Rod Meredith Tells LCG Members To Stop Questioning His Decision To Hire Nathan, Elliot and Rodzaj

Rod Meredith has sent out a letter telling his loyal followers to basically shut up and quit whining about his decision to hire Peter Nathan, Steve Elliot and Bob Rodzaj immediately after they had just stabbed David Hulme in the back in order to start their own church. 

All three of these men were already in the process of negotiating with LCG while they were were planing "conferences" for the Church of God Fathers Call.  Once more we see the true COG ethics at work.

Living Church of God members are not to concern themselves with that however.  Jesus Christ has approved this move to LCG! How dare you question this happening!

Notice how Rod has to get a dig in at David Hulme right off the bat.  Meredith says, "...no real work was being done there, and that the full Truth was not being preached."

...it is now “leaking out” that a number of ministers, elders and members are coming with us from Mr. David Hulme’s church. We have in no way orchestrated this, but many of them have felt for months or years that no real work was being done there, and that the full Truth was not being preached. So, after checking us out, many are coming to the Living Church of God. Also, we are going to be able to employ at least three ministers who are coming with us to help out in this Work and in this ministry. I ask all of you, in Jesus’ name not to be alarmed or worried about this!

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So I hope all of you will have confidence that Jesus Christ—the Living Head of the Church—will lead those of us here in Charlotte in making these decisions. Christ does not want any of you sitting around being negative or “worrying” about decisions which have been thoughtfully and prayerfully worked out. Rather, we should all be very thankful that a few ministers in the greater Church of God are coming with us to help us do this Work and help us minister to the flock. So please welcome these ministers and their families whole-heartedly, pray for them and ask God’s blessing in this whole thing as He will guide us as we walk and yield ourselves to Him.

If these men are fresh out a a splinter group that has never accomplished a "real work" and has never preached the "full Truth" then why are these men allowed to immediately enter the LCG ministry with full salary and housing benefits?  A thinking person would assume that LCG would have given these men several months to fit in to the LCG way of understanding and to see how loyal they actually are.  Even crazy as he is, David Pack makes his newly poached ministers go through a reeducation camp where they have to read and learn all of David's writings so that their "eyes are opened" to the truth David has delivered.  Meredith doesn't.  He has another standard on which he judged these men. Brunches, babysitting and being a faculty aide.

Frankly, each one who is coming with us full-time has been very well known to me, to Dr. Winnail and to Mr. Ames personally. So they are not “unknown quantities” in any way.  

Never mind the fact that all three worked for Hulme and/or WCG as it was formatting the changes and helped promote the new teachings on the Trinity to church members.  Then when Hulme decided he knew more than anyone else (no shocker there) he started his own group and these three jumped ship with him.


Here's Merdith's qualifications for hiring Peter Nathan...they took him and his wife to brunch...a lot!  Oh, and they worked together in Big Sandy and socialized together...a lot.

Because of this, both Peter and Karen would take my wife and me to brunch every time they would come back from New Zealand when he was the head of the Work in New Zealand under Worldwide for a number of years. After that, Mr. Nathan ended up working for me for a couple of years during my tenure as Deputy Chancellor at Big Sandy. We did a number of things together socially, in addition to our professional interaction.

What is Merdith's reason for hiring Steve Elliot?   He helped babysit him when he was little!  Oh, and Elliot is supposedly shocked at the lack of prophecy preaching in the church.  Given the fact that EVERY SINGLE PROPHECY Meredith has uttered over the past 60+ decades has FAILED, you would think this would not be a major concern right now.  Maybe preaching about false prophets, but certainly not predicting things.

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Elliott are coming with us from the Chattanooga, TN area. I have known Stephen since he was a little boy as his parents had a number of us college “boys” babysit their own boys—as Betty Bates was the only girl in the college in those early years! So Stephen and I have been friends and associates and I have known his family for over 60 years. He, also, is very sound in the faith and was concerned for quite some time about the lack of preaching on prophecy and on other key matters in his recent association.

