It has been 20 some years since UCG declared itself the new and improved "Worldwide Chruch of God". It actually had a good chance to do something great by correcting abusive errors and bad treatment of members. But where are those changes? The same men who abused members and kicked them out of the church when they disagreed with the changes were coming down the pipeline simply jumped ship for a continuing paycheck and continued on being the jerks so many of them were.
So here we are in 2019 and the United Church of God is not so united. It files to attracted new members, like most of the other COG's. They still cannot adjust their message to 2019 minds and still rely on old models and preaching from 30-40 years ago. Just how many times so members need to hear the same canned sermon?
These are some of the topics being examined by the boys in Cincinnati in their conference:
What impedes us from being “joined and knit together?” Are there things that we can do now to change that?
Do you feel valued for what you personally “supply?” Are you given opportunities to contribute the skills you have to offer?COG members were always considered "commodities" for what they could supply and contribute towards the church. Never once were members ever considered equals and children of God. Rarely were members talents out to good works. The church had a great way of devaluing talents and many times deliberately berated members at what they were good at and often forced them to give it up, including jobs and education tracks.
What is currently in place that helps you work most effectively? Is there anything that could be improved upon or added?
Are we growing in love as a home office staff, within our church, and within our community at large? What specific things can you point to? What barriers do we face?
Are there things we do that are inconsistent with our Vision statement?
Is the home office team conveying the vision of the Church to all our members effectively and does the message we send encourage and enable them to fulfill it?
Are we conveying God’s vision for humanity in a loving, genuine, and compelling way?
Do we have a culture that is welcoming and loving to new believers?
How do we as individuals fulfill the vision of the Church?”
20 comments:
The UCG model was doomed from the beginning. The Ray Wooten model for UCG was to have independently incorporated local churches, with their own elected boards and local tithe collection, with ministerial accountability to that board. Most churches/denomintations in America have this same model.
Under the Wooten model , there would only be a very small home office .
Instead, UCG reverted back to the collectivist, communist model, without local votes, and guaranteed for life employment. Ministry is NOT accountable to the locals for performance or production, and no one ever (or rarely) gets fired or replaced. Although better than an absolute dictatorship like Flurry, Pack , Weston, the ministry oligarchy system at UCG is like a "trade union" that definitely protects its own. 50% of UCG revenue goes to its ineffective ministry, while members attend run down rented facilities.
If UCG was a publicly traded stock, the board of directors would all be voted out by the shareholders. Its marketing is a failure, and it has become old and out of date , and is as doomed as Sears Roebuck or Radio Shack.
The seeds of its own demise were there from the very beginning. Ray Wooten had it right!
Gosh, I sat through so many meetings both at "Refreshers", which were exhausting, and in the Regional setting that were all talk and came to nothing as far as I can see. I sat through WCG meetings, WCG East Coast Rebellion meetings in the 70's (I was the RD's assistant in Chicago) WCG meetings to fix the East Coast Rebellion, Meetings on Marriage Counseling Programs that were Mickey Mouse to say the least and were not helpful and barely insightful. I sat through Pre-Tkach meetings with Joe Sr until 3 in the morning during the Receivership in 79 as JT never slept more than four hours a night. I think it showed. He was not the smartest theological pencil in the box. And finally I sat through "Jesus has worked a great miracle in the Church" meetings with the new and improved WCG now ashamed of its name and seeking another, where I watched my Presbyterian Wheel being reinvented and taking me personally back to where I had come from.
Get me out of here... I look back on all the meetings on all the topics and , to me, they have proved, all for naught. Just talk and blather signifying nothing.
I did spent five hours in a Therapeutic Massage Clinic meeting this week and it was awesome! The owners care more for and want more good things for the staff than anything I ever picked up in a WCG harangue.
I do remember in a Refresher where someone felt it was important to talk about the yes ok or no not ok burning topic of "Is Oral Sex Wrong?" or maybe it was "Just What Do You Mean Oral Sex?" I forget, lol. It started with the moderator innocently and unintentionally expressing his discomfort with the topic but he had to address it. He said, …..get ready for it...."I find the topic distasteful" We just looked at each other and fell out on the floor. Then the Regional Director of the French Churches waved his hands yelling "Stop! Stop!!! Do not address this topic!! You'll lose the entire French Church!"
We fell out again and the meeting was cancelled. I got stories!
Scratch the surface of all the nice sounding bible verses, and one finds that if these splinters can't rob a member, they are not welcome.
Even calling calling them collectivistic is kind. People who lived in post WW 2 communist countries, found the commie policies were basically impartially applied. As a matter of observation, in these churches, it's not. There's a informal pecking order which determines who gets free stuff.
Maybe you are wrong - the UCG does have its focus - talk a lot - they seem to do this very well.
Seinfeld was famously the show about nothing.
Maybe they should rename themselves "The Seinfeld Church of God".
As the Unbelieving Church of Godlessness, an International Abomination (UCGaIA) credentials more unqualified bums as “ministers” they can each make up their own new teachings. Everyone always did as they pleased in the UCGaIA anyway and it pleased them to do evil. This drove away the true believers but did not attract any more unbelievers as people could be godless and sinful without going to the UCGaIA.
