Every year, the members are inevitably asked to give a show of hands on how many feasts they have attended. This year, it was even asked what generation folks were. My, how the pride oozes from each raised hand. People who have attended 60 feasts. Impressive. And here is a child that is 5th generation. Wow. But here is the most important statistic from the whole feast. It was the first time I have seen this happen in 3 decades. I was at a very large feast site. The question was asked, "How many are here observing your very first Feast of Tabernacles?" Not a single hand was raised. You could have heard a pin drop. A sobering realization fell upon the whole crowd for one long deafening embarrassing moment. The minister moved on, wishing he had never asked. We all knew in that moment...the church of God is dead.
42 comments:
Mine was the worst feast ever. With the lockdown, there were no live or movie theaters, no restaurants, no bus tours, no group activities, etc. It has to be the same with most other members. Yep, the worst feast ever. Dave added some spice to his members feast with his Christ is returning in a few days time lie. Anything to remove this years feast dullness.
Pfft... or the first timers were too intimidated to raise their hands... which COG group do you attend with?
I am currently in my late 50'S. I grew up in Worldwide in the late 70's & 80's before leaving. This is a testimony to the failure of HWA and his legacy. Focusing on false doctrines such as church gov't and church eras rather than the teachings of Christ and his examples and his sacrifice. Really, Worldwide de-emphasized Christ and instead set up HWA as a messiah like idol and unfortunately this has been continued in too many of Worldwide's offspring churches. They ended up converting people to become atheists with their cruelty and abuse. I guess they ignored the warning that you reap what you sow.
According to David Pack it is not sobering at all. This was his message to the RCG members this Sabbath:
“Greetings brethren worldwide!
This has TRULY been the “best Feast ever” for so many reasons!
With the Last Great Day drawing to a close (and now over for many), you may wonder if there is more to see. There is!!! Rest assured, there IS a clear and definite path forward!
Mr. Pack delivered comments following the AM Last Great Day services in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. The picture continued to clarify through PM services, and more comments were given at its conclusion. These reflect what is a very dynamic learning process.
These two files are being combined to form one message to be posted in Member Services the moment it is available—probably Saturday night in English. An additional, brief wait continues, and you will understand everything.
Listen to these powerful, clarifying comments as soon as you are able! The Church is ON FIRE worldwide. Stay that way! We do not have long. For MANY reasons, we cannot!”
Yeah, look at Tkach's GCI also: is he even interested in spending money to mint new converts; to save the world's 7 billion from Hell? Or is he more interested in estate donations from his petrified old Armstrongites?
I imagine that most first time feastgoers kept it at home this year...like the majority of the Church.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad - that it took no raised hands for the "first feast" question for folks to realize that the movement is not attracting any new blood is astounding. The evidence that Armstrongism is aging and dying has been there for all to see for many many years now. In fairness to the laity, their leaders have done their absolute best to hide this reality by not talking about the folks who leave, membership numbers or festival attendance.
And yet, most of those folks will continue to take pride in the fact that they have remained personally "faithful" and are on feast 25, 35, 50 or 60! They are locked into a kind of self-centered tunnel vision. They tell themselves: "I must hold on to what I have until the end, even if everyone else falls by the wayside!" After all, they believe that the end is imminent - just a few years away, and the love of many will inevitably grow cold. "Don't be alarmed - this is supposed to happen before the end," they tell themselves to push down any alarm or dismay they might otherwise feel about these circumstances. "I have to keep my eyes on the prize (the Kingdom) and keep keeping on!"
The problem is that they sound very much like the man who buried his talent in the ground and was pleased with himself that he was able to return it undiminished to his master when he returned. For them, the truth is a static thing - there is no room for change or growth. They tell themselves that Christ's, Peter's and Paul's admonitions to grow in understanding and spiritual might has absolutely no implications for the "truth" which they have received from Herbert Armstrong. They have proven to themselves what is "true." Their job is finished - no need to go back over what they have already proven (indeed, most of them believe such an exercise is dangerous!). And that is exactly why the ACOGs will continue to fade away into oblivion and most of them will not even think about Christ's statement that the gates of hell would never prevail against his Church.
Did this actually happen?
Talking with friends around LCG, I can report that at three sites the number of first-time Feast attendees was 0, 0, and 1.
"My, how the pride oozes from each raised hand."
