UCG: Money. Money, Money - It's A Poor Church World

Melvin Rhodes, UCG Chairman has a letter on Realtime United detailing the latest UCG Council of Elders meeting.  This apparently is the most cohesive and unified Council of Elders in Church of God history.  Especially now since they have kicked out all there rebellious troublemakers and whiners that made UCG COE a very unhappy place to be.

For the first time in recent memory we managed to cover all the items on our agenda. This is testimony to the incredible spirit of unity and cooperation that exists on the Council of Elders at this time. This does not mean there was no discussion before decisions were made. There are 12 men on the Council and they have 12 different opinions, but we all share the same goals. Our purpose is constant—to preach the gospel and to prepare a people.

The letter quickly moves into the proverbial favorite topic of Armstrongism - money.

We were thankful to note that God has continued to help us through a calendar year of financial challenges. In serving our many congregations around the world we had to step out on faith, asking God to provide. And He always did and continues to do so.

With an 18% drop in income after the vast majority of UCG ministers defected to a new and improved COG and thousands of members jumping ship with them, they now are not able to do the things they want to.

Then they get to the real meat of why they want new members.  It's not about redemption with the grace of God, but it is about money.  The more people that they can con into joining the organization the more money they will have.  They admit they do not have the resources now to do what they think they should be doing.

Our new budget for the coming fiscal year includes a “faith line” like last year. When it is presented, you will see that 30.5 percent of our income is now devoted to preaching the gospel. In spite of suffering a loss in income just over a year ago, we have been able to do more—going through doors as God has opened them. We do not want to let up on these efforts. While our current income will not supply all our needs, we are asking God to call new people into the Church to help finance further efforts.

I guess UCG has taken a lot of heat when it was shown that Living Church of God devotes way more money to spreading the "gospel" than they do. LCG uses over 40% of their money towards what they proclaim is a gospel message, while previously UCG was doing a little over 25%.  The obvious factor here is that UCG is still spending most of it's money on minsters salaries and perks.  A large percentage of UCG  elders jumped ship from WCG in order to maintain their income and now UCG has to keep financing that amount above proclaiming a "gospel" message.

We preach the gospel through our varied media efforts including our website with over 300,000 unique visitors per month; our flagship magazine The Good News; Vertical Thought for our young people; the Bible Study Course for in-depth biblical teaching; and our dozens of booklets and other literature. All our beliefs are clearly answered in our literature, which is freely available to everybody who wants it anywhere in the world.

All of this costs money. With more money, we can do more. Please pray that God will add more people to His Church—people who can help contribute to our efforts.

There you have it, blatantly in print-more people equals more money.

UCG brass want s all of you deadbeat members to know that you need to start sending more money in.  They cannot do the things they want to without you sacrificing more money.  It's all YOUR fault!  UCG seems to be reading from Dave Pack's 'con the brethren' financial model.

In order to devote more to our increased media efforts, our home office expansion proposal is “on hold” until our finances enable us to expand without borrowing. 

If you start sending in more money then we too, can become the most important "Christian" web site on the net.  That's going to be a pretty hard task since Dave Pack claims HIS ministry is the largest and most influential web site on earth today.

It is hoped that we will soon be able to expand the video studio—without which we are limited in what we can accomplish in keeping up with advanced technology like Internet television and an even more professional program. We would like to expand our production of short topical videos for our website that deal with the latest news and items of interest. Our goal is to make the United Church of God, an International Association, website the first Christian website people will turn to for biblical answers and a deeper explanation of what’s going on around the world. We have a long way to go, but are confident that this is the direction in which God is leading us.

Christians are NOT going to turn to UCG for Biblical answers.  That is a proven fact through out the past seven decades of Armstrongism. Ultimately it has accomplished nothing other than creating over 600 splinter groups of which all are impotent wanna-be's.

