The Philadelphia Church of
John Krueger has this to say in the article, "Fundraising for God: A way to not only earn money but also show God your enthusiasm for His Work":
God blesses us in many ways, and He asks for so little in return. Every year, we have opportunities to contribute to God’s Work through tithes, holy day offerings and funds for building, airplane and other projects. But there is another way we can give that has proven to produce much fruit: congregational fundraisers. These fundraisers provide great value to God’s Work.
Oh yes, it is a blessing to take hard earned money that your family needs in order to pay triple tithes, a tithe of the tithe, give regular and special offerings, contribute to the building fund, the upkeep of the Flurry family's private jet, AICF, Jerusalem dig, and more.
There are more than 100 Philadelphia Church of God congregations spread across the globe. Most of these congregations have few members. I’ve heard people say, “Our congregation is too small for a fundraiser.” But that is not true! Even small congregations can make a big contribution through fundraising. One of the smaller congregations that I have served brought in $1,100 in two days. It takes hard work and dedication, but it can be done. Even when members are too scattered to do a group fundraiser, they can use their talents to earn money individually, then pool it together and donate it to headquarters to help the Work.
In spite of all of this, Flurry's god does not look at the money total, but in the attitude of the church members raising money. Obviously, anyone not raising money has a bad attitude!
Chief financial officer Andrew Locher said that the Church received $200,000 in fundraiser donations in 2017. That is a great donation to God’s Work! But God doesn’t look at the amount that is given; He looks on the attitudes of those working the fundraiser.
So what are some practical fundraisers you can become involved in? Here are some ideas you can suggest to your local minister. One of the most profitable ways to earn money is to work concessions at sporting venues, which are always looking for people to staff their food and drink stands. Garage sales are another great way to bring in extra cash. You can use eBay, Craigslist, Mercari and other websites to sell your unwanted items and use your profits as a donation. You can also use your God-given talents and abilities to sell arts and crafts. Carwashes, clean-up projects, house painting and cleaning, flea markets, and bake sales can all be profitable fundraisers. When I was serving as a minister in Michigan, we had a bake sale where one chocolate cake auctioned for $150!
Did you know that one of the aspects of church membership is that it is a team-building exercise? Church members with bad attitudes are not wanted!
Working on a fundraiser together with your fellow PCG family members is worthwhile. Sharing fellowship and building teamwork and unity is worth more than money. Small congregations can make a difference. As you organize, prepare and hold your fundraiser, remember that the main purpose is not the amount of money you make: It’s your attitude of service that God is looking for. God loves to see His people work in a spirit of unity and fellowship, furthering His Work!
Now is the time to start planning a fundraiser. Show God how much you want to get His message out to the world by going beyond your holy day offerings and tithes. Work to send in additional congregational donations to support this Work and push closer to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ cannot come unless you hold a garage sale and sending in money!
All of our congregations should have the attitude of the Macedonians and show our great God that we stand firmly and resolutely behind Him, Jesus Christ, His end-time apostle and His wonderful Work. Contact your minister with your ideas: Start fundraising for God!
jawohl, Herr Kapitän!
24 comments:
No2HWA. Since you are my minister in the right sense of the word, I forward the suggestion to creatively use "World Naked Gardening Day" for a fundraiser of some sorts. Any input on how to monetize this idea is most welcome. Perhaps a raindance to summon the gods and then sell ponchos in white suburbia?
nck
My suggestion to the PCG members is, stop tithing. If the PCG is the true church of God then God will provide the funds needed! After all can't the creator of the universe make money appear out of thin air? It is nothing but a load of b.s. when they say that when you give to the church you are giving to God. All churches are inventions of men and none are sanctioned by God! When you give any amount of money to any church you are giving to "men".
Just curious how many members of the Armstrong cults are living poorly. When I was in that Armstrong mess I barely had enough money to pay my bills and put food on the table.
This is nothing, Pack was bringing in over 1 Million per year in fundraising in 2013. Then his prophetic failure, fundraising has dropped, however, still very high numbers. Of course, he is like Flurry and looks at the "attitude" not the amount. Yea right!
"Fundraising for God: A way to not only earn money but also show God your enthusiasm for His Work":
Yes, God needs funds. Hubble telescope spotted a sign in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image "Send Funds and show me your enthusiasm" LOL. Whatever happened to the windows of heaven opening for PCG tithers??? That should more than cover God's needs and jet fuel.
Since Christ used a donkey or walking as a way of getting around, Mr. Flury will be selling his jet. Being the humble man that he is, in the future Mr. Flury will utilize Spirit, Frontier, Wow, Norwegian, Ryan, and other ultra low cost airlines for his travel needs. He will have to pay extra for airline food and luggage, but this would be a small sacrifice for the work. From Los Angeles airport, Wow airlines has a fare of $205 to London Gatwick airport.
https://wowair.us/flights/best-fares/?selected_airport=LAX
I still think Pack takes home the prize with his "Common" and no one can be saved if they don't pay it theme.
