The greatest Church of God to ever exist in human history that is based out of a little itty-bitty storefront in Grover Beach, CA just got its delicate little toes stepped on again.
Church of God a Worldwide Ass. is now looking to find ways to build another mini-me auditorium and campus. More useless things to bleed the pockets dry of church members. Poor Bob, all he's got to show for his efforts is a leaking storefront on a side street in Grover Beach, CA.
COGWA had this to say:
I don’t have any news on the potential for adding an auditorium and education center on our current property. We are still waiting on five different contractors for bids on the actual costs. Originally, when we secured the services of Alliance Architects, we were given an estimated amount for the cost of construction, which was easily affordable and would not put the Church in any financial difficulty. We now need to confirm those numbers before we can decide whether or not to move forward. Hopefully, we will have an answer before the end of January. Thank you for your support and for your prayers that God will guide us in these important decisions.
Gerald Flurry built his mini-me auditorium and started a little concert series, Dave Pack tried to build an Auditorium and Student Center for the amazing university he was going to build. It flopped, just like his television studios did. Now, all the most amazing COG in human history has to offer is a little leaking storefront where God has no longer placed his protection.
With no way of adequately training his so-called ministers, he has to rely upon Seventh Day Adventists, Church of God Seventh Day trained ministers, and a few witch doctors to do his work.
All of these splinter groups imagine they are doing mighty works in line with how Herbert Armstrong did it. Herbert Armstrong had a charisma that absolutely NONE of these splinter group leaders do. No COG splinter group has ever and will NEVER reach the same scale that the Mother Church did in the 60's-late 80's. It hasn't happened and will never happen.
39 comments:
They have learned nothing.
”All of these splinter groups imagine they are doing mighty works in line with how Herbert Armstrong did it. No COG splinter group has ever and will NEVER reach the same scale that the Mother Church did in the 60's- late 80's. It hasn't happened and will never happen.”
Herbert W. Armstrong appeared to be a man on a mission who drove his followers relatively hard. The Worldwide Church of God reached a Feast of Tabernacles attendance of around 150,000 people at its peak.
The leaders of the splinter groups appear to be just trying to keep their paychecks and not offend their followers by correcting them. None of the splinter groups now has even one-tenth of the peak WCG attendance. The big goal in UCG and COGWA seems to be to try to make their Winter Family X-mass Weekend custom into something great to rival the Feast of Tabernacles. Such behavior might actually drive away serious people.
”All of these splinter groups imagine they are doing mighty works in line with how Herbert Armstrong did it. No COG splinter group has ever and will NEVER reach the same scale that the Mother Church did in the 60's- late 80's. It hasn't happened and will never happen.”
Herbert W. Armstrong appeared to be a man on a mission who drove his followers relatively hard. The Worldwide Church of God reached a Feast of Tabernacles attendance of around 150,000 people at its peak.
The leaders of the splinter groups appear to be just trying to keep their paychecks and not offend their followers by correcting them. None of the splinter groups now has even one-tenth of the peak WCG attendance. The big goal in UCG and COGWA seems to be to try to make their Winter Family X-mass Weekend custom into something great to rival the Feast of Tabernacles. Such behavior might actually drive away serious people.
Lol ... Church of god Wankers Anonymous (considering they dislike telling non members what the WA stands for) should just wait until Pack goes bankrupt and buy those buildings all ready made.
We all know the splinter groups like to keep things within the family. Just spend all their sparetime disguising it all with petty dislikes for each other.
And of course this blog is nothing to do with rebels from the UCG ministry.......
10:55. What the hell are you talking about? What does this have to do with so-called rebels in UCG ministry?
Wasn't trying to build something like this (when COGWA was part of UCG) the reason for the split? Here they are 12 years later...trying to do the same thing as COGWA. Maybe, members are wanting more for there money???
Whats my name, fool?
10:55 is a COGWA troll who loves to dish it but can't take it. They'll figure out someway to insert "godless" and wicked" into their posts, they use those words like confetti.
The COGWA is shrinking in size but wants to build a mini-me auditorium. It seems like a wealth preservation ploy. Real estate is holding up a lot better than money in the bank, and their members deceased estate contributions have to be parked some where.
