being so self righteous and attributing the calamities to mere demon interference (and there have been many calamities within lcg over the past couple of decades), they need to acknowledge, confess and repent of their sins, cuz if they are indeed of God, would not they be held to a higher standard, and to whom much is given, much is required???
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