GCI in the United States has been undergoing major restructuring throughout 2023 and 2024. These changes have occurred for several reasons. The main reason is a shortage of pastors and key leaders to replace our ranks. For the past 12 years, our regional system has served us well. We started with six regions. With the retirement of Ted Johnston, it went to five regions. In January 2024, Anthony Mullins left the role of Southeast regional director (RD) to plant a GCI congregation in Durham, North Carolina. Then in January 2025, Rick Shallenberger, North Central RD, and Tim Sitterley, Western RD, will both be retiring. This means Dr. Jeff Broadnax, Pam Morgan, and I will be sharing the responsibilities of overseeing the United States. I also have the responsibility of overseeing the Canadian and the Caribbean regions. We hope you can understand that we clearly needed to make some changes to manage this vast area with fewer people.
One option was to move our more experienced pastors from their current congregations to the role of RD, but this would put these large, healthy congregations at risk. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is never a good strategy for growth nor sustainable health. So, the Holy Spirit has been leading us to think differently and guiding us to implement a new strategy. However, this new strategy has required incredibly challenging and painful decisions and even more difficult conversations with our pastors and facilitators.
Many of their smaller churches and Zoom groups will no longer have a "charter" or support from HQ.
We changed our chartering guidelines in 2023 and revised them in 2024. Groups who meet via Zoom but do not meet face-to-face weekly, no longer have a charter. We also are transitioning groups of less than ten in weekly face-to-face attendance to closed status, and they will no longer have a charter. Of course, most will continue to gather and fellowship as small groups as they are able, but it is not wise stewardship of limited resources for the denomination to continue to insure them nor support their charter. None of these decisions has been easy for the facilitators, members, RDs, or the home office staff. We all grieve and lament with those our decisions have affected. I have struggled with bouts of depression due to these transitions and closures. This is, however, necessary if we are to oversee and properly lead our groups who have a weekly attendance of more than ten people.
Apparently income is also down.
The members and leaders affected by the restructuring are our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, and our grandmothers and grandfathers, and we love and appreciate them very much! And it is also true that we cannot continue to provide support for the number of groups we previously supported and still provide training and the necessary accountability to help turn the corner to be a growing and thriving denomination. We do not want to leave anyone behind, so we have created the Home Church US. Pam Morgan has written an article to help explain what this is and how it works. Read it here.
I want to remind us that the “church” is not buildings or specific meetings — it is the people. Along with all Christians around the world, it is you and I, together, who make up the church, the body of Christ, the bride of Jesus. No one can remove you from God’s church. It is a covenantal relationship we each have with our God, as Father, Son, and Spirit, because of what Jesus did on our behalf. We belong to him, and no one can snatch us out of his hand. (John 10:28-29) Remember, he will never leave us nor forsake us! (Deuteronomy 31:6)
They remind members that all churches have a life cycle and most die off. Well, that pretty much describes the Worldwide Church of God and Armstrongism!
I also want to remind us that everything living has a life cycle and that includes congregations and fellowship groups. The apostle Paul planted congregations, yet they no longer exist today. Did Paul fail? Did those congregations fail? No, we are all here, in part, because of the work the Holy Spirit did through Paul and those congregations. Jesus tells us that he will build his church and even the gates of hell and death will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18) Jesus never said a congregation or group of people will always exist in their current form until he returns.
I thank each one of you and am grateful for your love for God, love for his children, and your years (and even decades) of support and prayers. I apologize to those hurt by these transitions. To cause hurt has never been our intent, nor what is in our hearts. Like me, I know you love this denomination and want to see it thrive. I covet your continued prayers for God’s provisions and direction, as we try our best to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Love you all!
Mike Rasmussen, Superintendent of North America & the Caribbean
18 comments:
Now they could really use those millions they gave to Stanley Rader of Beverly Hills.
What happened to all the money that they got from selling off the church assets on Herb's death? Had the funds been wisely invested, they would be financially comfortable rather than presently struggling.
If it's not of God, it will not last.
Like many things in todays world, there is a "ROLLUP" and consolidation trend. Bank mergers, mass retail, ie Costco/ Walmart/Home Depot, trucking companies, airlines etc. It is tough being a little guy in an era of mass information, remote work, and urbanization.
Same goes for churches of all denominations. Churches of all types are also "rolling up" and the churches with a couple of thousand members in one location, can offer better music, better speakers and a better facility, with an overall better user experience.
Since GCI is not doctrinally different than most mainstream churches, why stick around a diminishing organization with a lack of "bells and whistles"?
Rader lived on Wavey Dr. in Pasadena. It was WCG’s millionaire row.
I recently went to a memorial service for a guy I knew in the WCG. The Peoria, Il WCG became a GCI group, but they couldn't make it as a stand alone group, so they united with another church. A black inner city church. Wat would Herbert think of that?
It appeared to me in the mid-90s that "Joe Junior" Tkach was looking for a merger partner, in the wake of WCG/GCI reforms.
He didn't find one at CG7 or SDA then. Should GCI be looking again now?
No Raider lived in Beverley Hills in a mansion to be used for Church functions and reception of dignitaries. At the time it was I believe 2 million dollars. But in his severance package he was allowed to sell the house and keep the profit.
