It is that time of year as people look forward to Christmas and all of its pleasures. From beautiful music to amazing Christmas light decorations. From delightful and delicious seasonal food and drink to Christmas services where the amazing birth of a child that COG groups like to push to the side is celebrated. Since the day after Halloween, various COG are belching and squawking about how pagan everything is and do their utmost to make everyone around them miserable. But since COG groups are more enlightened than the heathens in the world around them, they look forward to Winter Family Weekends at Christmas time.
Nothing irritates some of these Churches of God more than Christmas does. As they are imploding with schisms and losing disgusted members who are sick of being spiritually abused, they find fault in all the world around them while never keeping their own houses in order.
As the shrinking Church of God movement moves into 2021 and as their congregations are getting older and older some are trying to do what they can to attract the younger crowd and look cool. Having these winter family weekends is more about looking cool to the world around them than it is about ignoring Christmas. Almost all of them have picked hotels and resorts that are decked out to the nines with Christmas decorations, food and music. Apparently, they assume that all of the COG members attending these locations put on blinders and wear earplugs to drown out any sight and sound of Christmas. They pack turkey ham sandwiches on whole wheat bread and eat carob brownies so as not to look like they are participating in the pagan food around them. God forbid if they took a sideways glance or ate some Christmas cookies or drank some eggnog or, ghastly days, hummed a Christmas tune.
For all of the years these groups have been doing this it has looked hypocritical but this year with the COVID hysteria it is even more shocking that some still plan on letting family groups gather playing sports and games where the spittle will be flying. One would think that of all years to take the time off and just let families rest at home with loved ones it would be this year. During these COVID times, it surely does not set a good example for the world around them which they seek to impress with their coolness. this is especially true after quire a few COG members caught COVID at COG Feast sites this year. These groups should have learned their lessons but they did not. So far UCG and COGWA have canceled their WFW.
Sheldon Monson's group is doing winter family weekend this year in Murfreesboro, TN at the Embassy Suites while the Living Church of God plans on being in Charlotte where they will restrict their "fun" weekend to members only. God forbid if they were a light to the world around them!
Also joining this COG trend is the Common Faith Network, a loose conglomeration of Churches of God who have made a concerted effort to cooperate and associate with one another. Church of God Cincinnatti and the Common Faith Network is looking to take their WFW to Tanglewood resort in Texas, though they are only currently asking for member's input. The one advantage of this site is that it could be relatively free from Christmas decorations. This site is also the site this same group used for the Feast this year. Of the many COG sites, this one was apparently run rather well as there are no reported cases of COVID arising from meeting together for the week.
COGWA and UCG have canceled their Winter Family Weekends
COGWA
ReplyDeleteI sure hope those godless hirelings in the LCG, its latest split-off COG Assembly, the UCG, and especially COGWA, do NOT come up with a Fall FAMILY Halloween Weekend custom like they did with their Winter FAMILY X-Mass Weekend custom.
These attacks are both ludicrous and off-point.
DeleteUsing common breaks when kids and people are off from school/work to congregate is no different in the winter than the summer. Nothing about it is x-mas.
People trying to show their superiority to these groups or the people in them are doing a pitiful job from a spiritual POV.
ReplyDeleteTheir Winter Family X-mass Weekend custom is just one more reason why these splinter groups will never grow.
They expect people in the world to repent of all their old ways and join one of these splinter groups.
Then these splinter groups just come up with shameful nonsense like their Winter Family X-mass Weekend custom and cannot see anything wrong with it and utterly refuse to repent of it.
With more lockdowns likely soon, I doubt any of these groups will be having a WFW.
ReplyDeleteUnder truth in advertising, they should call them super spreader events.
ReplyDeleteWe have already seen how many White House staff have been infected despite all their testing because of their reluctance to follow social distancing and masks.
But they do have the benefit of much better medical care than we do.
This is a NOVEL coronavirus - novel means new - and the scientists and medical researchers are still figuring it out. Unfortunately their forecast of it becoming much worse this winter has proved accurate.
I hope LCG and COGASS will cancel these events for the safety of their members.
their forecast of it becoming much worse this winter has proved accurate.
ReplyDeleteFALSE. The virus has indeed become much more widespread. But it would be a mistake to call it worse. We're much better at treating it now. Flattening the curve again, preventing hospital overcrowding, will have a much better effect in December than it did six months ago.
