Thursday, June 16, 2016

David Hulme Church Unable to Retain Members



Remember the glory days when Worldwide Church of God congregations could have hundreds and hundreds of people in a congregation?  The church I get up in had 700+ members.  HQ congregations had 1,200+ in attendance each week with  neighboring churches with 200-300 members each. At it's peak over 5,000 church members were gathering in the Los Angeles area every Saturday.  Feast sites could have up to 15,000 people in attendance.  Bragging rights were certainly things to be proud of.

Contrast that to today in the the Churches of God.  All the churches struggle to get 1,200 in attendance from around the world! Most congregations are now 20-30 people.  Some, like Almost Arrested Elisha Elijah Amos Thiel, have hardly any members in the United States but a few hundred in Africa thus making it a global work in his eyes.

Then there is the Church of God an International Association.  David Hulme thought he was the next best thing after Herbert Armstrong and started his own church after wrecking havoc in United Church of God.  From the several thousand that went with him he has dwindled down to minuscule little gatherings of people.  His magazine has ceased publication, and now is online only, still as irrelevant an worthless as before.  No one read it in the print version, even though it was geared to the worldly heathen Sunday keepers and atheist pagans.

His church church attendance figures have come out recently and someone has compared them to COGIA figures from 2008.  It's not a pretty picture;

2008
“In some parts of the world you will find that there are a lot of people coming into the Church. You find quite a multiplying going on in Africa at the moment. You don’t find it very much in the UK, but it’s not true of everywhere in the UK. You don’t find it everywhere in the US... 
What has been happening in the Church? In the US and Canada we have 1150 people in regular attendance and we have 53 churches. If you do your maths, you realize that a lot of these churches are rather small...
At the Feast last year we had about 1300 people in attendance. Let’s go to other parts of the world. In Australia we have 68 people and six churches. In the Philippines we have 156 people and seven churches. In addition we have 11 members in six countries, remote areas all around Southeast Asia who are looked after by Australia. Last year we had 77 people at the Feast in Bright, in Australia, and 132 in Iloilo, in the Philippines.
In Africa we have an interesting situation. We have English and French speaking brethren there numbering 700! So they are a sizable portion of our total numbers. They are scattered through 38 congregations. A recent report I saw has congregations in places that even I was not aware we had people! So there are some small groups forming in countries where hitherto we have not had anybody.
In the UK we have about 300 people in 14 congregations. The Feast there is one of our larger ones, about 320 there last year. In Germany we have two congregations and 20 people. We have people of the German language background in Switzerland as well. We have France and Switzerland represented in the French language: 21 people in two congregations. In Scandinavia we have about 10 people, mostly in Denmark and Norway and Sweden, I believe.”
Now compare those numbers above to 2015

The numbers attending the 2015 Festival of Tabernacles were as follows: 
USA : Klamath Falls, Oregon 166; Lake Arrowhead, California 190; Springdale, Arkansas 190; Deep Creek Lake, Maryland - not stated. Total 700+.Total attendance almost halved - mostly accounted for by the loss of members to the Church of God, The Father’s Call, in January 2014. 
Australia : Bright - attendance not stated, but a significant number seem to have gone ‘walkabout’. There are only 12 people (none young) in the festival report photo, including several visitors from the USA. 
Philippines : Talisay 138. 
Africa : Accra, Ghana & Benin City, Nigeria - 70; Scottsburgh, South Africa 19; Gokwe, Zimbabwe 77; Harare, Zimbabwe 111; Cotonou, Benin 123; Busa, Cameroon 45. Total 445. 
Philippines : Talisay 138. 
Africa : Accra, Ghana & Benin City, Nigeria - 70; Scottsburgh, South Africa 19; Gokwe, Zimbabwe 77; Harare, Zimbabwe 111; Cotonou, Benin 123; Busa, Cameroon 45. Total 445. 
The substantial fall in numbers is probably due to a discontinuation of support in some areas - no festival site in East Africa for example. 
Europe : Llandudno, Wales, 260 from 12 countries; Les Rousses, France, over 60 from 10 countries. Total 320+ 
Since John Meakin and some members left to join LCG, a month before Tabernacles 2008, the UK has remained loyal to David Hulme. Perhaps there was no French festival site in 2008, which would account for the drop in the UK. 
Total 2015 festival attendance : 1600-1650.Total 2008 church attendance : 2400-2450.  (From Church of God News)
The people still presume they are doing a work even though they are irrelevant in numbers.  Part of the reason behind that is the myth that Herbert pushed continually upon the church.  "God's true church has always been small in numbers."  Little church, mighty work.  That's the same myth Dave Pack uses to this day, though his numbers are readily declining too.

Perhaps Dave Pack and Dave Hulme can join ranks and celebrate the Feast together this year.  Since the of thousands of other COG members still have not joined up with Dave Pack, he might be overly excited to get a couple hundred from Hulme.

The work is dead.  None of the groups are doing anything worthwhile.  The only thing every single one of these groups has in common is the ability to keep putting money in the leader's pockets.






11 comments:

Anonymous said...

'That none of the groups is doing anything worthwhile,' leaves God out of the picture. We do not know, and can only guess as to what is happening 'beneath the waterline.' I pray for the work, and do not believe my prayers go unanswered. God would not bless me otherwise. To not help mankind in its hour if need (the tribulation is near) will bring eternal shame.

Unknown said...

News Flash--- Dave Pack and Dave Hulme to merge bodies.

New leader will be known as Dave Hack.

Byker Bob said...

If it's indeed 6,000 years for man and 1,000 years for God, then the trib is 224 years away. This is Hebrew year 5776!

BB

Anonymous said...

BB you yell non stop, at the top of your intellectual voice, that the tribulation is a myth or '224 years away.' Have you considered that the readers here, are drawing unflattering conclusions about where you are coming from? Or at least some of them.

Anonymous said...

Maybe if Dave Pack did not change major doctrine, as he has been doing lately, he would not have such an exodus from RCG. But he claims to be that Prophet, so he must have seen this coming. (Just like the 3 men dying and all coming to RCG. Oh, that never happened. Just like the first dominion to arrive soon!)

Byker Bob said...

No, 1:56, I just share things which were either not known by or considered by the originators, perpetuators, and adherents of the Armstrong movement in the hopes that readers will reinvestigate what they think they know, and come to their own conclusions, rather than to the "guided" or "approved" conclusions. Nobody here signs my paycheck, and nobody holds me hostage, so what they may think is irrelevant, just so long as they actually do think.

Everyone who has been around these sites for the past 15 years knows that I am a charter member of the ABA (Anything But Armstrongism). Quite honestly, there are many, many interpretations to the Book of Revelation, and not all of them literalist.

BB

Anonymous said...

No need to guess what's going on below the waterline.

Armstrongism is a sewer after all.

Anonymous said...

3.10 PM Dave must know by now that he has failed to qualify for the kingdom. The 'natural' tendency is to take as many with you as possible, just like Satan and his demons. This makes him a dangerous dude.

Anonymous said...

sounds like someone from The Father's Call is feeding you information in an attempt to persuade more to defect.

Anonymous said...

I hope they all defect! Better yet, stop going to a COG altogether and go actually learn about Jesus elsewhere because they never will in a COG.

Anonymous said...

Christ did say ' beware of the Pharisees.' So yes, I hope they all defect from this wolf in sheep's clothing, into the arms of Christ. Defect folks, defect.