Living Church of God has been on a roll lately in its outreach to various cities around the United States and Canada. The potential audience to draw from is in the multiple millions of people, yet hardly anyone shows up.
This past week they had 5 presentations with potential audiences to draw from of over 8,622,406 people. From that great field ripe for harvest and with millions filled with the deep desire for the "gospel" LCG (it is attempting tp promote), they were able to draw in 120 people. That's right, 120 people. Of which at least 60 - 90 were LCG members in attendance to pad the audience. Other than Bob Thiel, there has never been a COG with such massive outreach. Jesus is pleased.
Last week, we held five initial Tomorrow’s World Presentations: two in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (one for French-speaking subscribers and one for English-speaking subscribers); Albuquerque, New Mexico; Louisville, Kentucky; and Cincinnati, Ohio. These presentations had a combined total of 120 guests. This week we have eight presentations scheduled. Two initial presentations, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; and Kansas City, Missouri; and six follow-up presentations, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (combined English and French); Albuquerque, New Mexico; Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom; Fargo, North Dakota; Louisville, Kentucky; and Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you all for your continued prayers for these presentations.
Montreal, Quebec (English speaking). 286,280
Total Montreal population: 4,053,360
Albuquerque, New Mexico. 916,528
Louisville, Kentucky. 1,395,634
Cincinnati, Ohio. 2,256,884
17 comments:
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a form of insanity.
And don't forget when ACOGs do make a sale, they can't keep them - as Joe-jr revealed to Dennis: "the WCG, after spending billions on evangelism, had a turnover of ~500,000 converts!"
Matt. 23:15
English Standard Version
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
Would Jesus say the same to LCG? How would a proselyte be twice as much a child of hell? Often the proselyte takes the teachings more to heart than the teachers themselves. The teachers are often hypocrites that don’t hold to their extremist teachings in their own lives.
This is similar to Armstrong’s WCG. Without getting into Armstrong’s hypocrisy, many ministers would teach and preach the extreme company line but ease up on it in their and their children’s lives. Not all of course, but back in Ambassador college days some of the most extreme WCG believers were from families of lay members whereas the ministers’ kids (not just the rebels) would not hold to the rigidity of some teachings.
The ministers were of course viewed as the church elite and they knew they must teach the hard company lines and teachings while they alone in the privacy of their own home were wise and spiritual enough to temper the teachings without falling away. Again, not all, but it’s what many saw. It also tended to become looser the higher up the hierarchy you went.
Not quite the Oakridge Boys, or the Statler Brothers, but not bad for an amateur group
Warning the world to repent is not insanity. Old testament prophets also had a low "success rate." But that doesn't mean that they failed. People were warned, and it was on their heads when disaster struck.
The Revolving Door: invented 1888 ~~ perfected 1934
500,000 walk-in--then walk out of Armstrong-doomsday-cult
“LCG: The Fields Are All White Ready To Harvest Again”
The only thing that will get harvested/plundered again and again is the (barely) Living Church of Rod's money giving suckers.
Roderick C. Meredith got forced out of the Worldwide Church of God by the apostate Tkaches and started his Global Church of Rod cult in 1992, but never got even one-tenth of the WCG people to go with him. Then Rod got fired by the board of directors of Global, so he started his (barely) Living Church of Rod cult in 1998 with about 80% of the Global cult people. Rod showed them how to play hardball by leaving the Global cult with enough debt for it to go bankrupt.
Rod's cults were never really able to grow or amount to anything even after almost three decades of Rod talking about how almost nobody had ever heard of Herbert W. Armstrong but that his own little splinter group was somehow going to “shake the nations.” Rod's early rejection of Herbert W. Armstrong as the one who was prophesied to come in the spirit and power of Elijah to “restore all things” was a sign of what was to come. The ridiculous so-called “doctrinal upgrades” that Rod and his unbelieving accomplices came up with to put his own doctrinal stamp on his own little splinter group were all a sign that his rebellious competition AGAINST Herbert W. Armstrong was a lost cause.
Various abominations, such as Norman S. Edwards (promoter of extreme division in the church with a stolen mailing list), Robert J. Thiel (self-appointed false prophet), and David C. Pack (“common” thief and Satan's #2 false prophet after Gerald Flurry), were all spawned by Rod's splinter groups.
I think you may be in want of a greater concept, 7:56. The message needs to be true and accurate, and Armstrongism has a litany of prophecy failures, both in the timing, and the identities of the prople for whom their prophecies are intended. This has gone on for decades following the time when the so-called COG should have ceased operation, which was shortly following the great disappointment of 1972-75.
When a warning goes out, and the consequences do not materialize, the prophet, or prophesying entity does great damage to the entire concept of warning and repentence.
I blame two factors for the failure of Armstrongism. 1) HWA diligently studied his Bible during the waking hours of the day, and then did a total disconnect each night as he crept into Dorothy's bedroom. Nothing good or accurate will result from such a situation. And, 2) HWA reduced prophecy in his broadcasts to a cheap advertiser's "hook" to scare people into his church, where they quickly became tithe slaves, giving him the resources to scare thousands more. Obviously, when that which you use to scare people turns out to have been just another boogeyman, people walk away. If a prophet and his prophecy fails, there is no consequence for failure to listen, heed, and repent, in fact the consequence reverts to the false prophet instead. Everything he has said and done is questionable, and backpedaling will not relieve him of his punishment for speaking presumptuously on behalf of God.