So what about Bob Rodzaj?  Rodzaj was Meredith's student aid during the liberal years of the church just before Meredith was shipped to Big Sandy.  They worked together for a few months.

Mr. and Mrs. Bob Rodzaj from the Phoenix, AZ area are also coming full-time. Mr. Rodzaj was my Faculty Aide for a full college year back in the winter of 1985-1986—just before I was transferred to be Deputy Chancellor at Big Sandy. So we worked together for many months and I have found him always to be very sound in the faith, very dedicated and a fine and faithful minister of Jesus Christ.

Those are the magnificent qualifications for immediate employment in the Living Church of God!  Those qualifications did not sit well with a lot of the leadership in LCG and with members.  Notice again for the quote above that there has been dissension in the ranks over the employment of these men:

So I hope all of you will have confidence that Jesus Christ—the Living Head of the Church—will lead those of us here in Charlotte in making these decisions. Christ does not want any of you sitting around being negative or “worrying” about decisions which have been thoughtfully and prayerfully worked out.  Rather, we should all be very thankful that a few ministers in the greater Church of God are coming with us to help us do this Work and help us minister to the flock. So please welcome these ministers and their families whole-heartedly, pray for them and ask God’s blessing in this whole thing as He will guide us as we walk and yield ourselves to Him.

Since all ministers in ALL the splinter groups are now part of the "greater Church of God" will they too be allowed in without any test period? It is nice to know that they are ALL now equal in their ministries. 

The Electric Guitar Riffing Prophet of Armstrongism Gives a Prophetic Message With His Guitar

The prophet King added a guitar to his rocking chair missives today.

It's too bad that King did not continue on and make something of himself by playing guitar instead of promoting himself as some kind of true spiritual leader in Armstrongism.

Are COG Ministers the "Unfriendliest of Church Members?"

Naked Pastor

A reader here sent me a great quote from an article The Phony Feast of Tabernacles

In spite of their admonitions to the membership, ministers were among the unfriendliest of church members. In one sermon shortly after I started attending the WCG, my first pastor explained why he didn’t socialize with lay members – if he got too friendly with them, they wouldn’t respect his authority. “Familiarity breeds a certain amount of disrespect,” he said. Ministers, with few exceptions, maintained an arms length relationship with lay members as a matter of policy. At the Feast of Tabernacles, ministers socialized with other ministers. When you saw them dining in restaurants, they dined not with lonely lay members, but with other ministers, usually their chums from Ambassador College. They had their own parking spaces, their own ministerial luncheons, and reserved ministers-only seating during services. Even if they participated in social activities open to lay members, such as dances and luncheons, they sat at reserved, ministers-only tables. “Ministers Only” signs were ubiquitous in the Worldwide Church of God. The ministers segregated themselves from lay members by staying in the best hotels and dining in the most expensive restaurants. The ordinary member couldn’t afford to patronize these establishments, but the ministers could because of the generous festival allowance they received from church headquarters. This is yet one more example of the Worldwide Church of God ministry applying one set of standards to the membership while applying another less rigorous set of standards to themselves. Needless to say, there are no “Parents Only” signs on the dinner table when the family gets together for Christmas.

I remember working in the Auditorium in Pasadena and how each week we had to mark of rows and rows of seats for ministers and their families.  Many of them never could get to church on time even though they lived on campus.  We had to ensure that they had seats when they came in late.

For many years I also set up and worked in the ministerial dining room at the Feast in Pasadena.  Members were forbidden to enter the room.  They were to remain in the main area of the Student Center at all times.  Most usually brought their own lunch and used the dining area, or on holy days ate from a potluck where unknown and questionable foods always were present.  However, it was another story on the other side of the folding teak walls.  A well stocked bar with every imaginable liquor, beer and wine was waiting. A vast array of food was waiting to be gorged upon, roast beef, turkey, salmon, lamb, chicken, all freshly cooked in the kitchen.  If you were the feast advisor and specially selected men (always men) you also received a gift basket of cheeses, salami's (beef of course), crackers, candies and wines costing over 200.00 each.  Go back outside those teak folding walls and it was another story.