Joel Olsteen On Pork

This will certainly get COG groups tongues wagging! I think I will go out and get a BLT sandwich in honor of Joel today.  Or maybe a chicken sandwich.  I grew up around chickens that ate dead chickens, ate it's own feces and other delightful clean things......yummy!

How Does Your COG Spend Your Tithe Money?

The Silenced blog has a great entry today on how the Churches of God use tithe money of the members to fund their various "ministries".  It is The Myth of Free Literature  Most assume that their tithe money goes towards "proclaiming the gospel to the world."  In reality a small percentage goes towards that kind of outreach while a huge amount goes to salaries for lifestyle upkeep.  Note that this does not only apply to UCG, but to RCG, PCG, LCG, and most of the other COG's.

7. If we assume there are about 10,000 baptized members left in UCG after the COGWA split (this is the estimate most popularly thrown about), and if they all had an average annual income of around $42,000, of which $1,281 was being sunk into media projects, this would give the a cult a yearly warchest of $12,810,000 for literature and broadcasts, of which its cheap printing and primarily web-based video productions cannot possibly cost that much. Factoring in GNM’s supposed 450,000 circulation, that would give UCG about $28.50 to spend per copy. It costs a fraction of that to print each run of the magazine. After six runs, they would have some of that left over.

8. Using these calculations, this family is paying $2,919 straight to ministerial salaries and other overhead costs per year through First Tithes and only $1,281 to print, web and broadcast projects. But the reality would be slightly different, since there are also annual offerings and whatever the COG can suck out of a family’s Second Tithe over the festival season, making the true cost much higher and more difficult to calculate.

Years ago, one of WCG's accounting men publicly stated that the Church could, "take any figure and make it say want they wanted it to say."  In other words, financial pictures and statements could be manipulated towards whatever direction the "church" wanted it to go to.

That's one of the reasons people do not believe Dave Pack when he says that the Restored Church of God has a huge money base to fund all of his earth shattering ministries.  It's no wonder he refused to release financial statements.  If he did the world would know him to be the deceiver he is.

Make sure you click on the above link for  the entire article.

Dennis On: "Foolishness of Preaching or Preaching of Foolishness?"

Foolishness of Preaching or Preaching of Foolishness?

1 Corinthians 1:21
For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe.

I have to say that I do miss teaching an attentive group of people who simply want to know the truth of the matters placed before them.  Alas...it is what it is.  In my earlier years I gave many a sincere sermon that now makes me cringe knowing the information was less than accurate and the truth of it all was less than true.  But it's a journey, at least for me, and the key is not in what one used to preach or teach but what one has learned through the years and the personal growth in "grace and knowledge" one has actually accomplished in life.  "Growing in grace and knowledge" is not actually one of the positive traits of most churches most of us know.  Grace is only extended when not really needed or just needed for the self and knowledge....well forget that.

Ministers surely do say some incredibly stupid things in the name of preaching.  I suppose this could be easily illustrated by the last three years of sermons given by Ronald Weinland, but I spare us.  This should end or get substantially worse in the next few weeks.

I was never personally comfortable giving sermons on such things as The Place of Safety, British Israelism and tithing.  The first two seemed irrelevant to actual religious belief in the real world and all of the NT message, and I hated reminded people of what we already knew.  It takes money to do "the Work."  I don't recall many times where those over me reminded the brethren to give as they were able.

The concept of the Place of Safety was not only annoying but at times terrifying when I thought of how few thought HWA would die before the time.  I always hoped he would so that would end the idea of "HWA says it's time to flee."  Most of you know that the visits of Gerald Waterhouse , to me, were exercises in the exact art of preaching foolishness.  I felt that back when I was in my 20's.  I was right.

The COGs have many foolish teachings and they usually center around on just how do we "do things," like putting leaven out or eating out on Sabbath.  Some groups become experts in foolish preaching and never get around to the core message of the NT.  Mixing the OT and the NT has been raised to an art form by some.  You know, old wine in new wine skins...kaboom!  

There are foolish preachings about "science falsely so called."  The facts of evolution and a 4.5 billion year old earth are just too much handle.  Human origins as opposed to the Adam and Eve myth are way beyond their comprehension or the fact that those OT stories were never written to advance true scientific discovery.  They had meanings, but not the ones foolish preaching assigns.

Somehow the tithing admonitions are dredged up from the Old Testament, but the ones advocating stoning rebellious children or sabbath breakers are listed as "the old ways."  Men can't have long hair because Paul aid nature tells us it is wrong, but far as I know, lions have the best manes in town and the lioness seems rather bald.  I have never figured out just how Paul's foolish comments about that were to be understood.  "Time is short," was also one of Paul's more foolish preaching concepts.

I am sure the more recent "foolishness of preaching" topics are endless in the COGs.

Some include:

• Me and my wife are the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11
• Jesus is coming back in a couple weeks
• Revelation 11 is about the WCG apostasy
• Man is still 6000 years old
• Send it in
• "And yes brethren, I am an Apostle..."
• God needs a new college
• God needs a new house
• God needs us to give him money (He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Can't He sell some?)
• Fatima is somehow relevant to us today
• Revelations and the Mayans are right!
• The Mayans and the Wiffenpoof Indian prophecies are meaningful
• Women are still less important than men
• Men are the leaders  (wow...pretty well proven false by those with eyes to see)
• There is a place of safety still  (Resurrection avoidance?)
• God's puzzle has been solved!
• Noah's flood accounts for all world geology
• The story of Noah is really really true and it could happen
• All language started at Babel 
• If I came from a monkey, how come we still have monkeys around today!
• We are not to wear sunglasses because the eye is the light of the body... (one of my personal favorites I was personally told.)

and so on...

What foolish preaching have you heard over the years?  What nutcase personal opinions are stuck in your mind to this day?  Why do people listen to such stupid and ignorant teachings from the pulpit and never speak up?  Will the congregants or followers of the lone wolf preacher of foolish things ever stand up for themselves and call the man out on it.

Foolishness of Preaching...or Preaching foolishness?   

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com