PCG: As "Field Mice" It Is Your Duty To Pay And Pray

Picture it: wide-eyed, wallet-open members gazing upward in reverent awe at their ministry—those anointed vessels of divine wisdom, those celestial middle managers hand-picked by God Himself to micromanage every last thought, skirt length, car color, dress shirt color, and tithe check. The very idea that these luminous beings might not, in return, regard the average tithing serf with even a modicum of respect? Why, that’s practically heresy. Almost as heretical as suggesting the ministers were ever meant to—gasp—serve the congregation instead of the other way around. How quaint. How adorably naïve. How very 1st-century of anyone to still believe that servant-leader nonsense after all these decades of glorious top-down lordship.

For generations, the flock has been showered with the most affectionate pet names straight from the pastoral heart: spiritual babies (aww, they’re still on milk!), weak, sheeple (because actual sheep have more backbone), gullible, naive, rebellious (the cardinal sin), Jezebels (because nothing says “godly discernment” like slapping that label on any woman who dares have an opinion), bitter, stupid, dumb as rocks, Laodicean (the nuclear option), and my personal favorite—“unconverted.” Truly, the vocabulary of love knows no bounds.

And then—cue the heavenly choir and a spotlight brighter than the one on a Feast of Tabernacles stage—enter the Philadelphia Church of God, the glittering crown jewel of administrative compassion. In their breathtakingly brief but extraordinarily malevolent history, they have never once wasted a single calorie holding any member in anything approaching high esteem. Why bother when you can instead lovingly bury them under an ever-expanding avalanche of godly government rules so intricate, so soul-crushingly petty, so marvelously life-destroying that the average member probably needs a flow chart just to figure out when they’re allowed to speak to their own children again?

The fruits of this enlightened leadership? Shattered families, messy divorces, heart-wrenching estrangements, and, tragically, suicides—all in the name of "God's government," of course.

How utterly Christ-like. 

How perfectly Philadelphian. 

The Exit & Support Network has been kind enough to keep the receipts—decades of testimonies, shattered lives, and polite little horror stories that read like dystopian fan fiction except they’re real and someone’s still tithing to keep the machine humming.

So here’s to the ministry: forever preaching servanthood while practicing Pharaoh cosplay, forever demanding blind loyalty while dispensing contempt like it’s the new Passover wine, forever promising God’s blessings right up until the moment the ambulance leaves with the lights on.

Truly, if sarcasm were a spiritual gift, these groups would have the full nine yards and then some. 

What a ministry. 

What a legacy. 

What a masterclass in “do as I say, not as I do.” 

Brava. 

Encore. 

Pass the offering plate.

E&S had this up:

PCG Ministers Call Members “Field Mice”:
January 24, 2026 

 

Some time back when I was still in the Philadelphia Church of God. I attended a family event at the PCG compound in Edmond OK. 

 

I went into the men’s room and while there I noticed an older man cleaning the room. I told him he was doing a great job because it was so clean. We talked a bit. It seems he was a member of the PCG HQ congregation and he was glad to see so many non HQ members at the event. 

 

He told me that HQ staff and ministers called members from outside HQ “field mice” and that it was the job of the “field mice” to “pay and pray.” He didn’t like that sentiment and thought the term derogatory. He told me that he was thankful for us because without us “field mice” he would not have a job. 

 

I think if you ask any member of the PCG outside of HQ they will tell you that they are thought of as “field mice” and they can see the difference in how they are treated by HQ staff and ministers. –Former member of PCG [name withheld]