In the Church of God movement it was and still is consistently reinforced that members should counsel with their ministers about their problems and not go to licensed counselors and therapists. The COG said that since these people were not church members they were incapable of counseling and actually used Satan's deceptions to lead true believers away from God.
In each of the respective COG groups out there today you can count on one hand the number of ministers who have received training from licensed counseling professionals. Almost all ministers had their "training" from another minister who also had their "training "from another minister and so on. 99% of them had no real counseling training at all. David Antion is one of the standouts who has had professional training and runs a highly successful counseling service on South Marengo in Pasadena.
Do you agree with the Living Church of God's statement below? Are LCG ministers, or ministers in any COG actually dispassionate and without bias?
Sometimes, it is good to have someone outside our context take a look at how we might do better. Couples who are struggling in marriage can benefit from inviting their minister in to look at the problem dispassionately, without bias.
24 comments:
Couples who are struggling in marriage can benefit from inviting their minister in to look at the problem dispassionately, without bias.
Yes, they can benefit. Once they have invited the minister to examine their personal problems, they will soon have the benefit of the whole congregation, as the minister and his wife are almost guaranteed to gossip to their friends, who gossip to their friends...
Some ministers have more life experience and can offer much better counsel than others. But even the most experienced ACOG ministers seem with very few exceptions to participate in the culture of gossip, which tends to come back and ruin relationships between the counseled couple and the congregation, and sometimes between the husband and wife being counseled.
LOL. No. I visited an LCG congregation that was far away from my home congregation at the time. When I was back to my home congregation I was mentioning how I met some folks, enjoyed my time there etc. Without prompting, a close relative of the minister told me all about a counseling session of one of the folks there. The utter smug contempt relayed there was enough for me to drive home the point of not asking the “ministry” for counseling on anything.
I went to a minister once years ago about an issue. Two weeks later he had it as the topic of his sermon. Several in the congregation knew I was the subject of the sermon. I never went to a minister again about anything nor did I trust them. The betrayal was shocking. He is part of the perfect ministry of the United Church of God.
Or..............You can tell your church and ministry there are 3 places they can stay for free.
1. Out of my lane
2. Out of my business
3. Over there
:)
No. Hell no, shit no, fuck no. Mind your own business.
They were cordial enough. But the problem is my mind comes up with 5 or more scenarios for any given problem, and I never saw any particular value in much of anything the minister shared. Putting their solutions into action actually made things worse on some occasions.
Well I've heard this counselling with God's true ministers thing before from WCG and our LCG ministers and their hangers-on. Just because they are ministers doesn't mean that they are in any way qualified and well informed to give sound advice from the Bible. So let's see about marriage. We have Mr. Jacques Secours who is on his Third wife, second one from church. And the LCG ministry ruled that Mr. Secours' new marriage is an adulterous relationship. We have Charles Sutton in the Sudbury area and in Ontario who is on is second wife. And what of Mr Weston whose marriage with his Carol is more like a business arrangement than anything remotely loving and smacking of church mushiness. Hmm and what of this creepy dark Randy Weitrich who was a total mess up with his late ex Marie. And what of this Winston gosse who seems like the mild crooner Bing Crosby on the outside, but like Der Bingle he is mean and violent and irrational behind the scenes. And what of Mr Michael Elertson who was with us who was bribed back into LCG by Gerald Weston when he and his First wife went to Mr. Bryce's group, and he then drops his first wife and their handicapped small children and he picks up another woman. And what about the lady who is living openly with a guy for years in what is probably a better shack up arrangement than many LCG marriages and the ministers know it and they do nothing to help the lady, and yet they fixate on other lesser situations. And need i list 'em all? Do we want these unbiblical men counselling us in our marriages, or even involved on any level in the first place? Really? Really?
I have seen in LCG that the ministers just give you their uninformed and uneducated opinion on something and they expect that we should take that as being from God. I also see that the ministers will insist on counselling the member, insisting on their way because it is from God through his true ministers, and then standing aloof from the consequences of their meddling. Like the soldier said of General Joab during the battle with Absalom. "We're just giving yu advice," they say, "We can't force you". And then when you don't do what they say the get you for it. The member is categorized as being rebellious, or they ar even suspended or put out of God's true church and the speartip of god's work.
Most of the ministry back in the real early days, 50’s/60’s were freshly graduated, newly married, greenhorns with a sham degree. I marveled at how my own mother, married with 4 children would actually take advice from these inexperienced life toddlers! Marital and child rearing atrocities were committed because of them and we, of second and third generation learned the hardest lessons.
My experience was that I could get better advice from any random stranger on the street. How can the ministers possibly give good advice if they don't believe in rights and ignore or hide that relationships are a two way street.
Church "counseling" is part of the war on member independence, and an attempt to get members to shun information or professional counselors who might inform them that they are members of a cult.
And not forgetting, counseling is an application of the 'hold your friends close, and your (potential) enemies closer' principle. The ministers want to intimately know what members are thinking, and up to. Since when has this prevented church splits.