Bragging and the FOT go together. Like eating and drinking to excess. I witnessed this repeatedly in the many years I was a WCG member. I have seen guys get into a bragging contest at Sabbath services after the Feast over who had the best and biggest steak. The practice I really disliked was when you mention that you went to Wisconsin Dells, as an example, and some guy at services, who also had been to Wisconsin Dells, starts interrogating you closely about what you did while there. And then he (I never witnessed a woman doing this) pronounces after hearing your description that you missed the whole Feast site - you just did not do all the great things that he and his family did while he was there. "You mean you did not go to the obese turtle show at the zoo?!" Maybe he implies that he has much more second tithe than you have. You had a deficient experience and he had a great experience. But then these people were culties and not Christians, and simply reduced the Feast to a vacation to be compared and measured by hedonistic standards.
Paul addressed a parallel circumstance to this modern-day prideful bragging about FOT observance and said:
"What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not."
This refers to communion with some people eating to excess and others having nothing but the principle is the same. Simply expressed, Armstrongists who brag about their Feast experience in an attempt to outshine others despise the church of God.
Wow! Instead of "false prophecy" or "lies", RCG now calls it a dynamic learning process.
In Dave-speak, adultery would be a dynamic relationship process, theft would be a dynamic ownership process, and idolatry would be a dynamic worship process.
But at least it's dynamic. There's nothing dynamic about what's going on in UCG, COGWA, or LCG.
A real telling is when you look at any of the COG "in house" corporate newsletters. The ones that show weddings, births and obituaries.
The amount of death announcements will outnumber birth or wedding announcements by a ratio of 8 to one. Really , all someone has to do is take a quick look around any COG service or FOT site to see that it is a sea of white hair, and that someone even in their 40s would be considered a "young person".
Nonetheless, growth numbers are not a spiritual indicator ultimately. One of the HWA legacies is that the amount of monetary growth , or member growth, was some kind of measurement of "how much God is blessing you" type of thing. If people have free will, then UNLESS God is forcing things on people and it is an "irresistible" calling, then a world in decay will obviously have less people interested in religion.
The same is holding true in all of Christianity too. Whether it be Catholic, or Fundamentalist, religion is on the ropes, and especially in the under 35 demographic.
Elijah got to the point that he though he was last one. Apparently, only 8 souls were worthy to be on the ark. The HWA "health/wealth" metrics are not really an indicator of anything. The WCG was a "menagerie" of pretenders and short termers, who shook out with some 95% leaving it. I still wonder why they ever even bothered in the first place.
One thing is true from all of this line of thought, is that the COGs are not viable in the business/corporate sense of the word , in that the marketing cost to attain just ONE new member is in the range of $100k now, and that a new member will NEVER be able to generate enough tithe/offering in his church career to recapture his acquisition cost.
So since the time of GTA/HWA marketing cost has increased and yield of revenue from a new member has decreased.
But again, success of a corporate body has nothing to do with whether or not there is a God, or whether or not the Bible is true. Even Jesus asked, "but will the Son of Man, when he comes, find · faith on · earth?”
The WCG was an illusion and marketing machine that had about a good 25 year run from 1947 to 1972. It apparently was able to impact that generation with a message that resonated, and found a unique marketing niche at that time. The new realities of social change, ICBMs, nuclear war, and the decline of American culture found a spot with some.
Also, the fact that it was NOT allowed to have political talk radio on stations, with the fairness doctrine, that GTA was kind of a daily Rush Limbaugh program, with new and commentary coming from a gifted presenter, that could escape the fairness doctrine by hiding behind the 501c3 church exemption.
The uniqueness of the organization was diluted by everyone and anybody having a podcast , you tube channel, or internet blog. Heck, even morons like Thiel and Malm found small followings for a very small investment. The COG thus became a giant "Karaoke Night" with anyone being able to "grab that mike" and make an ass out himself!
No public speaker should ask a question for which he doesn't already know the answer. The minister who revealed that his site had no first-time attendees may be a total incompetent... or he may be another minister in the earliest stages of taking Dennis's journey, subtly flagging to the audience that things aren't as rosy and cut-and-dried as they seem.
When the number of funerals each year exceeds the numbers of little children blessed, this should be a red flag that your church is dying... but the minister can't say that openly, so maybe what this guy did was his quiet way of getting the word out.
"All great fires are destined to go out..."
7.42 AM
A glass can be half full or half empty. Meaning that the ACOGs can claim that God is no longer calling people into their churches since time is so short.
