The Great Feast of Tabernacles Peace Accords (Ministerial Approval Pending Until Never)

This was sent to me by a reader here on Banned about a member-led initiative for COGWA and UCG to keep the Feast of Tabernacles together in 2028.

This is a member-led initiative, but I can see it getting squashed by the powers that be in heart beat. And anyone supporting it being "punished," if not disfellowshipped. 

 

The real reason the powers that be don't want this is, as we know, money. If you're loyalty is divided between two orgs, then so will your dollars. (That's one of the reasons, especially in COGWA, why people can get kicked out for attending another org.) 

 

I doubt this will actually happen. But it's interesting to see.

Keeping the Feast Together in 2028 - A Proposal

COGWA and UCG members are launching a member-led initiative for a joint Feast of Tabernacles site. Anyone who has spent even one day in a Church of God organization knows this will never actually happen. Leadership in both groups is far too busy guarding their little thrones, protecting their domains, and making sure no one else gets to decide who speaks, who handles the money, or who gets the final veto for anything like this to survive contact with reality.

There are people from both organizations who were disfellowshipped by their original churches. That alone would turn any shared site into an awkward minefield the moment a disfellowshipped member had to sit in the same room-or worse, share a potluck table-with the very minister who marked them and showed them the door. Deep-seated resentment still runs through some of the ministers who felt betrayed when COGWA walked away from UCG in 2010. Those wounds did not magically heal because a handful of members posted a proposal online and set up a Facebook page. The men who spent years convincing themselves (and everyone else) that the other side was the problem are not suddenly going to discover humility because members want a joint Feast.

The Churches of God have spent decades perfecting the art of splitting, never the art of reuniting. From the post-WCG fragmentation onward, the pattern has been consistent: disagreements over governance, personality, "the work," or who gets to control the money and the microphones produce new letterhead, new Feast sites, and fresh claims of being the real continuation. UCG itself was born from one of those splits. COGWA then peeled off from UCG after years of internal friction that the official statements still describe as irreconcilable. Fifteen-plus years later, the two groups still run parallel Feast operations, parallel media, and parallel claims to be the faithful remnant. A member-driven "shared site" for 2028 does not erase any of that-especially when the people who would have to approve it spent the intervening years reminding everyone why they could not possibly share a stage, a budget, or a microphone.

The proposal itself tries hard to sound harmless: separate registration, shared speakers, 50/50 or attendance-based finances, no merger, no change to either church's government. On paper it is modest. In practice it would require ministers who still nurse grievances from the 2010 split to cooperate on budgets, speaker selection, children's programs, and emergency protocols while pretending the old scores have been settled. It would also require both administrations to trust that a joint site would not become a recruiting ground or a platform for members to compare notes on which organization has the better governance or the less authoritarian pastor. History suggests neither set of leaders is eager to run that experiment. They have never been known for risking their authority on the off chance that ordinary members might enjoy fellowship without their constant supervision.

Disfellowshipped members add another layer. COG culture has long treated marking and disfellowshipping as tools of order-handy reminders of who is in charge. Once someone has been put out, they are usually expected to stay out. Dropping them into a shared Feast with the minister who performed the ritual is not fellowship; it is theater that most of these leaders would rather avoid. The same goes for the ministers who still view the other side as the ones who abandoned the true structure or the true work. Anger that "still permeates" does not stay politely in the background when housing, offerings, and who gets the keynote slot have to be negotiated. These are the same men who can spend an hour explaining why unity is vital and then spend the next decade making sure it never happens on anyone else's terms.

Member initiatives like this one surface regularly in the various COG groups. They reflect real desire among some people for less isolation and more normal fellowship. They almost never survive contact with the ministerial layer that controls the calendars, the sites, the money, and the final yes-or-no. The track record is not subtle: the Churches of God have demonstrated, repeatedly and over decades, that their leaders are far better at forming new organizations than at sharing one. A joint Feast site would require both sides to act against that well-established pattern-and against the instinct of men who have spent their careers making sure the domain stays theirs. Betting against it has been the safer wager every time.

Facebook site

Instagram