Then they take a little slam against there boat jumpers who defected to COGWA.  These men apparently had a lot of ethic's issues.  Oh wait, since when has this NOT been a problem with Church of God ministers????? Almost every splinter group was planned, organized and incorporated while in the employ of a previous church.  UCG's present group of elders are no more ethical than the elders in COGWA.

Here's a challenge for the UCG Council of Elders.  If you are really men of faith, then take an immediate 30% pay curt.  Cut off all ministerial allowances and perks.  Steer that money into your pet projects and set an example for the rest of the church.  Prove to your members that you really are ethical men with Christian standards.

Dave Pack: If You Knew My Plans This Room Would Rock and Gyrate!

Liquidate your assets now and send it to Dave Pack,
before the Germans arrive and take it all!

Every once in a while Prophet Thiel has moments of clarity and can see through a lot of the COG crappola.  He has posted on his blog some comments about Dave Pack and a sermon Dave gave on November 3, 2007 where he instructs members to send in all the money they can to support his work.

Thiel claims to have listened to the entire sermon and wrote down several key points when Dave was demanding money from his small group of members.  He commands people to send in half of their net worth. He also encourages women to take their rightful portion (1/2) and send that in.  But gives a stern warning to men who have unconverted wives, that they are not to let their wives have a voice in the matter.



Thiel writes:

(I tried to type verbatim and the following is fairly close) from what purports to be a 11/03/07 sermon by David C. Pack to his followers in the Restored Church of God titled Clarion Call -- The Time is NOW!:

"First Timothy 6 verse 17...'Charge them that are rich in this world'...If you were born in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, then you're rich"

"If you hold those riches, I'm telling you, you trust in them"

"Go get a big chunk out of your home. And put your money where your mouth is and send it here. And I'm not talking about one, two, three thousand either. How about ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or one hundred thousand dollars? Go do it"  This is the Pack Prosperity Gospel....the more money you give to your Apostle the more you will be blessed.  Not ion this lifetime though.  You will most likely end up in bankruptcy court when you find yourself unable to pay your mortgage instead of sitting in a cold damp gave in the middle or Jordan.

"Wives, you can be independent in this. You have 1/2 the worth of whatever you have in your house. I'm officially telling you this...Wives, legally you have the 1/2 the funds. What are you going to do about it?...Husbands...'well, my wife is not in the church'...tell her...'you don't have a voice woman' " The Plain Truth on how to have a Happy Marriage......."  That's when she should slap her husband across the face and tell him to try it and see what happens!

"Go get those assets and get them here"

"Don't sit on vast resources that we can use now"

 "We do not have the funds...plans...bookstores...We need to redesign our website...We need many hundreds of thousands of dollars to arrive at God's headquarters soon...the timing is now"

"This is different...ask Him for the faith to liquidate certain assets and give it to the work"  Brethren, lets liquidate those stocks, 401K's, 403B's,mutual funds and all other investments.  You no longer need it, so give it all to me!

"I'll say it again, we are talking about liquidating existing assets...it all belongs to God and the brethren" Actually what Pack is saying is that it all belongs to HIM and the brethren will never see a dime of it.

"We have a lot of plans so big going on in this office it would cause just this room to to rock and gyrate if you knew what was going on. We just need a lot of money and we need it post haste...I would give more if I had it"

"Herbert Armstrong wrote an article...'Prepare to greatly reduce your standard of living'...What he wrote by far, is more for us now than it was then...its all going to be taken away from us anyway brethren" You brethren need to reduce your income, but now.  As your Apostle I deserve the best!  I need a new mini-me Auditorium and a new multi-million dollar HQ complex in order to make myself look legitimate.  Everyone knows I am nothing more than an idiot right now, but once my buildings are built I will FINALLY be important!

