Bill Watson: Cannibalizing the Competition, One Rebranded DVD at a Time

What’s Mine Is Mine, and What’s Yours Is Mine!

Lonnie Hendrix

Pastor Bill Watson of the newly minted Church of God Independent Ministries of Medina, Ohio, has apparently decided to void the commandment against stealing! In short, he has decided to use material on his website that was produced under the auspices of his former employer, the Church of God International of Tyler, Texas. Indeed, it appears that Bill believes that he is entitled to use whatever materials he was personally associated with from his former association (even though he was a paid employee of that organization). This will, of course, remind many of us of what Gerald Flurry did with many of the publications of the old Worldwide Church of God when he began using them in connection with his Philadelphia Church of God.

Poor Bill, apparently the talent pool in Medina is so limited and lackluster that he feels the need to “borrow” these materials and rebrand them to support his own “work.” As of last night and this morning, he has presented on his website two programs from the Tyler organization to support his own independent ministry! They are: Halloween: Is it Christian? and Chronicles of the Early New Testament Church. Although my father (Wayne Hendrix) and Bronson James were credentialed ministers of the Church of God International and died before Bill left that organization, Bill feels that these productions rightly belong to him. Not to mention the fact that Vance Stinson, the current leader of the Tyler group, also appears prominently in the historical feature on the early Church! Never mind, Bill worked on and appeared in both, so they’re HIS to use however he sees fit!

I contacted the leadership of the Church of God International to ask them why they were allowing Bill to use these materials. Did they make a present of them to Bill when he left their organization? One of the current leaders responded that they were not previously aware that Bill was using these programs, and that they were “drafting a takedown notice.” I’m wondering how Bill will react to that. I guess we’ll all have to wait and see what Bill does next. Will he continue to steal programming from his former employer? Or will he get those old creative juices flowing again and produce something “new” for his own organization? After all, Bill is still busily trying to cannibalize members from the folks in Tyler, and what better way to do it than with their own programming!!!!! Take that, you infidels!

After I had finished this post, Mr. Stinson said that he was unaware of Bill’s use of their material. A little later, this policy note was issued by that organization:

 

 

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