Victor Kubik writes: “The United Church of God is nearing its 25th anniversary. This time is proving to be one of critical reflection … Where have we been? Where are we now? And perhaps most importantly, where are we going? …For 25 years now UCG has been struggling to find its purpose and mission. After their apostasy from the mother church, the United Church of God has had one issue after another, even suffering a massive hemorrhage of ministers and members disgruntled by the corruption going on. As hard as they try, they just cannot make a discernible impact upon the world or even with other COG's. Even with their new TV studios, they are still incapable of drawing an audience of potential money streams.
Dr. Ward noted that with the incredible experience of the Church’s youth camps, young people in the Church “may be so excited through their teen years” about biblical truth, but then comes a challenging “transitional period between high school and college and the first year of college” that often proves to be a difficult time to stay grounded and committed to the truth of God. It is during this critical transition time that young people can be in danger of slipping away …Another issue UCG is having and as all of the other COG's, is their inability to keep their youth interested in staying in their churches. Seriously, why should they? When has the church ever truly cared about its youth? Its focus has always been on money, strict doctrines, and insufferable sermons. YOU, YES lessons and videos of a purple sock-puppet do nothing to keep the youth interested in church.
Thursday conferences, as Dr. Ward mentioned to the Council, are open and honest discussions, even to the point of admitting that sometimes the weekly church presentations in our congregations are “stale”. To build more energy and excitement into our weekly church meetings, Dr. Ward noted that “some of those things we could do – shorter sermons and more focused sermons and improving our messages – we really need to focus on … we really need more excitement and energy in the local churches.”Stale? Stale? Try BOOOOOOOOOORING! UCG members on various Facebook groups complain regularly about how boring and dull UCG ministers are in their sermon subjects. What more could we expect when they are sitll preaching the same sermons they were preaching while in the mother church decades ago?``It is almost 2020 and they still are stuck in 1986 mode.
Church of God News makes this astute observation:
Is Donald Ward correct in supposing that young people in the Church are excited through their teen years about biblical truth, but then slip away when they leave home? Could it be that children get bored much earlier with “stale” sermons and dull music styles, but continue attending until they are no longer obliged to do so by their parents?
What is their fondest memory of the youth camps? – the messages of “exciting biblical truth”, or the sports and social activities? Admittedly, young people flock to the corporate churches’ Winter Family Weekends – but do they go for the services and bible seminars, or for the sports and social activities?COG youth have always flocked to the summer camps, not for the biblical "instruction" they got but for a chance to get away from home and to have fun with their peers. It is more about fun than the stale and boring Bible junk they receive. That is why so many flock to the annual Christmas weekends the church masquerades as a "family weekend". They can play with their peers and secretly enjoy Christmas, while sitting through yet another insufferable Bible study or sermon.
Jim Franks of COGWA said recently that, “For the past 18 months, our unique visitors to Life, Hope & Truth has leveled off at just under 500,000 per month. This is about half the number we were getting at our high point. We are investing resources to develop a strategy to increase our numbers. There are some technical things that we can do with the Internet, but we also realize the need for more compelling articles that get people’s attention …”How about dumping the boring subjects and have stories and articles relevant to 2020 instead of the canned crap of the past? How can anyone find the current version of UCG as "compelling?
25 comments:
Church needs to be fun, fresh, and with a peer group.
With the average UCG congregation being under 30 people, and with a very old demographic to start with, the odds of finding ANYONE under the age of 45 at a UCG congregation is likely to be few to none.
A noticable percentage of United's youth went with the COGWA split. This will not have helped matters.
Why should anyone be interested in the UCG when the old UCG ministers raise their own children to marry completely outside of the COGs, and the newly credentialed fake UCG minsters raise their own children to marry completely outside of the COGs, and the godless people who hang out at the UCG raise their own children to marry completely outside of the COGs???
Wow, just now figuring out that transition period where young people become legal adults and can no longer be forced by their parents, often under threat of physical punishment, to attend your compulsory mind-numbing services, is when you find they mostly abandon you and your discredited nonsense theology? Brilliant detective work.
Their sermons and articles are boring and flat by design. It's as if the spirit of murderous envy, malice, and other evil attitudes dominates the church. It's like in the old days, when I gave a good speech in graduate club. I would get the odd compliment, but many more envy inspired abusive remarks.
Anon 10:35 It's as if the spirit of murderous envy, malice and other evil attitudes dominates the church.
You show incredible insight Anon 10:35. I have witnessed similar.
We stopped attending UCG several years ago for these very same reasons. The sermons were a total waste of time. Many of the ministers we had were condescending pricks that thought they were the most important things on earth. Our teenage children hated church services. They miss their friends, but I have to say that our life is better now than ever before.
