Grace Communion International finally took a stand and said that Saturday meetings were out and as a corporate body churches were to meet on Sunday. This is sure to have ticked off a certain portion of the GCI members who are diehard Sabbath keepers. These people remained in GCI because that is where God had placed them when it was still the Worldwide Church of God and to leave it and join a rebellious splinter group was the wrong thing to do. These people endured a lot with all of the changes but stayed loyal to Sabbath and Holy Day keeping, having to endure sitting through sermons on those days detailing the New Covenant approach to those days. When the crap was hitting the fan in Pasadena these people were known as the Lobby COG, or my favorite...The Grumpies. They would gather together in groups before and after services in the auditorium criticizing everything, yet they never had the wherewithal to leave and go with a group that was supposedly faithfully keeping those days and be relatively at peace.
Weston mentioned this new direction of the GCI and is secretly hoping that some of their members have finally had enough. The obvious choice is to join LCG and not that sad little improperly named "continuing" Church of God.
Greetings from Charlotte,
We held an online Council of Elders meeting on Wednesday. It was very encouraging to hear from the Regional Directors and Regional Pastors that they are receiving a steady stream of GOTOs (people inquiring about the Church, baptism, or counseling). We are also hearing of good growth overall, even if it is not evenly distributed across the board. Last year we had a 4.1 percent increase in attendance in the U.S. and 4.9 percent internationally. Our former Worldwide association has apparently mandated for all regions to only meet on Sunday—Sabbath is no longer an option for their congregations—and this has caused some of their members to finally say enough is enough. Mr. Ames’ telecast “Will You Inherit Heaven or the Earth?,” advertising the booklet What Happens When You Die?, garnered over 6,000 responses. As I mentioned in the video update for this week, “People must be concerned about death,” and I would also add—they ought to be! Already in 2023 three other telecasts have topped 5,500. Passover is now less than four weeks away. Let us prepare for the most spiritually prosperous Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread of our lives.—Gerald Weston
20 comments:
I doubt there will be much of a movement from CGI churches still meeting on Sabbath. They really get nothing from being associated with CGI HQ and are on their own with financing, funding etc. CGI provides NOTHING in the corporate sense any way.
They will just simply cut ties with CGI and continue doing what they are doing, staying place and going to church on Saturdays, maintaining their local social contacts, and friends.
Grumpies your favourite insult towards faithful sabbath keeping christians.
You really are quite a revolting human being, behind all the bravado of this blog and fake names. Quite a revolting, horrible person.
It's always a question of character, always has been, always will. What is the legacy you leave? Neither one thing nor the other.
“ Grumpies your favourite insult towards faithful sabbath keeping christians”
I too was in Pasadena and knew about these people. These were not faithful sabbath keepers! While they made a show on how righteous they were they were some of the nastiest members around. No splinter group would have ever wanted them. They have spent the last 27 years grumbling and bitching too cowardly to take any real stand. All empty words.
The “Joyful GRUMPS” (God's Remnant Under Much Persecution) seemed to think that they had to stay in the Worldwide Church of God, INCORPORATED no matter what and wait for God to deal with the apostate Tkaches and get the church back on track.
The old GRUMPS should have used the official name change to Grace Communion International, INCORPORATED as their great technical excuse and opportunity to get out.
It could have been worse, though. They could have tried to hold fast to the old teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong by falling for and supporting satanic frauds like Gerald Flurry's PCG or Dave Pack's RCG. That would have turned out even worse. Then they might have become REALLY GRUMPY.
Your reading comprehension is terrible.
If Weston were the only choice, a certain percentage might go with him, but there are too many other choices. Probably more will go with COG-7. It's got to be one heck of a lot more pleasant going with a Sardis era church than one of dozens of Laodicean splinters. D&DCOGs are better than ACOGs.
It's also entirely possible that all the teaching on grace has finally rubbed off and the people will shelter in place.
I thought GCI did that decades ago, as I remember hearing fuss from members of my former congregation when the pastor proclaimed he was shifting services to Sundays. Guess that wasnt organization-wide.
Not all GCI congregations went to Sunday. The West Valley church here in the San Fernando Valley area still met on Saturday. That is where many of them migrated to. They even had a "feast" site at the Monrovia Embassy Suites for a while that met on the "regular" days.
Well, there is that - I do recall HWA in MOA saying in much superscript "Splinter groups are not still in the Church!". Maybe statements like that were accorded a bit too much weight by some. I do wonder though, given statements by Velvet Delorey and some other "grumpie"-like folks, if they did it in hopes of being there to see plagues of boils suddenly afflicting "the Evangelicals" or something, lol.
Keep paying and praying! We need that 3rd tithe and festival tithe of the tithe. God may be all powerful but his church is powerless without your continued financial support!!! SOS!!
If you need more holy day envelopes please let us know. Also when spanking your children please donate any loose change that may fall from their pockets.
How did that work? They were OK with parking there and hearing about that false-pagan-Trinity-doctrine and that false-pagan-deceived-grace and that false-pagan-ham-eating, as long as it was on the right day?
A quick survey of the 18 congregations listed in California shows that 9:of them are currently meeting on Saturday.
You can find this info at https://www.gci.org/churches/california/
Aggie had a keen intellect, and came up with some brilliant topics of discussion. She was really on to something with her panentheism. And then, in her dispute with the moderators of that forum, (Shadows?) she up and returned to the local GCI which she had left, largely because her Canadian congregation had mostly stuck with the original doctrines. She turned on a dime, even writing pro-ACOG letters to Dixon's Journal! I wonder where her head is at currently.
RSK another one of your fake names.
What's a real stand that these 'grumpies' supposedly should have taken ?
RSK needs to get out more.
Fascinating, especially after Feazells posturing that allowing such would be an "affront to the gospel". Guess the monetary support from those groups diminished his zeal. :)
Hanging around COGlodytes en masse isnt really a pasttime of mine.
Nah, its my initials. Not everything is a paranoid conspiracy.
The guy Bob has running his Skype Services in Ireland and is not the main prophet assistant in Europe is a proud member of GCI. He boasts about being a member of GCI but yet Prophet Bwana Bob still utilizes him to preach the gospel of "support Evangelist Evans" with out any questions in Africa.
Post a Comment