Grace Communion International (former Worldwide Church of God) has been building a new building near Oklahoma City that will serve as the local church and as a Ministry Training Center.
Through God’s provision during Covid, we have also been able to start construction on a new facility! The church and Ministry Training Center near Oklahoma City is nearly complete (see attached photos). This exciting $3. 95 million joint construction effort between the Home Office, Central Region, and the local church in Oklahoma City (Surrey Hills) is nearly complete, and it will be a blessing to the local church and GCI well into the future. Members have been serving the neighborhood for years in preparation and have developed deep relationships with those they serve. Local leaders have focused their efforts on sharing the gospel through the love, hope and faith avenues, even while face-to-face meetings have not been possible. I look forward to the completion of this facility near the end of the year and seeing its impact for Christ in the years ahead.
The Board also recently approved the purchase of a church facility in Eugene, Oregon, where GCI started in the early 1900s. Much has changed since that time, but this purchase will provide a secure foundation for an already thriving congregation to better reach their neighborhood and community. We hope to finish the acquisition and start some improvements before year end.
The Home Office Operating Budget for 2022 projects income and expenses near 2021 levels at approximately $4.6 million. This does not include income and expenses processed at the Home Office for local congregations of approximately $3 million.
29 comments:
...because only GCI is capable of training ministers for service in GCI.
What a confused bunch! On the one hand, they want us to believe that they've entered mainstream Christianity. On the other hand, they establish their own quasi-seminary, and at the same time give honor to their Armstrong heritage in Oregon, which frankly is the only reason for their continued separate existence. Face it, if you want real Christianity, GCI is one of the worst places to go looking for it.
They abandoned tithing, or made it optional, so I wonder where their income comes from?
A big mistake that WCG made was not having high quality meeting locations that were owned.
AICF ran a deficit of some $10 million a year, and even the dichondra at AC cost some 2 million a year. Add in a few jets,
silverware of the kings, and the (at the time and adjusted for inflation) auditorium at around $60 million ...
then virtually every congregation could have a million dollar , modern facility, instead of meeting at Masonic Lodges, Beer Halls,
VFW locations, or run down hard up Sunday churches willing to pick up some rent money.
"The Board also recently approved the purchase of a church facility in Eugene, Oregon, where GCI started in the early 1900s."
======================================
It did no such thing. Reinventing the wheel of Evangelical Christianity does not count as having roots back to the time of HWA in the 1900,s. It's roots are in the 1990's. Only the splits and splinters of the WCG who make their personal efforts to promote the theology and practices of WCG can claim roots back to 1900's.
GCI can trace it's roots back to the Reformation perhaps with a missing century from 1900 to 1996.
Ha, one that can only be seen through a mist!
Anonymous said...
They abandoned tithing, or made it optional, so I wonder where their income comes from?
From Jesus who worked a miracle in WCG after decades deceiving and tricking the members before said miracle, and the never to be disclosed amount they sold the campus for.
I understand that Joe Tkach Jr moved to Southern Oregon so perhaps the Eugene addition is to give him something to do in retirement
Somehow, ex WCG ministers have a soft spot for Oregon, the place where it all started in the 1900s. As they say, home is where the heart is.
Regarding where they get the money from, well God provides, does not He? Some examples are Gen 22:8, Ps 84:11, and Mat 6:8.
Anonymous 4:34 wrote, "Only the splits and splinters of the WCG who make their personal efforts to promote the theology and practices of WCG can claim roots back to 1900's."
That is a biased view - biased for no real reason. When an organization that was once unified undergoes schism, both branches have a valid connection to the historical unified organization. The fact that Splinterdom retained the Armstrongist ideology can be looked upon as either perseverance or stagnation. That is a political call.
If I were a GCI leader I would prefer your viewpoint. Who wants to be associated with a latter instantiation of The Circumcision Party that warred with Paul? But, I admit, denial of that association might be politically desirable but it also would be against history.
******** Click on my icon for Disclaimer
Doesn't hurt to rake in a few million dollars while you're doin' Jesus' work (Joel Osteen, Joe Tkach...)
Say what you want, but it's nice to see the good guys get blessed, as opposed to the splinters, who learned learned nothing, and continue to screw their members over.
I wonder what Flurry and the PCG think about them coming to OKC? Now, they'll be close enough so that they can get PCG kicked out of the country, just like Flurry has claimed for years.
This is one reason the GCI is such a hypocritical farce. They're still hanging on to their bankrupt legacy and history. There's no way the tree (the GCI) can be any good, if the roots (Millerite Adventism, HWA) were rotten from the start. They should have just admitted the WCG was just a con game in '96, tore it up by the roots, and helped the members to find a decent church home else where.
I wonder what Flurry and the PCG think about them coming to OKC?
It is a little strange that in leaving California GCI has ended up in Charlotte and Oklahoma City. Of all the possible destinations, why go to the HQ cities of LCG and PCG?