I just finished repairing a customer’s UV coater, and on my way to the restroom to clean up, I saw a poster on the wall. It read, “A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other!”
That saying would certainly have application in a church setting as well.
Fact is, there is no trust amongst the lay members of an authoritarian organization. The power structure makes it all about loyalty to those who have the power, and not to one another. GTA even occasionally spoke of members having false loyalties to one another rather than to the church. It especially pissed him off when members would protect each another from the ministry.
BB
If you want your children to have a relationship with God - go about doing that. If you want them to be loyal to your church - well what you want is not worth a cracker. It's not about upbeat music or organising fun- it's about learning to act with integrity and become a worthwhile person who has a relationship with God. Church Church church church - Mr Armstrong - blah blah blah. Wake up and think about what kind of people you want your children to grow up to be. Certainly not like the disloyal, money hungry, power seeking men you find so easily at church.
If you want your children to have a relationship with God - go about doing that. If you want them to be loyal to your church - well what you want is not worth a cracker. It's not about upbeat music or organising fun- it's about learning to act with integrity and become a worthwhile person who has a relationship with God. Church Church church church - Mr Armstrong - blah blah blah. Wake up and think about what kind of people you want your children to grow up to be. Certainly not like the disloyal, money hungry, power seeking men you find so easily at church.
It was Dr. Ward who gave Feast messages several years ago putting down "dry as dust sermons."
Yet sadly, he's one of the few in UCG (Gary Petty also comes to mind) who seems to put any fire into his messages nowadays. Raising your voice is considered to be the wrong tone, and discouraged.
His content may have been wild and crazy at times, but Gerald Waterhouse spoke with passion - like some Southern Independent Baptist preachers you can hear on radio or see on YouTube. Today's COGs (generally speaking) could use more of that "stir to action" preaching.
I wonder what might happen if one of the black elders in UCG spoke like Bishop T.D. Jakes. I don't wish to get into a doctrinal debate over his teachings, as I'm sure some ACOGgers will be saying "WTF, BB? He doesn't even keep the sabbath!" and atheists will say , But BB, his message is about imaginary characters!" but Bishop Jakes certainly has a magnetic speaking style. Reality is that I doubt that anyone could imitate it and come off as sincere, but it begs the question, where are the magnetic speakers in Armstrongism today? HWA was an admirer of and imitator of Billy Sunday. That was part of his schtick.
BB
More Jelly, please!
LOL!!!
I think some here, like Byker bob, have not attended with a cog in a long time. There are so many groups that have decent people there good local leaders and even a few really great speakers.
My experience is that there is one good speaker in 5 or 6 speaking elders. But our last few pastors have been pretty decent. And they were respected for the same they set as well.
Of course the doctrines are full of error. Yes lots of stuff is boring. But if you expect perfection from anything its hypocritical.
HWA's church was a sesspool in so many ways. But the tiny congregations of today? Not so much. Everyone is tired old or has kids. The few young people are not leaders yet but are leading quiet lives. Which I respect.
I will take boring over flashy if they are at least trying to do what is right.
Again I am talking about local people. Headquarters can stuff it. Those guys need to go get real jobs and participate with society properly.
Your comments are extraordinary Anon 10:53. Because what you are espousing is for UCG congregations to be self governing with no direction or decisions coming from UCG Headquarters.
Is that what you want self governing local congregations?
A black ministerial trainee gave an animated and engaging sermon at a feast site I was at. It was clearly the best one people heard and people were buzzed by it. The old white racists in the seats were offended and the old white ministers were way out-done by this upcomer. Needless to say, he was "put in his place." His next sermon was a Jon McNair sanctioned snoozer. He was eventually drummed out altogether. I remember doing a word study on a word used for religious leader and it has to do with being an entertainer. There is an aspect to preaching that is supposed to be entertaining, engaging and thought-provoking. If you put people to sleep, it doesn't matter how amazing your topic is. You are not qualified to speak. Sit down and shut up...and stop living on unbiblical tithes.
Anyone else seen “Good Morning Vietnam!”?
Typical Armstrongite speakers are like every other radio personality in that movie that wasn’t Robin Williams. There were some exceptional speakers in WCG back in the day, but there were also large numbers whose personal skill-sets were obviously in areas other than public-speaking.
I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the present with Spokesman’s Club rejects ordaining themselves and starting their own cults, or the aging offspring of the first wave of ministers now attempting to fill their fathers’ shoes.
BB
Yes. Absoluetely. Let everyone stand on their own accomplishments. If a local congregations stinks it deserves to fade away. They should have to work to keep a good reputation not just rise on the coat tails of others.