"The Worldwide Church of God reached a Feast of Tabernacles attendance of around 150,000 people at its peak"
What year was this peak achieved?
It's just beyond the mental capabilities of some people to figure this blog out, so some just invent their straw men. Good thing we don't have a need to think of ourselves as being persecuted to validate ourselves as the chosen ones!
6.54, It was around the time HWA died. The 150,000 included family members, so it was probably a 100,000 baptized members.
Dave Pack in his original 2000 era autobiography wrote that when he went to a new church area, he asked the members to fill in a card stating the amount of time they spent in prayer and bible study. About half spent 30 minutes on both, while the other half spent no time or a few minutes. Dave concluded that the church split along these lines on Herbs death. Half stopped attending services. I agree with him on this one.
Great, another "white elephant" auditorium. Meanwhile the brethren for the last 60 years+ have met in CRAPHOLE locations , like beer halls, masonic lodges, VFW halls, or run down hotel conference rooms.
Wow, what an original idea.
Anonymous at 6:54 AM said...“What year was this peak achieved?”
Tkach Jr. Wrote, “The Worldwide Church of God reached its peak attendance in 1988 – two years after Mr. Armstrong's death – with 126,800 members and 150,000 in attendance. Those figures stayed relatively stable until 1992, when a slight dip was noted.”
Thats too convenient a conclusion coming from too broad an experimental variable. Unlikely to be accurate.
Potential litigation is what you live for.
Have the leaders of these offshoots had ONE original thought in their minds since HWA died? They are like vultures living off the carcass of HWA's mind. But, then again, he didn't originate much himself, just plagiarized the work of others. They're all vultures.
3.43 pm, if you watch Kenneth Copeland and friends on TV, a pattern emerges. They deliberated give their followers a constricted mental diet. This makes them dependent on their church, and doesn't challenge their members sins. HWA and his splinters are following in their steps.
But this is in opposition to Christ telling Peter three times to "feed My sheep" in
John 21:15,
I don't know what the original amount of members were in COGWA when it formed. It seemed to me it was 7 or 8 thousand? Here is what they boast now:
"It is our view that outside the U.S., we have reached a crisis in ministerial leadership. Our church attendance is around 12,000, and it is divided evenly between the U.S. and areas outside the U.S. But when it comes to ministerial leadership, 75 percent of all elders reside in the U.S., and 25 percent reside outside the U.S. That means 25 percent of our ministers are caring for 50 percent of our members".
When I first arrived at AC in Pasadena, the freshmen class went down to the publishing office and hauled back to our rooms arms filled with every publication they had. We thought we had struck it rich. We should have dumped that into the dumpster behind the SaltShaker restaurant where the other garbage was dumped.
When I first arrived at AC in Pasadena, the freshmen class went down to the publishing office and hauled back to our rooms arms filled with every publication they had. We thought we had struck it rich. We should have dumped that into the dumpster behind the SaltShaker restaurant where the other garbage was dumped.
It is hard to find a place in a blog like this, that is canted perforce towards certain topics, for the kind of comment that I am going to now make. I saw something incredible at the Feast of Tabernacles Fun Show back in the early Eighties. I will always remember it. In its own way it was stunning. A young Black man, wearing jeans and a white shirt, came up on stage in the Field House with an acoustic guitar. The sun had set and it was dark and quiet. The Field House was packed and the stage was brightly lit. He stood alone in the center of the stage and did a beautiful, gentle rendition of McCartney-Lennon's Blackbird. If you listen to the lyrics and match it to the themes of salvation that one can find in the Feast of Tabernacles, it was just beautiful, man, just beautiful.
There were other "fun" acts and bands in the show and HWA was sitting in the audience. He had just flown in that day. He was outraged. The next day he excoriated the audience with, jowls shaking, arms waving angrily, for demeaning the Feast with all the low jinks in the fun show. I recall hearing that one family who had a country and western band and did a song at the fun show left for home shortly after HWA spoke. I am not sure what HWA wanted the fun show to be that year. I think he wanted it to be a show of classical music. And, of course, what happened threw him into a rage.
But I will always remember the Black kid. Don't know what happened to him. His stellar performance that spoke much to us was lost in the chaos and pharisaical storm. You can build buildings and talk about true education and totally miss the point.
