A highly appointed reader from NASA sent me the following information, which is from Craig White's Friends of the Sabbath Substack page.
The letter below makes it look like Grace Communion International (the new and improved Worldwide Church of God) is continuing to decline in membership. I don't know how accurate this is, considering they draw lots of ministers, elders, and members to their Regional Gatherings at various locations around the country.
Shocking Decline of Grace Communion International (GCI)
An eagle-eyed member who is rather excellent at analysis, sent me the following concerning GCI:
Hi Craig,
Your recent announcement on the passing of Stavernides prompted me to go and look on the GCI website, which led me to look at their congregational list. I was stunned to discover the following:
1. They list only 9 congregations in California, 4 of which are now just fellowship groups with less than 25 meeting.
2. The old HQ congregation no longer meets. The only Pasadena congregation they list is a relatively small group that apparently conducts services in a Philippine language. Long time congregations of the old WCG like San Francisco, Bakersfield, Modesto, Garden Grove, Redding - which were all listed still before COVID, are now gone.
Note: Glendora has a large group of members from the San Gabriel Valley. Hawthorne, Sun Valley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Santa Ana all have congregations. Sacramento, San Jose, and Santa Maria are listed CA congregations (the 9 mentioned above and size of these groups are unknown).
3. They no longer list congregations in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho or New Mexico, which used to host multiple, huge (400+ a piece)congregations.
4. Texas has only five congregations, the majority of which are just remnant small groups of less than 25. No full time congregation in Houston any longer.
5. I’ve heard that Carn Catherwood is now a Catholic (not confirmed). Joe Jr isn’t on their board.
A few years ago someone posted statistics suggesting that less than 5000 still attended WCG/GCI services in the US. It would look like less than half of that now. It seems at this rate they will disappear as a viable organization within the next 5- 7 years. Pretty amazing to consider their demise in the light of once was.
13 comments:
Grace C I at least had the courage to call Armstrong out for what he was, a fake apostle with a fake work - knowing they would have lose members in the process. And this happened. Now, if since that time members have found other local churches nearby more suited to their Christian living, then it doesn't matter if Grace CI numbers are showing a decline, or even if it disappears altogether.
Headline is confusing. CGI may actually be smaller than GCI, but its tiny membership seems to have mostly stabilized.
I’ve heard that Carn Catherwood is now a Catholic (not confirmed).
That would not surprise me given that there are many opinions expressed on this site which are essentially Catholic in spirit. Once people start to repurpose paganism they have essentially embraced Catholicism. So why not just become officially a Catholic?
Fixed it. Autocorrect changed it to CGI
Joseph Tkach, Jr. was rumoured to be willing to lose 50% of the Worldwide Church of God members to push through his doctrinal changes. He ended up losing over 90%.
Anonymous 5:18 wrote, “Once people start to repurpose paganism they have essentially embraced Catholicism.”
First, this is an unfortunate statement about Catholicism. I would not fault RC for re-purposing the artifacts of paganism as much as I would for the fact that they lean into works righteousness which makes them similar to but not as extreme as Armstrongists. Armstrongism’s devotion to works and “qualifying for the Kingdom” makes them more like Catholics than any other church I am familiar with. It is ironic that they have always denigrated RC.
Armstrongists are as much involved in repurposed paganism as the Catholics are. Armstrongists observe Thanksgiving which is just as pagan as any other holiday if you want to commit the error of Genetic Fallacy. Further, repurposing paganism does not mean that you re-use pagan ideology and belief. It means that you may use pagan artifacts and attach new meanings to them. (For instance, like Armstrongists do with wedding rings.) Armstrongists are so weak in their ability to understand this, you would think we were talking Advanced Calculus.
What you should do is accuse God of repurposing the grounds of the pagan Canaanite city of Jerusalem for the Holy Temple and placing his name there. Tophet, where pagans sacrificed their children to their gods, is just outside the wall of the Upper City. Accuse God of being a pagan and not living up to your standards and see what happens.
Scout
Yeah, I actually looked at the congregation list myself recently and was surprised how few are listed. Whether theyve deflated that much or they decentralized so much that they just have a lot of independent orbiting groups not listed, I dont know.
I told them way back the day would come when Jesus Jesus Jesus would get old and why bother driving when any mainstream church would do.
Dennis Diehl
5:18, you say that as if you do not realize that the Catholic, or Universal Church of God, came directly from Paul's (and other apostles') Gentile Churches.
The interesting aspect to that is that nobody who was an adult Armstrongite during the age of splinters should consider that to be so absurd, or impossible. Each of the major and minor splinter ACOGs have distinct differences, yet they all trash the Catholics, and each maintains that they alone are the "true" one. The more insightful members freely acknowledge the SDAs as being part of that big incestuous family!
I've met many Catholics who make better brethren than Armstrongites do!
BB
Anon51812, I see you wrote your ridiculous comment on Wodensday. Don't be pagan!
I was curious about what became of the money they received from selling off all the church property? Surly the Pasadena real estate was worth something.
A lot of people told them that. Which, according to your friend Joe, was just people being "angry and hurt".
Generally, there are two categories of people who are concerned about the financial resources: 1) Those who believe the resources were obligated by ethics to stay with the original doctrines, and/or those who continued to preach them, or 2) Those who realized that the entire thing was a fraud and a scam, and wanted the assets divvied so the organization could pay restitution to all the donors.
Honestly? I never gave a single damn cent to Herbert W. Armstrong! In my mind, I was giving my contributions to God! So, whatever happened to them was His will! Looks in retrospect as if He disqualified every one who was involved, and the money was blown around in the wind! The entire movement was a total waste! Looks as if God, in this case, did not have a will involving Armstrongism. So, the money went exactly where He wanted it to. It was absorbed back into the prevailing national economic system! Which makes total sense!!!
BB
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