"So since the time of GTA/HWA marketing cost has increased and yield of revenue from a new member has decreased...The WCG and marketing machine that had about a good 25 year run from 1947 to 1972"
Spot on, growth ground to a halt after 1972. By that time HWA's eclectic theological system that he cobbled/plagiarized together in the late 1920s had ceased to work!
This was long before Joseph Tkach's Christmas-1995 bombshell announcement when, in desperation, he dropped the Sabbath, reverting to HWA's 1920's position where he (correctly) understood that the sabbaths, new moons & holy days were done away (Gal 4, Col 2)
Flurry actually finally admitted during the FOT that the growth has flat lined the last several years. I’ve been listening to them twist that for years and it’s been blatantly obvious that they were trying to make it sound that there is growth. Not sure why he decided to finally admit it but he blames it on Satan being cast down.
The questioned should have been asked, "will this be your last feast?". Maybe a few would have raised their hands on that one.
The uncomfortable fact that the majority of the COGs are experiencing little or no growth or even interest from outsiders is excused and explained away by the reasoning that God is only calling a "few" at this time, and the vast majority of humanity remains blinded, uncalled, and therefore unreachable despite whatever efforts might be made to "preach the gospel as a witness." This convenient explanation is given in sermon after sermon to soothe and pacify the brethren by making them feel like they are among the special "few" God is calling to work with right now which lulls them into a false sense of security and lack of alarm even when they see their numbers dwindling and no one new showing interest or walking through the doors to join their congregations.
This excuse also lets the ministry off the hook and relieves them from having to think outside the box or adapt the way they promote the gospel message to be more effective in reaching the current generation, which many of them view as largely degenerate and rebellious compared to previous generations and therefore less deserving of being saved from God's wrath. This attitude isn't usually verbalized openly from the pulpit, but you can pick up on it when you hear some of the older people talk.
There are a few among the COG hierarchy who will occasionally point to scriptures such as Matthew 22:13, where we are told that "many are called" or Acts 17:30, where we see God's preference that "all people repent now." These passages do not contradict the passage in John 6:45 which says that no one can come to Jesus except by the Father drawing them. This passage nowhere speaks of the number of those whom the Father draws as being many or few. We do know that at least for the moment those who are "called" do not necessarily equate to those who are "chosen." See again Matthew 22:13, many are called, while a few are chosen. This is because one must respond to the call He sends in order to be chosen, and then remain faithful to it. Revelation 17:14
Sadly, even those who might occasionally pay lip service to the notion that God might be willing to send His call out to more than just a few elites, are rendered largely ineffective by other false notions and inconsistencies they have absorbed over the years regarding how the preaching of the gospel must be done, or limited by their ideas of who God might or might not use to help in the task. In other words, unless you are a male who has risen up through the hierarchical ranks of a recognized incorporated Church of God, you are useless and will not be used by God, because you have not been "duly ordained" or approved by the proper "Church government" even though lip service is paid to the notion that the body of Christ is not synonymous with any human organization. In addition to excluding anyone who does not come from an official COG background, and more specifically roots in WCG or HWA, this also silences and sidelines the vast majority of COG laity, who have been conditioned to believe their role is solely one of support for the work, rather than direct involvement with that work, because they have not been approved or properly "trained", ignoring the fact that if that's true the blame can be placed at the feet of the ministry who were responsible for said training and have had ample time to make God's people fit for the service of helping with His harvest.
We could also ask, why would God in His mercy place more of His sheep in the care of shepherds who cannot care for or properly train the sheep already in their care, and continue to fight among themselves, and divide and split the flock, rather than seeking reconciliation with both God and those they claim to be their brethren?
Concerned Sister
It sure did - at Myrtle Beach. Had the 5th generation person near me (so God is his great-great-great-grandfather and Christ is his great-great-great uncle).
Don't forget "Christianity" is dying across the board. It's not just in the COGs. It's in Protestantism and elsewhere. The scripture,
"Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" is being played out before our eyes. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. We are in trying times.
I'm not surprised..
What COG do you attend with?
The internet is the cogs biggest enemy, people can research and see it’s all a scam
Concerned Sister
I agree with most most of your comment. Especially the ministers not feeding the flock. I shudder at the thought of my relatives being called today. They would need very specialized instruction, which is unavailable in today's ACOGs. Instead the ministers divert their members attention with prophesy prediction addiction and other non essentials.
I believe that their has been a moral decline over the past few generations. To me, the graph of the national debt is like a graph of this moral decline. Rome before its fall refused to accept tax payments in its own currency since it was worthless. They demanded that it's citizens pay in gold.
