Remember the glory days when Worldwide Church of God congregations could have hundreds and hundreds of people in a congregation? The church I get up in had 700+ members. HQ congregations had 1,200+ in attendance each week with neighboring churches with 200-300 members each. At it's peak over 5,000 church members were gathering in the Los Angeles area every Saturday. Feast sites could have up to 15,000 people in attendance. Bragging rights were certainly things to be proud of.
Contrast that to today in the the Churches of God. All the churches struggle to get 1,200 in attendance from around the world! Most congregations are now 20-30 people. Some, like Almost Arrested Elisha Elijah Amos Thiel, have hardly any members in the United States but a few hundred in Africa thus making it a global work in his eyes.
Then there is the Church of God an International Association. David Hulme thought he was the next best thing after Herbert Armstrong and started his own church after wrecking havoc in United Church of God. From the several thousand that went with him he has dwindled down to minuscule little gatherings of people. His magazine has ceased publication, and now is online only, still as irrelevant an worthless as before. No one read it in the print version, even though it was geared to the worldly heathen Sunday keepers and atheist pagans.
His church church attendance figures have come out recently and someone has compared them to COGIA figures from 2008. It's not a pretty picture;
2008
“In some parts of the world you will find that there are a lot of people coming into the Church. You find quite a multiplying going on in Africa at the moment. You don’t find it very much in the UK, but it’s not true of everywhere in the UK. You don’t find it everywhere in the US...
What has been happening in the Church? In the US and Canada we have 1150 people in regular attendance and we have 53 churches. If you do your maths, you realize that a lot of these churches are rather small...
At the Feast last year we had about 1300 people in attendance. Let’s go to other parts of the world. In Australia we have 68 people and six churches. In the Philippines we have 156 people and seven churches. In addition we have 11 members in six countries, remote areas all around Southeast Asia who are looked after by Australia. Last year we had 77 people at the Feast in Bright, in Australia, and 132 in Iloilo, in the Philippines.
In Africa we have an interesting situation. We have English and French speaking brethren there numbering 700! So they are a sizable portion of our total numbers. They are scattered through 38 congregations. A recent report I saw has congregations in places that even I was not aware we had people! So there are some small groups forming in countries where hitherto we have not had anybody.
In the UK we have about 300 people in 14 congregations. The Feast there is one of our larger ones, about 320 there last year. In Germany we have two congregations and 20 people. We have people of the German language background in Switzerland as well. We have France and Switzerland represented in the French language: 21 people in two congregations. In Scandinavia we have about 10 people, mostly in Denmark and Norway and Sweden, I believe.”Now compare those numbers above to 2015
The numbers attending the 2015 Festival of Tabernacles were as follows:
USA : Klamath Falls, Oregon 166; Lake Arrowhead, California 190; Springdale, Arkansas 190; Deep Creek Lake, Maryland - not stated. Total 700+.Total attendance almost halved - mostly accounted for by the loss of members to the Church of God, The Father’s Call, in January 2014.
Australia : Bright - attendance not stated, but a significant number seem to have gone ‘walkabout’. There are only 12 people (none young) in the festival report photo, including several visitors from the USA.
Philippines : Talisay 138.
Africa : Accra, Ghana & Benin City, Nigeria - 70; Scottsburgh, South Africa 19; Gokwe, Zimbabwe 77; Harare, Zimbabwe 111; Cotonou, Benin 123; Busa, Cameroon 45. Total 445.
Philippines : Talisay 138.
Africa : Accra, Ghana & Benin City, Nigeria - 70; Scottsburgh, South Africa 19; Gokwe, Zimbabwe 77; Harare, Zimbabwe 111; Cotonou, Benin 123; Busa, Cameroon 45. Total 445.
The substantial fall in numbers is probably due to a discontinuation of support in some areas - no festival site in East Africa for example.
Europe : Llandudno, Wales, 260 from 12 countries; Les Rousses, France, over 60 from 10 countries. Total 320+
Since John Meakin and some members left to join LCG, a month before Tabernacles 2008, the UK has remained loyal to David Hulme. Perhaps there was no French festival site in 2008, which would account for the drop in the UK.
Total 2015 festival attendance : 1600-1650.Total 2008 church attendance : 2400-2450. (From Church of God News)The people still presume they are doing a work even though they are irrelevant in numbers. Part of the reason behind that is the myth that Herbert pushed continually upon the church. "God's true church has always been small in numbers." Little church, mighty work. That's the same myth Dave Pack uses to this day, though his numbers are readily declining too.
Perhaps Dave Pack and Dave Hulme can join ranks and celebrate the Feast together this year. Since the of thousands of other COG members still have not joined up with Dave Pack, he might be overly excited to get a couple hundred from Hulme.
The work is dead. None of the groups are doing anything worthwhile. The only thing every single one of these groups has in common is the ability to keep putting money in the leader's pockets.
