Ever since the Worldwide Church of God imploded into hundreds of splinter groups, the Armstrong Churches of God have had major marketing issues in getting their message out to the world. UCG and LCG slap themselves on the back by boasting about programs on Roku and other streaming devices and quote outrageous figures of "potential" viewers as if they are actual viewers. Millions of people do NOT tune in to their programs. Most just skip past or watch a couple minutes to get an idea on what the app is about and then move on when they see it is a religious program.
None of the ACOG have ever been able to figure out how to appeal to the younger generation. Certain mainline churches have found that niche and draw in thousands of millennials, GenX, GenY, GenZ, to worship services, but not one single ACOGever has. And, why should they? What do any of the ACOG have to offer that is of value?
When a person lives in a crazy world with potential upheavals just a phone swipe away, why would anyone want to park their butt in a 2-hour service where the minister is constantly talking about death and damnation soon to hit the world, about being zealous in order to become vindictive Pharisees, or listening to a crooked Chief Overseer rail on in a sermon filled with 30-40 DIFFERENT subjects? Who needs that?
I’m an elder millennial BB (born in 80s), ex COG, and the last generation who witnessed WCG as kids.
The COG has a major marketing problem. How do you make appealing doctrines like BI that go against genetics?
How do you keep talking about the return of Christ and the end times without addressing living in harmony in the modern world?
Homosexuals are continually railed against but many have co-workers, acquaintances, or dare I say friends who are gay.
Also as a generation who has witnessed graphic design, special effects, and cutting edge technology. Telecasts of all kinds look cheesy, their messages are not exciting and do not hold our attention.
How are two hour services still a thing? Cut that in half lol
What is new and innovative in Armstrongism? Not much at all.
Also, millennials have their issues but in my experience Baby Boomers are the most entitled group as they are receiving the most entitlements currently. As a generation we’re passionate, adaptable, thoughtful, and harder to sell on things.
Especially mass market products like Armstrongism and Applebee’s.
"Angry Kitchen Table False Prophet Lashes Out At All Church of God Groups"
They're still trying to sell a crappy 1973 Green Valiant as if it's the best thing in the world. The 1973 Valiant is obsolete. So is the culture of Herbert Armstrong in the 20th Century. The COG's have absolutely nothing to offer the GEN X,Y or Z'er who will simply check out Armstrongism online and find out every bit of how much of a scam it is as those who have checked it out who were actually in the system.
ReplyDeleteHerbert's marketing system worked because the generation he sold it to accepted the premise. His product did not deliver. His product never materialized. The only things that did materialize was what he benefited from personally, and the social relationships built under the regime that were to the end strictly under their control.
Quite simply, the average Y-Z individual knows better. The Armstrong ship has sailed, and no one has a clue how to drive a 2019 Tesla when all they've ever known is the 1973 Valiant.
No one wants a 1973 Valiant. No one wants Armstrongism. BOTH are not relevant to today's culture.
How do you make appealing an ancient, hard to read book, filled with things that obviously aren't true, as a book of timeless truth?
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the COGs that face a marketing problem, although they face a more acute one than many other sects.
What do you do as a young person when you read the book of Proverbs, supposedly wisdom from one of the wisest men who ever lived, and realize that it doesn't contain any wisdom you're not already bombarded with from adults and media every day? Don't do drugs. Don't sleep around. This stuff is supposed to be rocket science? It's supposed to take a genius to figure this stuff out? Please.
The COGs believe that the bible is an instruction manual for humans filled with everything you would ever need to know about how to lead the most successful life. But what is in it's pages is nothing of the sort. There's a lot of (supposed) history, poetry, and such, but very little in the way of practical advice. Take the 10 commandments. 4 of them have nothing to do with anything relevant to life in today's world, even if preachers may try to spin them hard to try to cajole them into relevance. The rest are so basic, once again, it's not telling us anything we didn't already know.
The real kicker comes when you look at what the bible promises. How about how the promise that the followers of Jesus will be doing all the miracles it says he did, plus even greater ones. Maybe hundreds of years ago we could have reasoned that maybe there was somewhere a long ways away, from which we don't get news, in which such miracles were being done by people who obviously were onto how to follow Jesus in the way he wanted. But today there's no corner of the earth left from which we don't get instant news. There's nowhere left to hide these miracles. They aren't being done, not in the COGs, not by anyone. Either Jesus has no true followers, and the gates of hell have prevailed after all, or else his followers have no Jesus. Either explanation is devastating.
The bible is an impractical book. It contains some ancient wisdom and some extremely basic pointers, but even the good advice isn't what preachers crack it up to be and the rest doesn't even work. This does not impress young people. However it does lead many of us to realize our parents are not as smart as they want us to think they are.
COGs for whatever reason have a great fear of guitars, tambourines, drums and modern Christian music.
ReplyDeleteMusic is really important to younger people, and they want to have something with some rhythm and beat, and lots of it. "3 Dwights and your Out" is not cutting it.
The suit and tie thing has got to go. Even corporate CEOs are much more casual.
More laughter and fun. Sermons should resemble TED TALKS more, rather than lambasting guilt trips, or rehashing old well known and understood doctrines.
Women should be allowed to lead songs, give prayers, lead studies, give announcements.
Empower younger people to create and lead new programs, and to start things, letting them learn as they go, without "helicopter pastoring" them.
Much more could be said about this!
The future of UCG. You heard it here first folks.
DeleteSHY and 12:30.
ReplyDeleteI do not have the attention span to read all of that. Could you post a visual of the points made on Instagram?
Moreover, how do I get into "The Rapture Group app" to keep me updated on "conditions".
Cheers.