"Let us know how much you plan to send and when you plan to send it...You must be willing to communicate...If you do need to counsel, please do that...If you are not ready to distribute what you have...you don't believe the flow of prophecy"

"This is announcing the last blast, the clarion call as it were, to finish the work...Whether it is 4,5,7, 9 years to go, God knows...This is liquidating assets...I have the authority to tell you to do it...I have the moral and spiritual, and ecclesiastical authority to tell you to do what I have also done" Dave says the work is coming to an end yet in 2011 he is demanding millions to finance a new cult HQ and a pretend college.  Notice how he declares he has the AUTHORITY and POWER to tell people what to do!  How can people sit in his cult and put up with this bullshit?

 "Get it now when it requires faith...when you are dead you don't need it...if you named us in your wills, it can take us months or years to get it" How dare you imbeciles put us in your will when you know you will not be dying for years and maybe decades from now!  How selfish can you get!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"The wives in the faith will say give everything you can...We don't have the luxury of waiting years...today, leaving everything in your will simply doesn't work"

"Now you just have a second mortgage...and frankly we flee before most of it ever becomes due"  That's right!  Mortgage your home a second and third time, don't worry, you will not be here to pay it off.  Stupid, stupid people!

"...some may think that they want to tap their 401k--maybe you want to let us know that...why would you want to tell us? We are starting to prepare a budget now, the needs are now...it would be nice to know now"

"Think big...Pull big triggers"  If I were Davey I would be really careful about making such a statement!  We have already seen this put into action in Living Church of God.  Once RCG members wake up to the fact on how Davey has defrauded them, I can picture serious repercussions in the future.

"We live in the most materialistic age in the history of the world. People trust in physical things. They trust in bank accounts...If you have excess and don't need it, those verses mean you...That's the Laodicean attitude...Put your money where your mouth is...Empty your assets" Yes, give us all your money so we can build one of the most materialistic mini-me headquarters in the middle of Ohio. It is important that we have a physical building to make us look impressive to the world.  Go bankrupt to help us!

11/13/11 a.m. RCG announced the following: World Headquarters Complex

Can there be a more deviant cult leader in Armstrong than Dave Pack right now?  Even Flurry pales in comparison! 

It is only going to be a matter of time till Davey and his lap poodles, Schurter, McElroy and Beher start slobbering their defense of the apostle.  PERSECUTION!

Dave Pack: My Name is Derived From the "Passover"

Pack certainly has no problem opening his big mouth and making an ass of himself.  Did you know that he claims that his name is a derivative of the word Pascha?  As if this is supposed to give him some divine mandate for being an apostle.  Since the Passover has at is base the concept of forgiveness, redemption and wholeness, there certainly cannot be found in Davey Pack any forgiveness and he certainly does not have the power to provide redemption or the tools for wholeness. 

Here is a letter from one of his former members calling him on the carpet for it.

One last and, what should be a, totally shocking example of Mr. Pack’s mind can be found in his latest book “How often should The Lord’s Supper be taken?”  At the bottom of the first paragraph on page 9 the following statement can be found, As a side note, while researching my genealogy, I learned that our family name is derived from this very word pascha.  This statement is made as a concluding remark for the section explaining the translation of the Hebrew word for Passover.  He not only makes the point about his name but it looks as though this is the fact he wants the reader to take with him or her!!  How can a man of God actually and publicly state that his name in effect is PASSOVER?  It should be made known here that Mr. Pack was advised at some length not to include this statement for obvious reasons.  He has insisted on leaving this remark in the book and I might add that this is the weaker version of that statement.  It originally read …I learned that my name is derived from this very word pascha.  Is there anyone in God’s Church who, if they had found this to be true, would actually include this in a book that they had authored?  I guess we have at least one!

Brethren, these are only the things that I am aware of.  I ask you what else is out there and more importantly how many times does this have to happen before we all wake up and realize that this man is not who he pretends to be?  I do not know how else to say it.  I know that all you have to go on is my word, along with a steady stream of other individuals, who have over the years tried to tell you the same thing again and again and again.

The time will come when we will all have to stand before God One at a time. Does it not make sense that He would test us now, One at a time, perhaps to see if we can stand One at a time, finding out if we can be trusted in his Kingdom that is surely closer than we think?

Jim Leighty