"growth ground to a halt after 1972"
It's interesting, 1972 marked a catastrophic prophecy-failure for the old fool : Growth stalled from that point onward and into the Tkach reign when, in frustration, Tkach threw the whole shitload overboard with his 'Christmas-1995-surprise'
we had around 6 baptisms this year, if I remember correctly....so this was their first Feast as members.....
since the FOT was all via internet connections they all had their first Feast at home...
the lack of new membership doesn't necessarily mean the movement is dying out, it could be that time is running out......think about it.
the lack of new membership doesn't necessarily mean the movement is dying out, it could be that time is running out......think about it.
...except that Revelation seems to show a huge influx of new members at the end, albeit Laodicean members. Think about it!
- early 1990's -
Tkach's reasoning:
"Armstrongism is dead in the water..but..orthodox/pentecostal media ministries are doing well?" "What to do?" Might as well throw the whole crazy-Armstrong shitload overboard and give historic Christianity a try. That didn't work for the Tkaches either because despite their eye-watering high salaries, their management/marketing ability sucks.
@ 8:59AM "the lack of new membership doesn't necessarily mean the movement is dying out"
Your reasoning is not even logical: Your theory would have "God's organization" spending record amounts on media & marketing in the 70's & 80's for no return vis-a-vis the 1960s.
@anon 6:42AM
“We had around six baptisms ...”
But how many brethren left? In all COG more people leave than there are people joining them.
I will add that MANY are joining the reasonable Hebrew Roots movements, and other movements, who follow Christ's footsteps in observing the Sabbath, feasts, appointed times and the other teachings of the Father.
Yeah!! Lets all run the yet another cult!
Maybe that is what all the COG’s should’ve done right from the start: do some free advertising on this blog..
"We had six baptisms..."
How many of those baptisms were brand new converts, and how many of them were people who grew up in or were already familiar with the church?
There is little interest from new people, especially in the U.S. and most "growth" the COGs claim comes from people shifting organizations within the movement. Truly new people are becoming more and more rare. The older generation is gradually dying off or becoming too old to attend or hold responsibilities, and many in the younger generation have become disillusioned with all the corruption, false prophecies, infighting and lack of love for others, and other hypocrisy they are picking up on regardless of group. All the groups have issues, yet many of them spend their time pointing fingers at each other and implying others are Laodicean, rather than doing their own soul searching, self evaluation, and changing their own attitudes and actions to more closely model Jesus Christ. Rather than ridiculing or mocking others, they should be doing what they can to work with others, extend grace and patience when dealing with others, and endeavoring to do their part in promoting unity and harmony among God's people rather than division and strife. Until an effort is actively made on the part of the leadership and the brethren to rectify our own internal problems, false notions and ideas, and seek God's will in these matters, growth will cease, because a house divided against itself cannot stand.
While there does seem to be some interest in some of the groups coming from Africa and other poorer countries, many of those people are Sabbath keepers with an SDA or COG7 background, so not really "new" either. Some are interested in keeping the holy days and learning a few other things they didn't pick up in the other groups, but many of these people are simply looking for a U.S. based Sabbath keeping church to attach themselves to in order to enable their own people to be able to assemble and receive whatever aid the corporate group offers in exchange for their loyalty and willingness to wave whatever corporate flag is offering to help them. The aid is not freely given, but comes with strings attached. Wear "my" t-shirts, listen exclusively to "my" sermons, alter your liturgy to model "my" preferred and thus the only "correct" way to do it order of worship, and proclaim membership to "my" corporate COG, and you will receive money, medical aid, food, etc. to help your congregations. Some of those in other countries have learned to play the game, and pour on the charm, praise, and adoration for visiting U.S. church leaders, which is encouraged and promoted by the leaders themselves, showing that it's not really about reaching these people with information or truth, or pointing them to God, and giving them what they need to support and teach their own people. Instead it's more about being able to claim numbers or members for one's own corporate group, being able to control those who come to you for information or aid, and it's about the vanity and ego trip one has when being the object of praise and adoration.
Concerned Sister
CHURCH HISTORY
In his old age, Herbert W. Armstrong had made it appear to be so easy to grow the Worldwide Church of God that everyone else thought that they could do it too, and even better than the old guy was doing. The World Tomorrow program was on about 400 television stations and about 7 million copies of the Plain Truth magazine were going out each month. People in the world seemed to have heard about it. The WCG peaked out with about 150,000 men, women, and children attending its Feast of Tabernacles convention in the fall.