9.09 PM
I agree with 4.34s viewpoint. Had Tkach gone Muslim, could he legitimately claim that his church roots go back to 1900s WCG. I don't think so. Since GCI has chosen to be a Kenneth Copeland clone with some cosmetic changes, it is no longer a WCG splinter. It is a Copeland splinter.
Maybe thats their new angle. They think they can pull in new members by directly countering those two factions.
Little Stevie won’t like this !
Anonymous (10:26)
I know its fun to bluster but you don't know what you are talking about. GCI does not remotely resemble Kenneth Copeland's group - let alone be a clone. But you have know something about GCI's theology to be able to recognize that.
GCI can legitimately claim its organizational roots go back to the 1900's via the WCG. They are not asserting that the theological roots go back to the WCG. Thank God for that. If you want to talk theological roots, Armstrongism goes back to The Circumcision Party of the First Century. We might say that it is a splinter of The Circumcision Party - just substitute the Sabbath for circumcision as the focal point.
******** Click on my icon for Disclaimer
Oklahoma Territory had Churches of God in the 1880's.
Nck
"Face it, if you want real Christianity, GCI is one of the worst places to go looking for it."
Face it, if you want real Christianity read the book by Thomas Harpur "The Pagan Christ" and go back 4500 years to Egypt, the real roots of the Jesus myth.
Haven't I mentioned this before? People are still in denial, and don't really want real Christianity. They are just playing church.
Anonymous 12:30 wrote: "Face it, if you want real Christianity, GCI is one of the worst places to go looking for it."
The weight of Christian opinion would be against you in this. Read what theologians think about the theology of T.F. Torrance and read what they say about the theology of Herbert W. Armstrong. Nobody really does a comparison of the two. That would be facetious. You have to do the reading and thinking yourself. The difference is stark.
There is no reason that GCI should not function as a denomination. There is no reason GCI should not acknowledge it's history. Can you imagine the uproar and clamor there would be from critics if they sought to conceal their apocalyptic Millerite origins? They recanted their apocalyptic Millerism. Would that Splinterdom could find the resolve to do the same.
******* Click on my icon for Disclaimer
NEO
I spent several years watching Kenneth Copeland and his other soul mate tele evangelists. When one considers what they say and leave out, they are similar to a food franchise. I have also read GCI internet articles, and recall the articles Tkach put out in the 1990s before the splintering. So I am confident in my belief that GCI is following the Copeland mold. They must extensively read and watch and the tele evangelicals, otherwise the similarities can't be explained.
September 23 at 6:06 PM says: "People are still in denial, and don't really want real Christianity. They are just playing church."
Don't knock playing church, Anon. We are all stuck here on earth for some indefinite interval between birth and death. When this interval grows tedious, as it regularly does, we cast about for some way to pass the time. We eat. We drink. We tell stories. We dance. We argue. We play games.
A favorite game involves combining activities into rituals and performing them on a daily, weekly, or annual basis. Playing church. Games hold our interest most intently when the stakes are raised. So people tell stories about gods who command those rituals. We trust if they ar pleased by our rituals, the gods will minimize our pains and misery, or at least alleviate the everyday tedium. In this there is a paradox: as irksome as the tedium gets to be, we want it to last as long as possible. We dread the end of it and convince ourselves that our gods will postpone it or even waive it completely. Whether playing church actually will work to that end or not, at least we can be sure it fills up some of the dreary interval.
That's basically why we come to Banned, you see. We argue. One of the ways to while away the time spent waiting for the final quietus.
There's still a GCI? With congregations of about 50 people on the average, hmmm, I wonder where the $$ is coming from. Somebody buried the loot in a time capsule and now dug it up. Can they possibly think we've forgiven and forgotten how we got fleeced? I'm gob smacked.
NO!!! Not another acog ruining oklahoma...
Not that they can do any of the harm that PCG has but still)
If so, that is further taint to gci.
Retired Prof
Thanks for your confession of committing passive suicide with your 'whiling away the time.' But speak for yourself. Some of us are using our time reasonably constructively, and are not just 'waiting for the final quietness.'
You can now get back to playing checkers in your nursing home.
Anon September 25 at 9:37 PM says: "Some of us are using our time reasonably constructively, and are not just 'waiting for the final quietness.'"
Good for you. Doing something you think is constructive is one of the most satisfying ways to pass the time before you die. None of us are required to do wait passively twiddling our thumbs. We've got a choice of many interesting and satisfying ways to fill up our time. Your choice is a wise one. The author of Ecclesiastes, who wrote in verses 13-14 of the second chapter: "Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived that one event happeneth to them all."
A modern expression of the same idea is Pozzo's line about women in Samuel Beckett's *Waiting for Godot*: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more ..."
Keeping in mind that the night will surely come, perhaps when I least expect it, intensifies my appreciation for whatever I am filling the time with at a given moment, because I may wink out before it is over.
Ex PCG here.
I have no doubt a sermon will come out of Edmond about how this is a direct attack on the church (PCG).
Post a Comment