Same Old Yoke, Same Old Excuses – Must Be the Members’ Fault Again

 

These are some more of the issues UCG says they need to work on, as discussed in their Council of Elders Report 2026. 

• Respect for One Another
• Recognizing Jesus’ command to always treat each other in a godly manner, we believe we have sometimes not treated each other in a godly manner. Therefore, we will dedicate ourselves to:
• Recognize our different personalities and strive to understand one another.
• Reconcile and restore/rebuild relationships in the love that God the Father and Jesus Christ have shown us.

Barriars

Not being able to stand out over the noise.

Poorly skilled speakers.

Not passing the baton/lack of trust.

Lack of focus on doctrine.

Tired, stressed over pastors.

Unresolved issues from the past.

Lack of communicating improvements to stakeholders.

Resistance to change internally.

Reticence to collaborate.

Ineffective internal processes.

Misconceptions about Church finances.

The United Church of God’s Council of Elders has once again emerged from its latest meeting clutching a strategic plan report that reads like a greatest-hits album of excuses first pressed in the mid-1990s. After thirty years of proclaiming they alone possess “the truth,” the leadership has diagnosed why the Church has not been successful with a list of barriers that would be comical if it weren’t so predictable: poorly skilled speakers, tired and stressed pastors, lack of trust in “passing the baton,” unresolved issues from the past, resistance to change, reticence to collaborate, ineffective internal processes, misconceptions about finances, and the inability to stand out over the noise. Oh, and a solemn pledge to finally start treating one another with respect, recognizing different personalities, and reconciling relationships in the love of the Father and Jesus Christ.

This is the same tired script the Churches of God have been running since the Worldwide Church of God imploded. The problem is never the message. It is never the heavy yoke of mandatory Sabbath-keeping, annual holy days, clean meats, tithing schemes, and hierarchical control dressed up as “God’s government.” No, the real culprits are the members who resist change, the pastors who are exhausted from carrying the load, the speakers who lack polish, and the lingering grudges from decades of splits, disfellowshipments, and power struggles. Leadership’s solution? Try harder to be nicer to each other while doubling down on the same doctrinal package that has produced declining attendance, aging congregations, and perpetual internal friction since the 1990s.

From a New Covenant perspective, this is pure legalist nonsense. The New Covenant is not a slightly friendlier version of the Old with Jesus as the new high priest enforcing the same shadows. It is the radical replacement of the old system: the law written on hearts by the Spirit rather than on tablets of stone (Jeremiah 31; Hebrews 8), the end of the sacrificial and ceremonial system fulfilled in Christ, the priesthood of all believers instead of a professional ministerial class that hoards authority, and freedom from the yoke that neither the apostles nor their fathers could bear (Acts 15).   The gospel is the announcement of grace, justification by faith apart from works of the law, and life in the Spirit—not a never-ending campaign to prove that Saturday is the correct day and pork is still forbidden.

UCG’s barriers are the inevitable fruit of trying to grow a New Testament church with an Old Covenant operating system. “Not passing the baton/lack of trust”? That is what hierarchical control produces when the ministry functions more like a modern Levitical caste than a body where every member is a living stone and priest. “Tired, stressed over pastors”? Burnout is the natural result when a small group of men are expected to carry the spiritual load for people who are treated as perpetual dependents rather than Spirit-empowered adults. “Poorly skilled speakers” and “lack of focus on doctrine”? When the core content is endless proof-texting to keep the shadows binding, passion and relevance dry up. “Unresolved issues from the past” and “resistance to change”? Legalism breeds identity around rules and exclusive truth claims; any suggestion that the package needs rethinking feels like betrayal of God Himself. “Not standing out over the noise”? Of course not. In a world hungry for grace, hope, and genuine freedom in Christ, another group insisting on calendar observance and dietary restrictions as marks of the true church simply blends into the background of religious irrelevance.

The “Respect for One Another” statement is particularly rich. After decades of splits, accusations of heresy, and top-down discipline that treated dissent as rebellion against God, the Council has discovered that Jesus commanded them to treat each other in a godly manner. They will now “recognize different personalities” and “reconcile relationships.” One can almost hear the collective sigh of members who have heard this exact language after every previous crisis, only to watch the same patterns repeat. True New Covenant community flows from the Spirit producing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness—not from another strategic plan that treats relational failure as a secondary issue while the root remains untouched.

This is not analysis; it is diagnosis by deflection. The same old story has been proclaimed since the 1990s: if only the members would try harder, trust more, speak better, collaborate better, and stop holding onto past wounds, the work would finally take off. The uncomfortable truth under the New Covenant is simpler and more liberating. The barriers are not primarily skills gaps, communication failures, or personality conflicts. They are the predictable consequences of clinging to a system of performance and control that the finished work of Christ has already rendered obsolete. 

Until the wineskins are changed, the same list of excuses will keep appearing in the next report, and the one after that, and the one after that.