It's not rocket science, or even something so deeply spiritual that it can't be understood by the average layman.
Cincinnati?!
Why have a big event in the home turf of UCG? Not to mention the oft-forgotten Jim O'
Brian, whose COG-Cincinnati sometimes shares speakers with UCG?
Cincinnati?!
Isn't that Ron Weinland's turf?
Cincinnati is also the United Church of God domain.
Low conversion rate, yes, but I doubt the OT prophets spoke to 30 people in Israel and said "The nation's been warned!"
Got it. Still remember the old joke about two sins and an ati.
LCG, like all other ACOGs, are operating very low wattage "Works". The reach and market penetration are a fraction of what it was under Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong during the WCG's glory years.
Case in point, the Cincinnati market. Cincinnati market was bombarded with The World Tomorrow TV and radio broadcasts starting from the 1950s through the 1980s. Besides 50,000 Watt powerhouse WCKY, other high wattage AM radio stations such as WWVA Wheeling, WV. and others gave The World Tomorrow broadcast redundancy and market penetration in the Cincinnati market. I don't remember the exact numbers, but Cininnati was the kickoff market for Garner Ted Armstrong's "Listen America before it's too late" personal appearances. I want to say that GTA had capacity audiences in the thousands in Cincinnati. I don't know how many WCG members were in the audience. I attended the second GTA Listen America personal appearance in Richmond Virginia - a market which also benefitted from the same broadcast redundancy from all directions including those same stations penetrating Cincinnati as well as WRVA Richmond, 50,000 Watt powerhouse. I believe we had a couple thousand in Richmond.
My point is that LCG's report of 120 people in attendance across all 5 Cities including Cincinnati is quite shockingly a failure and again demonstrates the almost non-existent low wattage work they are doing. The diminishing Armstrong brand must be completely forgotten in Cincinnati despite all the past media redundancy the WCG spent in the Cincinnati market as well as, of course, a reflection of a whole new generation who have never heard Armstrong's name and brand.
The only other brand name that I can think of offhand which, like the WCG and the World Tomorrow TV and radio outreach, that was once highly marketed and well known throughout America, and then suddenly disappeared is MCI Communications Corporation. MCI and the Justice Department broke up monopoly AT&T and the former Bell System. MCI was acquired in 1998 by WorldCom. WorldCom immediately killed the MCI brand. WorldCom filed bankruptcy in 2002 due to financial fraud. It's been over 20 years since WorldCom killed the MCI brand. Yet, many people still remember MCI if the name is brought up. In my mind, due to the frauds, Joeseph Tkach's Grace Communion International is to the Worldwide Church of God what Worldcom was to MCI. Both successors killed brands that were once well known in America at one time. For the Church, what is left is the Armstrong brand in ruins and the successor low wattage works of the ACOGs.
Richard
The problem the splinters face is that none of them have ministers who have achieved celebrity status, and can draw large crowds. Until he threw it all away, GTA was a major draw. With his face plastered all over a city's billboards, and spot radio and TV announcements, of course thousands of people showed up. Let's face the music! No way can Gerald Weston, Gerald Flurry, or David Pack compete for draw with Joel Osteen. And Bob Thiel? He barely rates a quick snort, although it's possible that he ponder's David Hasselhoff's inexplicable celebrity as a rock star in Germany.
The only case of any sort of celebrity minister in Armstrongism aside from the Armstrongs was the late Ian Boyne, a friend of this site who did not consider it as lowering himself to actually come here and discuss a variety of topics with all of us. Whether we consider it to be good or bad, Ian's church in Jamaica was enjoying exponential growth! And then, he passed away. Who knows what he might have accomplished with his "reformed" Armstrongism had he lived longer?
The old church leaders are so in awe of the success WCG had long ago, that they are blind to the fact that media is dramatically different than it was in the 60's. Households having 3 TV channels, and AM radio being very popular was ideal for one man to speak to millions. Now, one man speaks to dozens. Hundreds of TV stations, thousands of podcasts, millions of youtube videos; media is now completely different. LCG tried to duplicate the WCG success, but failed. UCG tried to duplicate LCG's failure, and succeeded in doing so. Interestingly, this "one man speaks to millions" mentality fits right in with the failed top-down, one-man-rule governmental structures that these failed (or failing) churches still embrace. Wake up! The days of centralized churches are are over. The days of "going to all nations" via TV is over.
Right on, 12:20! You've just provided more context to the idea that Armstrongism was time and date stamped.
There actually are paths by which other ministries have attained success. One of them is TBN. Armstrongism is a radical departure from the mainstream Christian programming on TBN, and even if an ACOG speaker muzzled himself sufficiently to gain acceptability, when the truth about the actual beliefs surfaced, he'd be seen as having been deceitful, and would not last long at all. It's difficult to be on Trinity Broadcast Network when you repudiate the Trinity. Some actually consider that to be blasphemous.
I spent a lot of time watching and listening to the speakers on TBN for several years, and I have to say that most of them not only appear to be genuinely inspired and passionate, but they also have much more highly developed relational skills and charisma than any of the speakers on the ACOG imitations of the original World Tomorrow Program. Without the ability to compete on this level, Armstrongism is simply moribund, and will remain so.
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