On The Current State of the Churches of God

The web blog As Bereans Did has an excellent detailed article up about why the COG's are not growing.  We have long held here that all the COG's are not bring in new members, that young ones are leaving, and that the only exist through splinter poaching.

One thing I have brought up before is that there is not a single COG out there that tried to reinvent it's self when it formed a new group.  It was their golden opportunity to become something new and alive.  Instead every single one of them had to imitate HWA and every thing he did.  They name their colleges after him, they name their magazines after his, they rewrite or plagiarizer his books, they buy his memorabilia and they live in the past.

The article goes over these major points that most people who are critical of the COG realize:

1) Availability of information on the Internet.
2) Lack of novelty.
3) Lack of charisma in leadership.
4) Sheer number of COG groups to choose from.

Some minor supporting points include:
- In-fighting between splinters.
- Aging membership.
- Failure to reach out in today's methods.

To me the one splinter group that had the biggest chance of doing something right was UCG.  They had a golden opportunity to start brand new, reinvent itself, and do a major "work."  However it did not accomplish that.  It now has splint into several different groups since its inception.

The article has this:

Armstrong was an advertising man. He knew the value of product differentiation. He knew what it meant to stand out in a crowd, and he knew what death awaited for any product that was just more of the same. He saw the appeal of British Israelism and the annual holy days. When he failed to really sell these and certain other notions to his branch of the COG7, he set out to sell them to the public. He had a niche and he had the know-how to capitalize on it.

Herbert Armstrong used his advertising experience to take his message to the radio waves. From the 1930's to the 1970's, most of the people who heard of the Radio Church of God, which eventually changed its name to the Worldwide Church of God, did so from radio programs.

What was that niche?

In short, J. H. Allen's British Israelism compounded with a few additional legal requirements created an attractive elitism. Toss on Alexander Hislop's concocted historical narratives to create a secretive conspiracy, and voila! It wasn't just about Protestant versus Catholic, nor was it just about the Sabbath versus Sunday. Now it was about being one of an elite group of people who were chosen by God to be given secret knowledge of a conspiracy stretching back 3,000 years, kept secret until this final hour before the return of Christ. Members of this elect group were called and chosen to fulfill prophecy by spreading the warning that doom and death awaited anyone not vetted into this "one true end-time church". This church superseded all previous churches; none of them would do. This was the final offer and it was only available while supplies last.

What a potent combination! Doomsday and Conspiracy. Fear and Pride.

Eat your heart out, Little Orphan Annie with your secret decoder ring. We have the keys to understand prophecy!

The problem with today's group of post-Armstrong leaders is that they have not learned the lesson of effective advertising.

They were told for so long that they had the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth that now they are in a predicament. No one boards a plane intending to be locked into a holding-pattern. How do you differentiate your product when you are more or less forbidden to change it and make it distinctive, and there are nearly a thousand other people selling the same thing?

The article then talks about the "charisma" of the current crop of COG leaders.  None of them, and I mean NONE of them have the charisma of HWA or GTA. Pack has proven himself to be lying narcissist, Flurry is batshit crazy and Weinland is in prison.

Most of the current COG leadership try to solve the problem of brand differentiation by heaping upon themselves titles and honors. "I am this or that prophetic messenger!" "I am going to train this or that prophetic messenger!" "I have the most pure and unadulterated continuation of the original."

Unfortunately this approach is almost entirely dependent on the charisma of the glorious leader. If you don't have a glorious leader with charisma, as Garner Ted Armstrong had in abundance, then you simply cannot win with this approach.

Herbert Armstrong's personal charisma was high, far higher than any of his remaining followers, but Garner Ted's was higher. It was Garner Ted that was personally responsible for the greatest increases in membership from the 1950's through the 1970's.

There was nothing in the entire organization or any of its competitors who could match him. He was handsome, intelligent, well spoken, had a baritone voice soft as butter, was educated in the areas that mattered, and you couldn't ask for better rhetoric. The women loved him. And through it all, he still seemed down-to-earth and approachable. He was a leader for the people. I tell you the truth if he hadn't been caught up in the church he would have been somebody.

Compare that to the current leader of the Intercontinental Church of God.

"Who?" you ask. Exactly!