With the opening statement being: "God blesses us in many ways, and He asks for so little in return" - I know I am being setup for a coming sales pitch. And what would that sales pitch be? "But there is another way we can give that has proven to produce much fruit: congregational fundraisers." "These fundraisers provide great value to God’s Work". So the sales pitch is that God's way, which requires 20+% of your income for his work is of far less value than our way, which encourages you to give 100% of your extra time income to the work providing a far greater value than God's way. So the COG way is indeed better than God's way.
The RCG became so enamored with the 100% fruit of fund-raising that they pulled a very talented and capable minister out of the field to head a created department of fund-raising. I guess feeding the flock is of far less value than creating and motivating fund-raising opportunities!
It looks as if the PCG has studied Dack Pack's formula for how a small church does big things. They might as well take the next step to be equal and quit hoping and waiting for a members' death and their willed estate and just require the money now as "Common".
Since Christ used a donkey or walking as a way of getting around, Mr. Flury will be selling his jet. Being the humble man that he is, in the future Mr. Flury will utilize Spirit, Frontier, Wow, Norwegian, Ryan, and other ultra low cost airlines for his travel needs. He will have to pay extra for airline food and luggage, but this would be a small sacrifice for the work. From Los Angeles airport, Wow airlines has a fare of $205 to London Gatwick airport.
No, he'd rather live the high affluent elite life with his family and use the poor PCG TITHE SLAVES to support their affluent life of greed while using church members as money slaves, who already give a considerable amount of thier money to their church, and now are being guilted into doing even more work for their greedy lifestyle.
This isn't even talking about the wickedness they continue to do with their "cutoff" policies.
What is it going to take for PCG's money slaves to say "enough" to their "masters" and begin to live a more wholesome and better life?
"...sell your unwanted items ..."
Anybody want to buy a bible?
You have to spend $20 on gas to get to a church fundraiser, then end up spending $15 or more on food, then you work for $5 per hour for 5 hours (or maybe about $3 if you include your travel time). The church gets $25 but it costs you $35. And a whole day out of your life.
A better idea is to stay home and spend the day with your kids.
Oh yeah, the deacon shows up for 10 minutes to put in an appearance.
I guess the big thing is that these groups just continue finding obligations to pile on top of members. Somehow, members’ salvation ends up being tied to their participation in each additional obligation. I was going to ask “How do any of the members have time to have a life?” The leaders have basically replaced any lives members could possibly have that retained any sort of free will. You don’t so much become a member of an ACOG as you do a codependent.
There were both commanded and implied obligations many years ago. The primary motivations which we had back then were the visible impact of “the work” and the accompanying street buzz, the undeniable growth even if they did further fudge the actual figures, and the general perception that the church’s “research” into such things as paganism, British Israelism, and church history was accurate. Splinter groups no longer have these motivators, so leaders compensate by ramping up church authority. That is the only way in which the Armstrong groups can continue to survive financially. Even if there were any blessings for following Armstrongism, the current crop of leaders insist that those blessings do not get used by members to live a victorious life, but actually belong to their miniaturized Armstrongite churches.
Christianity has thrived for thousands of years now, often with very little financial resource. Remove money from the Armstrong equation, and watch how quickly it contracts and dies. It’s not just the ministers who have had the power to kill the movement by creating endless vanity splinters. The submissive members, whose label long ago expanded from the simple description “tithe slave” to the all-encompassing “financial slave” hold the ultimate power over the future of Armstrongism. An outbreak of common sense amongst the brethren, a simple “this has gone far enough”, a resolve to no longer be a victim could bring down all of the oppressive splinters in a New York minute.
Remember, if your minister splintered, for whatever reason, the church which embodies and encompasses your beliefs, contracted in both power and impact as a direct consequence of his actions. Often, a minister who no longer has a layer of authority to which he is responsible controlling him goes way overboard and crazy in many areas. Such “leaders” do not deserve your allegiance, your respect, or your finances enabling them to run amuck with their appetites, and the authority which they have seized and abuse. The question you should be asking yourself is whether you should continue to enable these types of people.
BB
The PCG is lacking creativity in their fundraising, as are most churches.
Just have a "CASINO NIGHT" with professional black jack , poker, roulette , craps dealers, with the church getting to be "the house" and raking in the profit!
Throw in some drinks and a band. Make the minimum at the door "buy in" $1000 , but if you beat the house or the other bettors you get to keep your winnings! Sounds like a lot of fun!
At the very least, just sell lottery tickets for the smaller congregations, or have a giant nationwide raffle , with half of the funds raised going to a variety of prizes with the top one being something like a new car! Heck , would make a great piece for their internal newsletters showing a photo of the winning family driving their new Toyota Corolla into the church parking lot.