HWA had always wanted his own son Garner Ted Armstrong to take over leading the WCG, but GTA basically “fucked up” by literally fucking around too much, until his own father had to finally openly and permanently put him out of the WCG in 1978, since GTA would no longer even pretend to repent. GTA then started a small CGI rebel cult with under 5,000 stooges to support his playboy preacher lifestyle. When he fucked up there too, and got the boot again, he started another even smaller ICG rebel cult with a couple thousand leftover suckers. GTA died in 2003, but his son continues to play GTA's old babblings on the Internet.
When HWA died on January 16, 1986, Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. took over leading the WCG and proceeded to destroy the WCG under the influence of his son Joseph Tkach, Jr. and his buddies. When they did their Great Apostasy in January 1995 by throwing out virtually everything that HWA had taught and writing it up in the WCG's Worldwide News newspaper, the WCG exploded into little pieces. JWT, Sr. died with 100 spots of cancer on his bones exactly forty weeks after giving his December 1994 sermon in which he did away with the Sabbath, and his son Joseph Tkach, Jr. took over. In spite of all their talk about how foolish and wasteful and Pharisaical HWA had supposedly been, and how wise and thrifty and spiritual the Tkaches supposedly were, the WCG declined faster and faster. Joey, Jr. was reportedly willing to lose half of the WCG members to push through his doctrinal changes, but he seems to have lost more like 90% of them by now. He renamed what was left of the church Grace Communion International.
The largest splinter group, the United Church, was started in 1995 mainly to employ the laid-off WCG ministers. The UCG actually bragged in its first year about how many people it already had, and about how much longer it had taken HWA to build the WCG up to that same number of people. Of course, the UCG had gotten all of its approximately 20,000 people from the WCG. They thought that at their rate of growth they would have 25,000 people by the end of 1995, but that never happened. The UCG has basically done nothing but decline since then. In 2010 the UCG had a major split and the COGWA splinter group was formed.
From early on the splinter groups like the United Church and the Living Church wanted to attract some brand new people who had never heard about HWA. Alas, all they ever seemed to get was the occasional weirdo sent to them by the demons that had heard of HWA.
I doubt this situation even happened as another asked.
Anon 8:11 Only certain low characters love to wallow in detrimental, malicious bullying insults. Are you really a callous bully beneath the charm ? Thought you better than that.
Herbert Armstrong has been dead 34 years at least. Only a certain age demographic remain obsessed with him either with adoration or intense bitterness. Think about that.
Many on here type up their opinions all the live long day. The only authority for the household of faith wherever they may be throughout the earth is Holy Scripture.
1Peter 3:18 For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit, let him turn away from evil and do good, let him seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Lastly the words of Jesus Christ.
Luke 6:27 But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.
Anonymous at October 15, 2020 at 1:29 AM said...“Anon 8:11 Only certain low characters love to wallow in detrimental, malicious bullying insults.”
Low characters? Detrimental? Malicious? Bullying? Huh?
That is just your own biased opinion that you like to spout off “all the live long day” -- using sneaky and deceitful word choices -- for your own personal reasons because it suits your own agenda.
History is history. Learn something from it. Do not try to hide it or deny it or rewrite it.
The only ones with an agenda Anon 8:39 are you. Much hatred is pointed towards anyone who exposes anything.
"I don't want you telling anyone what is going on"
Concerned Sister said...
"We could also ask, why would God in His mercy place more of His sheep in the care of shepherds who cannot care for or properly train the sheep already in their care, and continue to fight among themselves, and divide and split the flock, rather than seeking reconciliation with both God and those they claim to be their brethren?"
*mic drop*
Stoned Stephen and his Society want to get off their High horses of self pity and be honest for once. Drop the dishonest act.
As Ron Dart used to say about speaking out about corruption
" you have them like a deer caught in the headlights, all the evidence is stacked against them, so easy a child could understand.. and they will turn and attack the people bringing the evidence"
It rang true when Ronald Dart preached it and it rings true to this day.
As Ron Dart used to say about speaking out about corruption
" you have them like a deer caught in the headlights, all the evidence is stacked against them, so easy a child could understand.. and they will turn and attack the people bringing the evidence"
It rang true when Ronald Dart preached it and it rings true to this day.
Specifically, Dart drew sharp parallels between GTA's attacks on his accusers in CGI and Bill Clinton's attacks on Ken Starr.
GTA's attacks on his accusers in CGI...
Woefully wrong.
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