Certain ones in the current crop of splinter group leaders have a portion of charisma, but they simply don't have enough. Their charisma is a flash in the pan. It may keep established believers, but gaining new believers is much more difficult. Cult of Personality can only take you so far. As with the Intercontinental Church of God, when the leader is struck, the sheep will scatter.

The universal method to overcome lack of charisma is to spend money. You have to have members to get money, then you have to spend money to get members. It's a catch-22. Not only that but you have to keep spending more and more money, which means you have to keep asking for more and more. There's only so long you can squeeze blood from that turnip. It never, ever lasts. It never truly can replace charisma.

Armstrongist COGs these days are stagnating and declining in attendance because their leadership lacks the charisma of old.

Read the entire article here:   Current State of Armstrongism

Bob Thiel Disappointed That COG Members Are Not Reading His Article About David C Pack

Poor non-ordained Bob, try as he might, he just CANNOT make the impact that he thinks he is making.  Like Pack, Thiel thinks he is reaching more people than any other COG in human history has ever done.  Like Dave Pack, he also is an abysmal failure.

Bob, like most of us, has been saying that there will be no large influx of COG members from the top three COG's into Dave's personality cult.

Bob also for some illogical reason seems to think he is one of the three COG leaders Dave clams will die by August 31.  All I can say to that is, dream on little guy, you are nothing but a pimple on Dave's plans.

Bob wrote an article some time back, Why Not The Restored Church of God in which he hoped to stop large numbers of COG members from jumping ship into RCG.  Bob was trying to influence people into coming into his improperly named Continuing Church of God.  Apparently no one is reading Bob's article and Bob is sorely disappointed.

Since my article Why Not the Restored Church of God? shows up on the first page when people do a Google search of the improperly named Restored Church of God, it would seem that there would be a massive increase in views if indeed, massive numbers were going over to RCG. But alas, that is not the case.

Kubik is UCG's New President

No real shocker there.  The same old party politics and manipulation still are the order of the day.

Robin Webber also lays out some goals that UCG is to be striving for.  These goals are the exact same things I have been hearing them say for the last 18 years.  For 18 years they have not been able to accomplish any of this. The only thing they have accomplished is division and upheavals.

Robin writes:

We held a retreat session for a day before the formal meetings to earnestly pray and talk to one another as to how to “grow in grace and knowledge” in conveying the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God in a compelling, loving, relevant and hope-filled manner. With today’s fractured and distracted audience, how do we best grab their attention, address their personal needs, and make them consider the great questions of life. Who and what is God? Who and what is man? Why was I born? Why would God even care? What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? Does it mean simply to acknowledge Him and experience a casual acquaintance, or does it mean to follow Him by surrendering every fiber of our being into His service? Those big questions of life must be matched by the ultimate Life-giver’s big answers that come directly from the Scriptures.

"Growing in grace and knowledge"  Year after year they have said this exact same thing.  For 18 years they have never accomplished this or learned to convey the message of Jesus to the world.  Until they surrender to grace and stop prostituting themselves to the law, they are never going to cross the wall they have built that separates them from  "grace and knowledge."

It’s our collective prayer and continuing desire to effectively preach the gospel in such a manner that will move people to change their lives and echo the apostle Paul’s words: 

“What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death, if, by an means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11).

Allow me to be clear. We are not out to “grow a church” by some worldly methodology, but first and foremost always desirous of growing in understanding the depth of God’s spiritual purposes as defined by His grace, love, law and judgments. When we understand that this is an ongoing activity till the day we die, then things begin to change in our lives, our families, our local congregations and our potential impact expands upon our fellow coworkers and neighbors. As we do our part, God will do His part in what only He can do—call others to understand His truth (John 6:44, 65)! The book of Acts informs us that at times He “adds” (Acts 2:41), and sometimes He “multiplies” (Acts 6:7). We must leave that to Him and “be about our Father’s business” in making ourselves ready as the Bride of Christ.

Since Jesus is not the focus of UCG's "gospel" message they will never make a huge impact upon their fellow coworkers and neighbors.  Because the focus is upon the law and not on Jesus they are not doing their part.  Because they do not focus upon Jesus, his word's, his teachings, or actions, they have to leave it up to God to do their work for them.  He has to go out and find the people to send to the doorstep.  Apparently he has not been to keen in doing that, by UCG's own admission.