As he said.
I don't take stupid pills.
Nck
He also had homes in Tucson and Beverly Hills according to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NVxKKKCiAc
LOL! I didn't even know they were still in existence - they should have closed their doors 25 years ago!
"Since GCI is not doctrinally different than most mainstream churches, why stick around a diminishing organization with a lack of "bells and whistles"?"
That was the same question my father posed to some mucketymuck all those years ago... was it Dean Blackwell? I forget now. Of course, Lil Joe Jr reacted incredulously to it, as if people were out of our minds for asking that. He tried to say that well, Jesus didn't save us just for us to shut down.
Now granted, for every person that "converted" (I guess that's the word) to the New Covenant theology or whatever you want to term it, maybe it was more comfortable at first to be with other folks in the same boat instead of try to adjust to an entirely new church, but that need wouldn't last forever.
And I guess that subsection of folks who stayed with GCI just so they could sit stiffly in their chair and imagine the inferno when Gawwwwwwwwwwd and Christ finally decided to show up and smite all those Evil Evangelicalists and put things BACK ON TRACK finally gave up.
Right. Herbert armstrong was the poison pill.
Yes. it was just a matter of time. It had the Armstrong taint and then what seems to be the duplicity of those who changed the WCG. It's a pity as I believe the current ministry is superior in most every way to those that came before.
Mike Rasmussen wrote that: "...Jesus never said a congregation or group of people will always exist in their current form until he returns..."
******
However, Jesus did state the following:
Matthew 15:13 "But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
:14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."
So, really, today, how different is Mike Rasmussen's congregation/group/plant from that of a congregation/group/plant of Weston, Winnail, Flurry, Weinland, Franks, Rogers, Pack...etc.?
Which one(s) demonstrate the most spiritual blindness? Least spiritual blindness?
Are they all in the same spiritual ditch, or are they just all scattered into their own separate ditches to "do what seems right in their own eyes (blind)," while striving to accomplish more than HWA of the former WCG ever did?
Or, could they all just be experiencing evil/darkness like what Job experienced in his life?
"When I looked for good, then evil came [unto me]: and when I waited for light, there came darkness." Job 30:26
After all, Jesus also told us: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34
Did the Husbandman (John 15:1), the God of the Old Testament, The God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, plant any of these scattered, renamed, newly-named, organizations of blindness (confusion?) to one degree or another, where one of them will demonstrate faith (Luke 18:8) when Jesus Christ, that Vine, comes?
Time will tell...
John
They frame this in the context of not having new, younger pastors to move into denominational leadership, but from talking to pastors I know in GCI, that is not the main reason. The main reason is that their weekly attendance in the U.S. is so low and their number of congregations has declined so much, that the finances and membership do not warrant a system with multiple regional supervisors
If you take a look at their website you will see that they have fewer than 100 "congregations" left in the United States. I put "congregations" in quotation marks because over half of those churches are labeled on their website as "fellowship groups", which they define as a congregation with less than 25 in attendance. GCI pastors I know are telling me that these fellowship groups are also having administrative support withdrawn - it's not just the groups of less than 10 that are mentioned in this memo. Congregations with average attendance of less than 25 are being told they are not allowed, for example, to employee a full or part time pastor, even if the group's donations would financially permit them to do so. A number of congregations in the last year voluntarily closed their doors and disbanded rather than being demoted from congregation to fellowship group.
The proceeds from the sale of properties are still there, they form what is essentially an endowment that produces an an annual income stream to help fund denominational administrative costs. If you've worked with a non-profit that hand an endowment, you know the rule of thumb is to not take more than 4% per year out of the endowed funds to spend in your budget. Because GCI has so few members and congregations, the income stream from the congregations is not sufficient to support the denominational budget, so that 4% a year from the endowment is making up the difference. It is only very rarely being used to help any of the local congregations.
It's also worth noting that even the congregations with weekly attendance over 25 are rarely larger than 30 or 40 people per week. I would estimate GCI's weekly attendance nationwide in the United States to be somewhere around 2200 - smaller than either United or COGWA . There are, at most, 5 or 6 full time, employed GCI pastors in the U.S. and there may very well be none. I'm less sure on my numbers in that regard because the pastors I know are not full time employees.
This restructuring is another step on the downward trajectory of attendance and finances. I would estimate that GCI in the U.S. will cease to exist in the next 10 years. What will become of it in places like Africa and the Philippines, I don't know. Perhaps the picture is rosier in those places.
If they disappear, what excuse do the "real" COGs have for their lack of success? In any given area aside from their HQ, they are already mini-churches with statistically negligible works. The whole thing is doing a Gamaliel not just GCI.
6:59. You are correct. He did live on Waverly Drive. He sold his house many years before HWA died and moved into a church house across from Robert Kuhn's home that he later bought. This happened before he resigned in 1981 and was paid $250,000 severance. He lived there collecting a pension from the church till he died, and his wife continued living there after his death. I worked a couple of the receptions in his home for AICF when he still was in Beverly Hills in the late 70's.
Well, it looks like Nck took some of those stupid pills after all.
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