To paraphrase Forest Gump's mother, Counseling with your ACOG minister is like a box of chocolates!
If the minister is an angry fanatic like the guy who was in charge of the Peoria, Il WCG in the late 70's to mid 80's, you're better off not taking your problem to such an individual. And don't you dare talk about your problems to the congregation. You'll be accused of causing dissent in God's church!
In my experience the only ones struggling in marriages within COG's are from the ministry.
The old WCG "might" have been way better if there had been some rogue, more-freedom-infused, somewhat peaceful critique site or medium like this Banned site back in the day. Pre-internet, it would have needed to be like a newsletter similar to Worldide News.
Those marriage & family agitating ministers would have had a rear flank of concerned folk like us kind of sharing & comparing on a security guard watch, & the WCG leadership tomfoolery & shenanigans & hooliganism would have been less apt to bamboozle & hoodwink so many hurt people.
Cal Culpepper of modern day comes to mind along with the Peoria IL curmudgeon & of course El Davo el Pack-o when a medium like Banned may have helped WCG. Cal's & Mr. Peoria's & Pack's counterparts back then (well Peoria-boy was back then) would have their antics somewhat WHISTLEBLOWN round about, for folk to beware like we can now thanks to a somewhat free press.
Of course during Apollo, NASA had it's own private internet or emails back then, but a printed page site like this would have been interesting to see if it could have thwarted WCG crap like the shameful teeter totter of Divorce & Remarriage kerfuffle, the failings of booklet "1975 In Prophecy", and the policy of brethren & ministry placing segments of adult members down on "lower shelves" due to race, employment, eccentric or autism scale personalities, & to function as just downright fact checking on their Pastor General when he is very elderly but marries a lady Ramona much younger than his own 1st daughter. (& only 9 yrs. older than son GTA). As a child, GTA as a 1st grader technically could have rode the same schoolbus as cutie 10th grader Ramona.
I wonder if a Banned whislteblower venue "might" have helped WCG back then?
I know in the Flurry cult, students at his Jim Jones/HWA college aren't even allowed to go out or date a fellow student a second time without either having dated ALL of the other students or without some ministerial consent from one of Flurry's henchmen. Such arrangements are damned to failure and it just shows that it is not about following the Word of God or those of Christ but the unqualified leaders of PCOG having total control. They are living examples of what Christ said about piling grevious burdens upon other's backs but they are unwilling to lift their little finger. Maybe they need an ministerial bonus or Gerald needs a new jet.
One of the worst misunderstandings of Armstrongism is that they treat the Two Great Commandments of the Lord as if they are to be played against one another, when actually they are one and the same, and therefore compliment one another perfectly.
The reputation of this site depends on sticking to the same lies told here for years.
11:39 "The reputation of this site depends on sticking to the same lies told here for years."
Aw, did someone get their widdle feelings hurt? Can mommy kiss the boo-boo and make it go away?
What lies 11:39? Be specific. Otherwise you are just trash talking.
Additionally, unless you are indeed more specific, 11:39, then the lies could be originating from incoming, more than from outgoing?
Siri is now my counselor and minister.
"Mr. Bryce's group"
that so-called minister was a shyster all the way back before LCG started! The covering for an elder's adultery, neglect of afflicted and suck-up to the rich. He ran many off! Topped it off with stealing the GCG supplies when starting LCG. His sucking up didn't save him from Rod running him out eventually from LCG!
Correct 3:43 Sunday May 26, and many know of the LCG ministry having chosen Juan as a ministerial trainee and ordaining him, and yet he stayed married to his poor lady for just a short time, and while he never consummated the church marriage he stayed addicted to pornography, and also he believed he was predestined for the lake of fire. So where is the inspiration and God's wisdom in how our LCG ministers selected a man like that as one of "God's true ministers" in the first place. Actually Juan was more straightforward in what he was going through than anything LCG's ministers under Weston were up to. So what does this say about LCG's leadership and their ministers? Please, my LCG sisters and brothers, please do not be afraid to think and let God guide you.
I would like to add Jeffrey Fall to the list of pervert endorsing ministers. An LCG member went to the Philippines for his 3rd sham marriage. He fraudulently married a woman there. After his dishonesty was found out, the sham marriage broke up. Not content, this LCG old pervert went around asking church members in the Philippines if he could have sex with their barely teenage children. The regional minister Mr. Tyler rightly put this wannabe (I hope it didn’t go farther) child molester out of the church. This member then skulked backed to Jeffrey Fall’s territory where the bad doctor welcomed the perv back into LCG and told young people at a Bible study that the perv had “learned his lesson.” Not to mention the other time ol jeffrey hugh fall helped another old pervert cover up his Asian fetish. Old white guy with 100’s of young Asian women as Facebook friends, living in Chinatown and known for hovering and weirdly touching young Asian women? To JHF sounds like an image problem to be covered up! I’m sure there’s more, but I don’t have the stomach to dig. These situations were ones I encountered by chance. Can only imagine how many more have been swept under the rug.
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