How about using their corporate jet for rides? Just take offs and landings , 5 minute rides, for $500 a pop, and jamming 25 people in the jet at a time?
How about selling Gerald Flurry "Beany Babies"??
How about a "Girls of Herbert W. Armstrong College" pin up calendar"? My husband said he wants one for the gym in the garage! LOL!
Again, such a lack of creativity coming from the PCG!
Back in my old WCG congregation, we were occasionally obliged to do fundraisers. To name a few, there were the "church gardens" in members' backyards (then selling members overpriced vegetables), a flea market (taking the business away from a member who really needed it), and bake sales. I remember an aggressive member pushing us to buy cakes that were high in sugar and fat -- until a lady complained to the minister about being pressured to buy unhealthy food on the Sabbath...
One of the readers of Banned posted on another topic about social security tithing. Although slightly off this fundraising topic, it is relevant to the Church's cavalier attitude "its all about the money". I agree with the poster that social security should not be tithed or taxed for that matter. I know this would reduce a major revenue stream to the aging Armstrong Churches of God. People who lived in poverty most of their lives tithing 10%, 20%, 30% plus Holy Day offerings, emergency contributions (there was always an emergency in WCG) and let's not forget the all-important Building Fund even though the Church preached "Time Is Short" - are asked to live in poverty in old age by tithing off their social security. For many in the Armstrong Churches of God, social security is their only retirement because many were indoctrinated through the decades to believe "Time is Short - Christ is coming soon". No need to worry about saving for retirement
As we all know, the Armstrong Churches of God take the same position as our Federal Government ignoring the fact that social security contributions have already been tithed and taxed once from the original earned income that generated the contribution in the first place. It really is all about the money when it comes to the Armstrong Churches of God. My advice to anyone still caught in the Armstrong Churches of God (besides getting out), is take your fundraising money and instead of pooling it with others and sending it into HQ to finance Flurry's jet, open an IRA with it. Also, the aforementioned poster made the point that Social Security is not tithable because you are only commanded to tithe on your increase. Since it has already been tithed once and social security is not an increase, I would also recommend withholding tithes on social security benefits. This is YOUR time to enjoy particularly if you financed the WCG and its daughter Churches for decades and decades.
Will a man rob God? (Malachi 3:8). Answer - yes Mr. Armstrong, Gerald Flurry, David Pack, Tax cheat Felon Ron Weinland, Clown Prophet Bob Thiel and many others have been robbing God by robbing YOU!
Richard
Hoss at 11:16 AM, sounds like you just described the Tuoelo, Mississippi congregation in the 1980's. lol
WCG Fundraisers I remember: The Fruit Baskets.
We'd all meet in a big warehouse and become a big assembly line making these gigantic Fruit Baskets. I don't remember why we were making these, but they were a really big deal.
The other thing we would do is a HUGE Church Yard Sale. We had over 400 in our local congregation. One of the deacons and the deaconess wife would put up a huge tent in their suburban home and we'd have one tremendous sale. We'd use those for what we called the "Local Church Activity Fund".
"Will a man rob God? (Malachi 3:8)."
Well, under Tkach all the ministers were ordered to rob the local churches and send all send the money in to Pasadena. Even Armstrong and Flurry never did that. Yet we have people on here that think Tkach was some kind of holy man, saving us from Armstrongism. He was just another crook and liar like Herb whose doctrines were equally false and who was equally crooked.
This is not new. PCG started encouraging this a few years back. I was in the church back then and we were very small less than 10 people. They had us sell Lilies for Mother's day. Then they asked us to have yard sales. No one wanted to hold it so we all ended up giving of our own money. So besides the 10%tithe, 10% feast tithe, tithe of tithe before feast and 3rd tithe every 3rd year they encouraged us to sell our stuff and make pledges to building funds, colleges and it seems plane fund. That is when I left right when Flurry said he was buying a plane to go to world leaders. Has he been to one yet?
Flurry claims to follow Armstrong to the letter, so if yard sale proceeds went to the local church activity fund in the WCG, then yard sale proceeds in PCG should also go to the local church. If that is not happening, they are robbing the local churches.
When did the leaders ever have a garage sale to help the church? I don't imagine there were many yard sales on Waverly Drive where RCM, GTA, David Jon Hill and other lived. I don't expect Pack or Flurry to give up anything "for the Work." Though Flurry might have to sell off his plane.
A lot of the male and female old geezers in the PCG have to be kept busy with things like fundraisers or else all they ever think about is the younger single members and sex.
The true purpose--the very purpose--of false prophets like Flurry and Pack is to totally destroy their followers. Might as well start by wasting all their time, taking all their money, and teaching them to do evil to their own families.
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