Scout
It seems as if the ACOGs just keep trying to recycle old dated & expired systems of operation and thought processes from Worldwide/HWA. Why don't they just dig up HWA and try to make an AI version. I guess we need a new sermon/ article of Germany about to launch World war 3..
“HOW MANY MORE AUDITORIUMS DOES THE CHURCH OF GOD NEED?”
Approximately 333 auditoriums, most of them very small ones.
This blog only appeared in 2010/2011.
Concluding comment made said: "...All of these splinter groups imagine they are doing mighty works in line with how Herbert Armstrong did it. Herbert Armstrong had a charisma that absolutely NONE of these splinter group leaders do. No COG splinter group has ever and will NEVER reach the same scale that the Mother Church did in the 60's-late 80's. It hasn't happened and will never happen..."
******
That seems to be so true.
A portion of a December 1998 sermon about God's Government spoke about the future of some of those who fled from the former WCG.
******
"...In the early days of the Church, Satan put these little “angels of light” in there, in high positions of the Church and, boy, they RULED the ministry! You all know who I’m talking about and the ministry came up under these guys. Then they went out and did it the same way, and now some of them are starting their own churches. They start their own church; then no one wants to go along with them again. So, then other people leave! Then, they change; they start another one.
There’s a new one out. They shouldn’t call it what it’s called. They should call it the “dead church of God,” because they’re absolutely dead from the head down and God’s Spirit is NOT working there at all! Now they’re fighting and they just always keep going down. Satan just keeps smashing the people down more and more.
So, what do they do when they’re finally out of these little dumb organizations? They hate God’s Government! They hate what God stands for.
They sit back and say: “How could God do this to me?” Well, God didn’t do it! The god of this world did it to you..."
******
Apparently, again, there is more going on than just flesh wrestling flesh!
So, yes, the Living group has not reached "the same scale that the Mother Church did."
Is that really also true for the United Ass. and the CogwAss.?
All of those hirelings of the former Mother Church, who fled the Mother Church to start their own churches, continue to "spin their wheels" as the leaders and people continue to come and go from their man-made organizations, buildings, auditoriums. Lots of factions and fractions of their organizations!
Will these mini-Mother organizations continue with their scattering and establishment of more mini-orgs?
Time will tell...
John
I recall HWA at St Petersburg around 1980-1981 having a meltdown and excoriating the membership. Of course, several of the henchmen ministry chimed in on the same theme the rest of the feast of tabernacles. Way to have " The Best Feast Ever."
I wonder if they will pay for the construction of this new auditorium in cash up front (of course using member tithes, offerings, and special donations), or if they will break with unspoken COG tradition of frowning (judging) upon debt of any kind, even good debt, and choose some kind of construction financing.
People really just can't get over the feeling the auditorium and all the propaganda tools gave them. It's the saddest case of living in the past. And that's what the COGs are all about: Living in the past as they live for the end of the world. It's a suicide faith whereby you don't kill yourself, but you give up on all things around you and live in your delusional isolated world until you die.
It’s actually an altar to Armstrong.
Tonto , you crack me up, great post.
The is barely any space on that campus. It's land between busy freeways.
"The is barely any space on that campus. It's land between busy freeways."
It will probably end up being a litte meeting hall for the HQ elite and maybe the local congregation, if they are deemed worthy to enter the sacred space.
Wasn't this all part of the rationale behind the COGwa split and move? Somebody wanted to build this stuff in Texas, and it became political?
They (and many of the wives) wanted warmer weather, and they wanted Jim Franks in charge. Those were two of the worst kept secrets well before the split happened. When they didn’t get either of those things they took their ball and went home.
Warmer weather ? Are you for real? Never heard that before. This is gossip.
I disagree, 1:39. Banned actually became a center for breaking news and information as UCG calved COGwa. It was how I learned that my dad and brother were involved with the new group. The warmer climate was actually cited by some of the splinterers as reason for the move to Texas, obviously beneficial to aging ministers. It's just not fun for people in their mid seventies to shovel Cincinnati snow, or to drive to church in it with geriatric reflexes and eye sight.
There is nothing subversive or damning about seniors seeking warmer climes. Half the Eastern Seaboard retires in Florida.
@1:39
Then please, explain to me, the necessity to move to Texas.
Post a Comment