I'd rather listen to a poor sermon from a righteous man then a great sermon from a scum bag. The cogs are full of error but everyone is. So there is no winning this.
I'm not sure what your writing about Anon 8:13 but i know from experience the United members as a whole have no gripe with Cincinnati. The only ones who have problems with UCG HQ are rebels within the ministry.
Why don't you tell them to 'go stuff it' as you wrote at the GCE 25th anniversary when they pay for your free board and lodgings.
Victor Kubik writes: “The United Church of God is nearing its 25th anniversary. This time is proving to be one of critical reflection … Where have we been? Where are we now? And perhaps most importantly, where are we going? …"
And those questions were very similar, if not identical, to the ones I personally heard in 1995 at the Indianapolis Conference that resulted in the establishment of the United Ass., which was composed of hirelings who left their ministerial credentials behind in Pasadena in hopes they would eventually "outdo" anything God may have accomplished with HWA of the former Worldwide Church of God, perhaps even eventually having a righteousness that far exceeded that of the Pharisees that Jesus Christ railed against [actually against the generation of evil spirits behind those hirelings (Matthew 23:33 [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
34 ¶ Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and [some] of them ye shall kill and crucify; and [some] of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute [them] from city to city:
35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.), and those spirits still live today.]
And all present then believed 1995 was "one of critical reflection." It almost makes me wonder when is it not a time for critical reflection?
Time is telling, and I am again reminded of the Memo Victor read near the end of the conference to all of us who attended and the Memo contained a bunch of questions with a final paragraph conclusion stating as follows:
******
CAN IT EVER BE?...
…Has “unity” already slipped to a cliché, a buzzword of egotists?
…WHAT IS INDY?...
…WHAT WILL INDY BE?...
…WHO LOOSES IF INDY FALTERS?...
…Just some concerns and fears…I don’t know what it WILL be, I know what it MIGHT be and what it CAN be. I’ll be there in support. Be careful who gets control. Make sure it’s God.
******
God? The God? Has the United Ass. (or should I say Author of that Memo?) really even figured out exactly who that "The God" is.
Is it "The God," 1 God, 2 Gods, 3 Gods, I in 2, 2 in 1, 1 Being with no beginning (as in Deut 32:40), 2 Beings with no beginning, etc.? Is God "Jesus in the flesh?" On and on. I don't think they have it figured out, b/c time has told.
Their latest booklet on Grace? How helpful will that be? Do they really know what grace is? The first and last chapters cite 2 Peter 3:18 and we may ask: Since 1995, how much GRACE of Jesus Christ has the United Ass. grown in? Since 1995, how much KNOWLEDGE of Jesus Christ has the United Ass. grown in?
What is the difference between Jesus Christ and His Father?
The God, God The Father, has no beginning and no end. The Word and Jesus both had a beginning and an end. Jesus's life ceased for 3 days and 3 nights. The Word ceased when made flesh.
Only One Being, not 2 or 3 Beings, could be responsible for the following words:
"For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever." Deuteronomy 32:40
Methinks that the United Ass. is still caught up in confusion, something The God does not author.
Is this really just another time for "one of critical reflection?"
Time will tell!
John
The extreme godlessness of many of the people who go to UCG will drag down anyone who goes there. There were actually some very good reasons for the UCG-COGWA split in 2010.
So extreme you had to write it in bold Anon 9:53. Are you another ministerial troll because your comment has nothing to do with the post.
Anonymous on October 7, 2019 at 8:13 AM said... “So extreme you had to write it in bold Anon 9:53. Are you another ministerial troll because your comment has nothing to do with the post.”
In FACT, the COMMENT at 9:53 AM has EVERYTHING to do with the post, and with the UCG.
The UCG has always tried to build itself up on a foundation of godlessness. Unrepentant, unconverted unbelievers were always welcome to attend UCG meetings, gossip, lie, slander, cause division, harass, stalk, and spout off their own heretical ideas.
Everyone was supposed to put up with all the bad behavior, and keep quiet about it, and not say anything, or else they themselves would get kicked out, with the minister then self-righteously spouting off at them about how “the UCG meets in peace.”
This is the REAL REASON why the formerly larger UCG is now meeting in many different smaller COG splinter pieces.
WATCH and LEARN as no great good ever comes of the UCG.
"WATCH and LEARN as no great good ever comes of the UCG."
As if any good has ever come from cogwa? Well, I guess if you're a member of the elite, unbiblical clergy class your salary, paid from unbiblical tithes coerced from members, is a good thing for you. I wonder what God thinks? No I don't, he hates it!
km
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