When we were love-bombed the other day by Mark Fike, he made all kinds of baseless accusations against us here. When I saw his name it rang a bell but could not place it. Then when someone posted a comment that James Malm had information about him it dawned on me. Mark, in direct rebellion against United Church of God and in direct rebellion against the government he claimed to follow, threw a Bob Thiel style hissy-fit and left United Church of God to join ranks with COGWA.
We even featured the story of the Reno debacle here: COGWA Crowing About Latest UCG Defections
Remember, boys and girls, this is the face of the Church of God movement today.
James had this on his blog:
Wayne Icenhower
11/02/2020 at 11:10
I’ve been on the periphery, and in certain cases involved directly with the ongoing debacle. I’ll state here that I (along with a few others) strongly advised UCG administration NOT to promote Mark Fike a so-called interim pastor, as he and others in the local leadership were either a part of the problem, or THE problem. I warned Mark Welch in writing that if he continued with the plan to put this guy in charge, there wouldn’t be a UCG congregation in Reno. It didn’t surprise me at all that he was working to move people to COGWA, even while continuing to deal with UCG. Maybe he thinks they’ll give him a paycheck, to get on the payrolled gravy train (so he thinks).
I’m aware of some “doctrinal disagreements”, one of which is honoring baptisms of SDA members. Not much else. Also, Joe “officially” resigned in August, and was not fired twice. Don’t know where that misinformation came from. COGWA certainly didn’t split from UCG a decade ago for “doctrinal reasons”, so I perplexes me why at least of few of those embarking on this new project really think the doctrines are going to be any different.
I also think the numbers are double the actuals. I’ve attended Reno services a few times in the past, and there weren’t more than 15 or 20 total in attendance at that time. Now, I understand there are 6 to 12.
Seems to be some misplaced hubris on the part of Dave Register and perhaps Franks and others, as this certainly doesn’t rank as earthshaking. They don’t know what they’re getting yet, obviously. Most of these folks are troublemakers–in particular their so called “elder” Fike. This guy, ironically, was ordained by Joe Horchak back in 2010 or so, as a reward for being loyal to UCG during the UCG/COGWA split. I can say, first hand, that since we’ve been associated with UCG in this area, Fike has worked to sabotage church functions for nearly all of that four year period. Joe should have removed his credential long ago for insubordination, but he shied away from conflict.
In summary–with regard to Fike and few other of his close associates and family members — GOOD RIDDANCE. I think it will be a very short honeymoon. I don’t have anything personal against either UCG or COGWA, but I would encourage them to pull background checks on folks going over before promoting them to any type of leadership position.
Regards,
Yes, the political intrigues are shocking and totally ungodly. As for firing/resigning it is customary to ask for resignations in place of firing a person in order to make the situation easier for all sides. The word fired was a word used by a source and perhaps firing was a bad choice of words given the deep internal divisions you have revealed in Reno. The whole affair is disgusting. James
Another one of James readers comments:
As someone who was in the congregation when Joe first was fired and Ken was brought in. I can say without a doubt our congregation at the time was split in three groups, two divinding families one out of respect I won’t mention and the fikes. Thirdly those of us caught in the wicked web of lies and manipulation by M & J Fike. To your face they acted so great but behind doors they’d cast eyes and slander words. They’d try in secret to have letters signed to complain about Ken literally the first week he was there. I was shocked to see how low they would go. Ken confronted it and had a large circle meeting with us all and wanted any complaints openly heard and talked about so WE as a congregation could move forward. What a shock when myself and only a handful of others that weren’t directly related to either party by blood relation spoke up about the division and what is being said behind closed doors. Mark fikes face was priceless, stone cold. I’m not kidding when I say this he looked like he felt nothing, was hollow even calculating his next move when being called out openly for manipulative actions and dangerous and inappropriate conversations. His response was nothing. Nothing got better just more coldness in the congregation. The fikes would spread rumors of young men in the congregation being too forward with relationships (young man brought his girlfriend to church and held hands) or how one family is trying to “pawn” their eldest daughter off on another young man who was attending (he left after hearing such a thing) these were real time examples and factors into a small glimpse of what that family whom seems morally bankrupt was willing to do to stay in charge or take charge. I left soon after Ken left not to join them but put it all behind me, now most 10 years later I find this post and it just opened up so many old.wounds and memories and nasty interactions with that family.
Update 13 Feb: More information has been coming in and it now appears that Aaron Creech was the victim of a long conspiracy by the local elder Mark Fike who was working to gain a congregation for himself in Reno. It seems that in this case doctrinal issues were largely blown out of proportion or invented. That does not mean that there are no doctrinal issues in UCG.
Mark seems to have made big issues out of every little thing for a very long time including while Joe Horchak was there in an effort to gain a following and congregation of his own. When Aaron Creech was assigned to take over Reno a great effort was made to undermine him. When only a few would agree with Mark he opted to lead those who would follow him to leave UCG and join COGWA.
Update 11 Feb: Gerald Coleman the website manager for Sacramento wrote to say that no sermons by Aaron Creech were ever uploaded or removed from Sacramento.
Update 9 Feb: After this post was published all of Aaron Creech’s sermons were almost immediately removed from the UCG Reno site.
The sun has set on the Sabbath almost two hours ago so I will post this by popular demand.
After Joe Horchak was fired from UCG for the second time, Mark Fike was made interim pastor of Reno and served from August until Aaron Creech arrived as senior pastor in Sacramento / Reno last November.
For several years the clique now running the CoE in UCG has been slowly and subtly conditioning brethren, especially in their home areas and areas run by their close associates, to accept various doctrinal changes.
Once Aaron Creech was established in Sacramento / Reno, 25 people have left UCG-Reno due to claimed doctrinal / false teaching issues. One should remember that these are strong UCG loyalists who refused to follow Ken Geise in 2010.
Not counting the Creech family that travels from California to Reno twice per month, only 12 UCG members remain and that could change.
Pastor Mike Fike resigned last Wednesday and all local speakers, song leaders and the area elder have chosen to exit. 25 persons have chosen to affiliate with COGWA. The 25 new COGWA members left UCG within the past month.
