Holy Days the sermons might be 1 1/2 - 2 hours long with services in the morning and afternoon.
Weekly sermons tended to be shorter, usually 1 - 1 1/2 hours on any given Saturday.
How many of these men could have given their sermon in 15 or 20 minutes and actually gotten their point across? Just how many Bible verses needed to be quoted before peoples eyes glazed over? Apparently, ministers were trained to use as many as possible in order to impress the sheeple.
Could Herbert Armstrong have gotten his incessant rants about the "two trees" accomplished in 20 minutes or less?
And then there is Bob Thiel who preaches for 1 1/2 hours on 15 -20 different topics.
Take the poll in the right hand column and let your ministers know how long you are willing to listen to them preach!
15 comments:
I guess you can compress all sermons to 20 minutes. Or 10. Or just 1.
Every article and comment on this site can be simplified to: "Armstrongism is bad". All the rest is redundant. Yet people keep coming here to post their two cents.
For some like Waterhouse the old maxim is apt i.e. “Some take way too long to say way too little.”
The quality is much more important than the quantity.
I can watch intently for the whole of a well-prepared two-hour documentary on television. I can get disgusted and turn the channel during an obnoxious 30-second commercial. Give me a reason to care, and teach me something new, and I won't mind a Waterhouse-length presentation. Unfortunately, it has been years since even a 50-minute sermon has felt like something fresh and worthwhile.
Part of reasoning for length of services etc went back to how far people used to drive to get to a church. I am sure someone thought it had to be worth their travel etc. That is the first thing I brought up back when the Tkaches were reinventing the Wheel and drooling over that which most people grew up in and came out of to go to WCG. Why would people drive so far for something they could now get two blocks down in most churches in their own town. You could kiss the Church good bye. The rest is history.
I heard Waterhouse speak one time. I was gung-ho and excited and I traveled to the next town on his tour just so I could hear the same four hour lecture all over again. It was worth it! Well, later I realized that it was all nonsense. But, at the time I was a true believer. I soaked it all in.
When I read MANY of the remarks on this forum/blog I realize that some of you went to church for decades and never knew your stuff. You were never gung-ho. You never had your heart in it. It seems like you never studied. You just showed up.
It's not the 1.5 hr lecture that's bad. It's the fill in commercials like, news of the work and where so and so will be going or went.
When I left lcg, it was mainly a one man show. Minister or elder, did every thing himself. He could not find anyone trustworthy to do opening or closing prayers.
It has been a few years but we don't miss those 2 sermons on holy days.
I can only hope there really is a God so Herb and most of you here, liars, go to hell, which is exactly what you deserve.
Good point D.D. Why stay with the GCI if the Luthern or Methodist church just blocks from your house is preaching the same message as GCI?
At its peak, Herbs church had the financial resources to hire ghost writers to write meaty, interesting sermons. They made the choice not to, and instead stayed with their diluted spiritual milk. Presumably, Herb didn't want members to realize how infantile his two tree sermons were. A non-stop collapsing church is to be expected.
Why stay with GCI? A local church with a nice building, big screen tv, good music, etc is much more appealing than some run down rental hall.
Most of cogwa ministry staring with Jim Franks on down. Their leadership is just a rubber stamp for self-aggrandizement and a bogus preaching of the Gospel. They think they do a service, some local churches with no affiliation with a mother church do more than they do. Their life hope and truth is their flag ship that is supposed to preach to the world is nothing but sorrowful . What they don't tell you is that most of the ones that read it are members. Most of the quote newer ministers don't know anything about prophecy and don't preach anything about it.
Less is more in todays world.
Average You Tube is watched at about 25 seconds. Media has camera angles and shot change every 5 seconds or less.
Attention span is shorter for modern society, that's just the way it is. We are programmed for a life story to be completed in 30 minutes thanks to television. Thus, a 30 minute Church message should suffice.
I like science fiction which is probably why I enjoyed Waterhouse's sermons
Anonymous January 18, 2019 at 9:05 AM said...
"Most of cogwa ministry staring with Jim Franks on down. Their leadership is just a rubber stamp for self-aggrandizement and a bogus preaching of the Gospel. They think they do a service, some local churches with no affiliation with a mother church do more than they do. Their life hope and truth is their flag ship that is supposed to preach to the world is nothing but sorrowful . What they don't tell you is that most of the ones that read it are members. Most of the quote newer ministers don't know anything about prophecy and don't preach anything about it."
And virtually all of the other xcogs mirror that same approach, but what does it amount to?
Lots of rejoicing for all of them! Rejoicing in what?
"But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." James 4:16
They are all like an aircraft circling the airport wanting to land, but they are blinded b/c of the foggy view, and can't land until their view becomes clearer before attempting to land.
We're learning to hate the evil:
"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil..." Psalm 97:10
Is there any success for any of the xcogs? Jesus Christ tells us this:
Matthew 15:13 But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Perhaps all of the xcogs are just wandering around in their own ditches...and rejoicing in their boastings...seemingly going nowhere, but ...
Time will tell...
John
At Gizmo people got waterboarded In the WCG you got Waterhoused. What one was worse?
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