Generation Nix
Two hour sermons, yet a Google search on any topic will give much more information, and in a fraction of the time. These ACOGs should be plugged into the information explosion rather than regurgitating stale material from the 1960s and 70's. It's like the Pharisees who worshipped the traditions of men. If it worked for Herb, darn it, it gonna work for us as well.
ReplyDeleteThe ministers are like the Clampetts from the Beverly Hillbillies.
You say they all talk about death and destruction. That's not true for COGWA they will not say a word about prophecy especially here in Roanoke. Our minister is Mr. Wishy Washy only baptist sermons from which he came. He is a hireling, not a servant totally frightened he will lose his job so he does not rock the boat. He looks down his nose at the poorer brethren puts you on his list if you ask questions.
ReplyDeleteAnon, 12:33 PM,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis of the Bible. There is very little of real value for today's world. It does help us understand the development of man's superstitious belief systems if nothing else.
I've thought for years that even though older members tend to have the money, COG's need to "go younger" with their services - as in true worship leaders, and hymns with a more contemporary style. It's worked for a lot of Baptist churches.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, WCG tried to do that in the late 90s - and what good did it really do for them?
Not only is the bible not as wise as we're told, it's a tough sell as an book inspired by a wise and almighty deity because it contains a bunch of evil which it touts as praiseworthy. It doesn't take a genius to spot some low-hanging fruit that needs to be purged from the bible, the deletion of which would instantly improve it. Thomas Jefferson noticed this several hundred years ago. I'm just surprised it hasn't caught on, especially in more progressive christianities.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to sell it to today's youth as an inspired book, there's a bunch of ancient barbaric nonsense in there which has to be torn out before much of a case can be made for it as the work of a perfect being. Just off the top of my head, slavery, misogyny, and genocide are all condoned within it's pages. I guess it's your call whether you want to flat-out justify a being who would condone such evil as a deity that's worthy of worship anyways, whether he wasn't powerful to keep his book from being corrupted, or whether it was just a man-made book to begin with.
Regardless of which way you want to go with explaining the bible's many imperfections, at the end of the day, any honest person has to concede it's a corrupt book, and it need to be fixed before it could even begin to be considered as the book christians think it is already with all it's corruptness intact. The ability to call obvious corruption "perfection" or "righteousness" alone ought to be a wake up call that there shouldn't be an expectation that christians, especially literalists, will necessarily be the paragons of virtue they like to think they are. Not if they're dragging the bible's ancient barbarism into the modern world and claiming that should still be respected as a standard for morality now.
"The bible is an impractical book."
ReplyDeleteThe real religion of the bible (not man's religions) is about truth. Truth is practical. Try running a businness, family or your life without truth. They will all end badly. And that is just one practical thing about God's laws.
Aethesits have no foundation of truth, they can lie if they feel like it without any repercussions to their own belief system bevause they can say it is based on whatever they want at any time.
But a true beliver is afraid of God and will tell the truth even out of obedience. Or at least that is what the God of the bible expects.
Maybe treating others as you would like to be treated? Does that have no practical use?
It seems aethiests and anti-theists want the bible and religion to go away that they will lie freely to convince others to follow them.
You may need to get some greater exposure, get to know a larger cross section of humanity there, 9:22.
DeleteMuch of the outward behavior we see is based on the nature with which we are all born, and it varies widely. A philosophy can only do so much for an individual throughout his or her lifetime, whether we’re talking about Christianity, existentialism, Buddhism, atheism, agnosticism, Scientology, or, let’s get really outrageous, Zoroastrianism.
You see, an atheist born with a calm spirit will always appear to be a better person than a Christian who was born with a raging spirit. We’ve all got some characteristics which are innate that are assets, and others that work against our better interests. Case in point. Some friends of mine went on a road trip for one weekend. Their irrigation system went crazy sometime that Saturday. Of all the upstanding citizens in their upper class neighborhood, who do you think turned the water main off, and cleaned up the standing water from areas which would have suffered permanent water damage? Oh, why that would be the lesbian couple from two doors down!
I’ve known atheists who have very well developed senses of honesty and morality. It’s innate, they were born with it. And then you learn of Christians like Stephen Allwine.
As a Christian with a raging spirit who has learned to control myself, others generally see me doing the right thing. What they don’t see is me constantly wrestling with myself to make that happen. There are many docile, kind and gentle souls who are able to allow extreme provocations to just pass them by, always tranquil and peaceful, never even blinking. And many of them are not Christians. I marvel at them. I wish I could be more like them.
Let’s face it: Many of us who were raised in Armstrongism were raised by parents who did not practice Eph. 6:4! A parent who constantly angers a child instills rage which lasts a lifetime, even in a child who may have been born with a docile spirit! Armstrongism compounded that error by then blaming the victims rather than the source of the problem which was the church’s abusive parenting “skills”.
BB
12:33 PM said: "But today there's no corner of the earth left from which we don't get instant news. There's nowhere left to hide these miracles. They aren't being done, not in the COGs, not by anyone."
ReplyDeleteReally? I'm sure it depends on what the media corporatists define as "newsworthy" and what they'll tell us is happening. Just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it's not happening someplace to someone at sometime.
The problem is not the marketing problem, the problem is the COGs don’t realize is their church is built on marketing with HWA being the chief cornerstone.
ReplyDeletePCG and RCG came the closest but could not resist substituting Flurry and Pack and became the church of flurry / pack.
Byker Bob: May 13, 2019 at 11:00 PM
ReplyDeleteExcellent and well said! Many of us "docile" atheist's DO have better morals and sense of fair play than the ACOG brand of fake Christianity. Its just not in them to practice what they preach.