COGWA admitted a large number of people who attended its WFW last December wound up with the flu.
ReplyDeleteSo canceling it this year for health reasons was only logical.
https://news.yahoo.com/despite-1-million-coronavirus-cases-100015673.html
ReplyDeleteU.S. deaths have increased to an average of more than 1,000 a day. More than 244,000 have died of the virus since the pandemic began. An additional 40,000 could die in the next month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By year’s end, Hotez expects at least 400,000 COVID-19 deaths.
Public health officials announced more than 177,000 new infections in the U.S. on Friday, a record high for the third straight day. Coronavirus hospitalizations also reached a record 67,096 this week, double from five weeks ago. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham reinstated the country’s most restrictive pandemic measures, saying the state was at a “breaking point,”
Never been, never seen the attraction of WFW.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe Winter Family X-mass Weekend custom is all about LCG, COG Asses, UCG, and COGWA all basically conceding that X-mass really is the most wonderful time of the year, and that they really missed observing it for far too many years, and that they really want to work their way back into observing it. They are basically admitting and saying that their own Feast of Tabernacles custom does not compare, and does not satisfy at all, and simply cannot compete with the attraction of X-mass. At their various different WFXW sites, their members will see this and long to go back into “the world” because it will appear to be so much more fun than their own boring and stupid cults led by godless idiots.
7:23,
ReplyDeleteThe COGs generally laugh at that accusation and I must say that they don't seem to have interest in any Christmas aspects. I'm sure for many, that the decorations do provide a more festive feeling than they admit. But, they rein themselves back in with a well-placed "it is pagan".
But, what is pagan? Celebrating the birth of Christ is not pagan. A good rule of thumb is that to determine if something is pagan requires whether it is based on a pagan entity. Pretty simple, for the vast majority Christmas is not pagan. Christ is not pagan. If you don't want to kiss under the mistletoe don't do so, particularly if you suspect it could lead you to worshiping Germanic entities, because worshiping Germanic entities is pagan. If Christmas makes you think about and draw closer to your Savior, well, maybe that's not so bad.
"because worshiping Germanic entities is pagan"
ReplyDelete9:18
What a foul subliminal attack hiding you work for marketing at Ford. BMW will be in contact, you rascall you.
Nck
I’ve seen too many COG members going to a hotel or resort during Christmas, claiming they’re doing that ‘to get away from the Christmas madness’. In reality enjoying this holiday wherever they are, because ‘they did not put up all the decorations’.
ReplyDeleteThe hypocrisy in the COG’s never stops.
"The hypocrisy in the COG’s never stops."
ReplyDeleteAnd the ignorance on this blog never stops!
8:34
ReplyDeleteSo if they enjoy seeing the decorations, but don’t observe the festival is that immoral? I’m sure many people in the COGs enjoy the bunting of other cultures during their celebrations and check it out for themselves. It doesn’t make it a sin imo.
"the ignorance on this blog .." What do you mean by that anon2:54 ? As an ex member of one of these COG's I'm too ignorant to understand what you are talking about. Enlighten me..
ReplyDeleteWe also 'enjoyed seeing the decorations' every year. And listening and singing christmas songs. And watching all the holiday movies on television. What is the difference between putting up decorations yourself and doing that? Talking about hypocisy!
Anon 7:23 Thanks for those thoughtful comments.
ReplyDeleteI agree the WFW gets them all exited more so than Tabernacles.
They proclaim it's to escape Christmas but all the big COG groups pump a lot of money in WFW. They have 'fun night's' that don't exist during Tabernacles.
They all bring in the best teachers and have all kinds of seminars that aren't done during Tabernacles.
They make the Feast of Tabernacles stale and boring and go out of their way to electrify WFW.
"As an ex member of one of these COG's I'm too ignorant to understand what you are talking about."
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the truth!
The PCG claiming that God will perform miracles to ensure Trump's re election smells of HWAs 1975 prediction. Another case of imitating the big cheese.
ReplyDeleteNck,
ReplyDeleteBMW supported the Nazis regime by using the slave labor supplied by the nazis. Wagner's "Die Walkure" celebrating the Valkries and other Germanic gods was a favorite of Hitler and would send him into a kind of frenzy. HWA was intrigued by Hitler and believed it possible he was still alive after the war to undoubtedly reasonably adjust his failed end-time WW2 prophecy. I think Nck gets the point that is somewhere here, and can then explain it to me.