WWG legacy was one of an inward, almost secret church for the reason of being "separate" from the world. Christ was never that way. He reached out to Israel's enemy, a Centurion, a Samaritan women, lepers, tax collectors, the poor in general. Members of the church are supposed to trained to help rule with Christ in the Kingdom, but were and still are to a great extent, isolated from the "sinners' of the world. But we are all still sinners and Christ said before He left that His follower were to be in the world but not of the world.
The out reach efforts of United are very limited. But we are very small, old and spread out, making it difficult to have an organized effort. But when we were "big",(700) at one time in the 80's, we did almost noting to help those in the world. That was cultish and not following Jesus. Whatever United could do to expand "Good Works" would make it a more "Christ Like" body of believers. But members should be encouraged to reach out individually when and where the opportunity arises to show the example of a "Good Samaritan" to all in their community.
Enjoyed your comment about the flopped meeting about oral sex, Dennis. Religious people can waste more time beating their gums about such nonsense. They seem to have an inordinate fascination about the subject. Basically, it's nobody's business what individual couples engage in.
2.17 PM
Exactly. In John 17.15 Christ prays "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one."
Christ grew up in a rough area, and also wants His children to know how to live in the real world. The "come out of her" is Christians being instructed to reject the worlds evil ways.
So in these churches, there's a reversal of Gods instruction by physically separating themselves from outsiders, while embracing the world's evil ways.
Well done good and faithful servant. Err, I mean, not well done, bad and faithless servant.
Comment was made saying: "...These are some of the topics being examined by the boys in Cincinnati in their conference:
What impedes us from being “joined and knit together?” Are there things that we
can do now to change that?..."
Good questions! How many times has the United Ass. traveled down this road asking virtually the very same questions? When you are blind: you are blind and can't really spiritually "see!"
So, what impedes the United Ass.? That answer is very simple: a lack of God's Spirit!
"From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." Eph 4:16
Now, that would be a united body of believers, but God has to make the increase and build that body by the power of His Spirit through Jesus Christ, but if God does not plant and build that body, then what may we expect? Here's Jesus Christ's words:
"...Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Matthew 15:13
It is only a matter of time.
Tonto, in the first comment, above explained the direction that the United Ass. hirelings had planned to go, but then over a short period of time they reversed their Indianapolis Conference decisions and then strives to create another "Worldwide Church of God" like those hireling had just fled from...with all mammon flowing into one location of centralized authority.
Well, anyway, Victor Kubik mentions 3 more questions: "...Are we growing in love as a home office staff, within our church, and within our community at large? What specific things can you point to? What barriers do we face?..."
It almost sounds like something Joey Tkach might say! Huh! Yes, no mention of God's Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ! Victor speaks about "our church!" Where was/is God in that?
Yes, I believe lack of God's Spirit obviously "impedes" the United Ass.
Time will tell.....time has been telllng!
John
"... it's nobody's business what individual couples engage in."
But it will be everybody's business when someone will kiss and tell.
Tonto, not all UCG "members attend run down rented facilities."
Several congregations now have their own buildings - from Houston to Wichita to Terre Haute. And the Home Office wants that to increase.
"You'll lose the entire French Church!"
All twelve members!
The answer to all those questions is no.
Feastgoer, many congregations in UCG still rent run down facilities.
As there are pastors within UCG who treat United brethren as if they think they are trailer trash, I don't expect anything to come of this anytime soon.
These questions are insider talk directed at insiders, Ministerial and the COG elite.
Feastgoer stated: "...Several congregations now have their own buildings - from Houston to Wichita to Terre Haute. And the Home Office wants that to increase..."
AND "Back in the day" of WCG, the churches of the world were looked upon as Satan's churches/houses of worship, but today many of the United Ass. congregations have no problem going out and renting hall space within those "houses/temples of worship to Satan," whether crucifixes, Xmas trappings, idols are displayed or not.
How would/could God's Spirit ever be associated with those appearances of evil?
Time does tell...
John
1200 at its peak.
Nck
Armstrongites generally deny evolutionary processes in all forms. I believe we are watching a church movement in perpetual search of its own soul, as it undergoes a spiritual evolutionary process. Whether it dead ends, or actually sheds the original cultic aspects and then regains health and vibrancy remains to be seen. But, lack of growth and other factors seem to be indicative of the fact that they are all caught in some sort of dead zone in the aftermath of the death of their founders. They’ll continue to search and to take introspection until they emerge from this dead zone, or die out completely.
BB
In the old WCG days I have met in a RCC church when the regular hall was not available
The UCG plan was to let everyone believe whatever they wanted to believe, and behave however they wanted to behave. The only condition was that nobody was supposed to judge anyone else.
The problem with this plan was that the rebellious heretics wanted to spread their nutty ideas to others in the UCG, and the malicious slanderers wanted to slander others in the UCG, and the stalkers wanted to stalk others in the UCG. Of course, the victims did not like this arrangement, and did say some things about what was going on.
Since kicking out the perpetrators would mean getting rid of all sorts of godless types who hang out at the UCG, the UCG instead chose to kick out the victims. The UCG used the excuse that they had said things about others, and that is forbidden, unless it is a liar slandering someone. Then it is okay.
You can call iy "God's Family Government","Servant Leadership","Team Based Organization",or whatever else you want.A hierarchy by any name would still smell the same
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