Bill and Kim Meyer Interview with Steve Hassan

From YouTube:

Kim Meyer, “Ex-World Wide Church of God” member, PCC-S, LICDC-CS, is now a licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Independently Licensed Substance Abuse counselor and Director of Campus Outpatient and Alcohol and Other Drug Services at Beech Brook in Cleveland Ohio. Her husband Bill, also an ex-member of the WCG, was interviewed too by Steve Hassan while he was in Cleveland as the keynote speaker at the Human Trafficking Symposium co-sponsored by Beech Brook and the Rene Jones Empowerment Center on January 10, 2014. Kim grew up in the WCG from the age of eight, exiting in the mid 90’s after 30 years. She and her husband raised 3 children while in the church, all of whom are no longer affiliated with the WCG.  

In her role at Beech Brook, Kim oversees the psychotherapeutic treatment of 70 Residential children with severe mental health disorders including trauma resulting from Human Trafficking experiences. She feels it is vital that Mental Health professionals treating the trafficked adolescent or adult have a working knowledge of destructive influence, coercion and mind control to adequately address the relationship trauma experienced by the trafficked victim. Kim also maintains a private practice working with those who are contemplating leaving their groups, or have left and need someone who can relate to their experience while providing therapeutic support. As a trauma trained clinician she draws on several treatment models which inform her practice including Steve Hassan’s Strategic Interaction Approach and BITE model, as well as the Lifton and Singer models of understanding cultic mind control. She along with Steve, Rachel Thomas and Christine Marie Katas will be participating in a workshop at the International Cultic Studies Conference (ICSA) in July in Washington D.C. looking at the topic of Human Trafficking and the Cult/Mind Control phenomenon. Kim can be reached at meyerkim@roadrunner.com. 

Rev. Bill Meyer is a former member of the World Wide Church of God. He joined the group on his own as a sixteen year old in the mid 1960’s. He became a lay pastor who planted and pastored a WCG congregation in Northeast Ohio in the mid 1990’s. When he resigned and quit the WCG after about two years – and explained why to the congregation – it also voted to exit the WCG. To avoid just replicating the old system in new clothes, the congregation joined the mainline Protestant Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Meyer, a graduate of the Worldwide Church of God’s former Ambassador College, Ohio State University and Ashland Theological Seminary, was later ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has partner status in the United Church of Christ. He has pastored Disciple of Christ, UCC and Presbyterian Church USA congregations part time. He works full time as an editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and is also an Ohio licensed Professional Counselor. Bill can be reached at williamdmeyer@msn.com. 

WCG is now known (and has been for sometime) as Grace Communion International (GCI).

PCG Wayne Turgeon Admits Church Can't Afford To Light Up HWA Auditorium For Church Members

The Philadelphia Church of God tries to portray itself as the most successful COG splinter group that has ever existed.  

It has wasted millions of dollars in fighting WCG over publishing rights in a court case they lost and ended up paying WCG millions of dollars.  It has built multimillion dollar buildings on its compound  in order to imitate the Pasadena campus.  It built a mini-me concert hall patterned after the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.  It has built luxurious homes for Flurry and his relatives.  Its now building a dance studio for the use of Flurry's grandkids so they can do Irish dance.  It dropped multiple millions in Edstone England for an estate that allows easy access to Ireland and Scotland where Jesus will return to earth establishing his kingdom upon David's throne that will kept safe by Flurry, apparently because Flurry will have immediate access to the Stone of Scone and probably have it in his possession. Money seems to flow freely for pet projects of the Flurry family no matter how ultimately absurd they may be. 

Now word is out from PCG members that the church admits it had no idea on how expensive it would be to run its new monument to Herbert Armstrong.  Money is now so tight that PCG can't afford to turn on its Swarovski chandeliers for its own members to light the way to bible study or church services.  However, if you are the pagan,  Sunday worshipping, pork eating public, you get the full lighting extravaganza! Woo Hoo!

The PCG can't even afford to light the balcony or chandeliers on Friday nights for BS! Mr. Turgeon made the announcement that they didn't realize how expensive it would be to run the Auditorium. Duh! Talk about "counting the cost". The only time you'll ever see the chandeliers lit up is for a concert or performance, us lowly tithe payers aren't worthy enough! If you don't believe me, then just drive by HQs on any given Friday night during BS, and you'll just see darkness. 

Its about time for the Flurry clan to start demanding that church members sell more property, cash in retirement funds and give everything they have for the final push.  How many will be stupid enough to do it?

UCG: What Were They Thinking?

In the latest issue of Compass Check, a rag dedicated to "helping" the youth of UCG turn their "spiritual compass" towards God, there is an article by Len Martin that was supposed to have been written as words of comfort for those UCG kids being teased at school about their religion.

The question was asked:  What should I do if kids make fun of me because of my religion? 

Martin writes the following:

Any time someone makes fun of our beliefs or of us, we are hurt inside. Romans 13:10 says love does no harm to its neighbor, so those who are striving to live as God asks them need to watch their words carefully so as to not hurt others.  

Martin immediately launch into the old COG standby, it's "the true believers vs the unwashed masses of heathen humanity."  Us vs them.  Good vs evil.  Good only exists in the UCG and evil is everyone outside it.  Its no wonder UCG kids have a hard time making friends in school when this is drilled into their brains.   Those "friends" are really on there to "revile and persecute" them.  So as soon as some one makes a catty remark they are taught to become martyrs for the truth.

However, not everyone lives that way of life. Jesus Christ realized most humans would not follow God’s instruction and would indeed ridicule true followers of God. In fact, in Matthew 5:10-11, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.”  

Later, in Matthew 10:22, Jesus said, “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” He told us that since they treated Him badly, they would also treat us, His followers, badly. We also read in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”  

This is one of the hard parts of being a disciple of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. This is where the “rubber meets the road”. Quite honestly, this is where many people give up, throw in the towel, and turn back to their old life! 

UCG youth are not going around every day thinking about being disciples for the deities.  Heck, the leadership of UCG and their parents aren't even doing that so why would they expect their kids to?

The rubber will truly meet the road the day UCG youth make a decision to leave UCG.  That is not the work of Satan or his pesky demons that seem to be haunting so many in the COG's right now.

Never fear though, those that oppressed the UCG member or youth will soon be brought to justice for mistreating them all.  Retribution will be swift!

God promises us that if we’ll remain faithful to Him, He will bless us and eventually make those who mistreat us recognize how wrong they were. Notice Revelation 3:9: “Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie—indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.” 

The youth of the UCG are begin tormented because of the beliefs defined by UCG leaders and not by God.   Its not the "synagogue of satan" persecuting them.  They are suffering because of the teachings of the UCG leadership.  A suffering that does not need to happen.

Then to further traumatize the youth, Martin makes it known that those who are not studying to "prove" UCG right are then part of the adulterous and sinful generation.  COG kids have always been damned no matter what they did.

Yes, I realize that to know what will happen in the future does not always comfort us in the present, but in Mark 8:38 Jesus tells us not to be ashamed of what we believe: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” When we really know what we believe and why we believe it, explaining our beliefs becomes easier. So we then have an incentive to study so we can clearly explain our beliefs. 

Martin closes with this.

There are times when we must also be careful not to promote our beliefs to others who may not desire to hear what we have to say. It really is a delicate balance. If someone doesn’t really want to know what we believe and is only trying to stir up trouble for us, perhaps it would be better to simply avoid that person as much as possible 

Even he knows UCG beliefs bring embarrassment and ridicule.  If they were actually followers of Jesus instead of the law then they would have no need to be ashamed and hide their lights under the nearest booklet byHerbert Armstrong.