An LCG Member Comments on Life in Church

An LCG member wrote the following in the previous posting on "We Are Not Qualified to Counsel in Some Areas of Sex and Marriage."  It deserves a separate posting for its truthfulness.

Anonymous said...

@ 3:35 PM...

There are several people posting to this site who either:

• Sat in one of RCM's Ambassador College classes
• Worked under him while he was WCG's director of the ministry
• Accepted a paycheck from him after he started the Global Church of God
• Went to youth camps with his children
• Ate dinner as a guest in his home
• Had access to his LCG Masterfile (member/coworker/subscriber database)
• Sat in the congregation and heard him speak so disgustingly that mothers left the room with their children.
• Sat in his office after being "counseled" by the lying Rod McNair, and heard him say horrible things
• Read his court depositions in which he slandered some brethren and denied knowledge of matters that he clearly had knowledge of.

Yes, I am sure that some people who post here are exaggerating their experiences because they are still badly hurt by what happened, and they cannot yet look back coldly and rationally at what they experienced with Rod Meredith. Yes, it is obvious that people sometimes speculate stupidly or tell outright lies. However, if you want to defend LCG, you would be better off defending Gerald Weston or Doug Winnail or other LCG leaders who haven't revealed their flawed character to so many people over so many years. 

As for me? I spent my first few LCG years aware that RCM wasn't perfect, but sure that most of the stories about him must be lies. Then, as my family got to know him better, I started seeing more things that made me question, but for more years I put those questions out of my mind. Eventually, thank God, I could not deny that RCM simply did not meet the Bible standard for a church leader, which meant that I was under no obligation to support him as the leader of LCG. 

As for you? Maybe you are an insider who already has seen much and already has some private doubts, but who feels an obligation to defend LCG even against your conscience. If so, I hope you change before your conscience is seared in defending evil. Or maybe you are an outsider, as I was for a while, sincerely believing that RCM was God's anointed and sure that the stories about him were falsehoods told by bitter ex-members. If so, you will be disappointed eventually, so I hope the disappointment comes soon and does not hurt you too badly.

Whichever may be your situation, ask yourself honestly: Have you seen provable evidence that LCG ministers have any special God-given aptitude for counseling? I have seen marriages ruined that were salvageable. I have seen parent/child relationships poisoned. I have seen careers derailed by stupid ministerial counsel. The people who flourish in LCG are the ones who ignore ministerial counsel until they are somewhat successful and wealthy, at which point the ministry shifts from abuse to flattery as their preferred method of control. 

October 28, 2018 at 5:24 PM

Gerald Weston's Church Wide Fast Bust

Almost immediately after Living Church of God settled in at home after experiencing a foretaste of the millennial life, Gerald Weston instituted a church-wide fast.  Apparently, fresh off that millennial experience, LCG members had immediately retreated back to their sin-filled lives, so much so that Weston needed them to repent, again.  After all, it is always the memberships fault that LCG has issues and not those in leadership positions.

Weston mentions in his latest HQ update that 4,200 people watched the streaming program.  If one is to believe that total, one has to then question the total membership that LCG has listed on Wikipedia of 11,300 members.  Is Weston subliminally saying below that 7,100 members did not bother to listen to the streamed service?  Did well over half of the LCG membership chose not to fast?  Did they all skip services?

Most of us realize the totals listed for membership counts on any COG Wikipedia listing is a load of crap.  LCG no more has 11,300 active members than Grace Communion International has 50,000 active members in 900 congregations.

Also below, Weston tells the LCG  faithful that the church is dropping many of its television stations as an act of good stewardship.  As LCG programs become more and more irrelevant to people's lives, more and more stations will be dropped.  Its message in its programs carries little that people can relate to in a messy world.  After all, vaping is much more important than helping people understand the meaning of life while living in a messy world. Pretending to preach about a kingdom to come has little significance to people who experience serious illness, death, war, and other tragedies of life.  If comfort cannot be implemented in the present day life, what good is a kingdom message to those people?

Sadly, in the COG movement, words are more important than getting one's hands dirty in the everyday life of those around them.  When was the last time an LCG member fed the homeless, cleaned up a prostitute, gave a drug addict a warm meal or invited an immigrant family or a Muslim to sit at their table during the Thanksgiving meal?

Instead of declaring a fast for the LCG membership next year, how about cancelling church services that Saturday and instruct members to spend the day feeding the homeless?  In Charlotte, LCG's home base, 1,668 people are without shelter on any given night.  Imagine what a warm meal or some blankets might feel like to these people  What a foretaste of the kingdom that "might" represent to some of them if LCG did its gospel message right!

Fasting to torture oneself in order to please the elite LCG leadership or getting one's hands dirty caring for the other, which one would the God of the Living Church of God find more pleasing?

October 25, 2018

By Gerald Weston

Greetings from Charlotte, Reports indicate that the live stream of last week’s service during the fast transmitted very well. Approximately 3,800 successfully viewed the program in English, with another nearly 400 viewing the Spanish translation, for a total of about 4,200. Final edits of the November/December Living Church News are being made. There is an important article regarding the relatively new phenomenon of e-cigarettes and vaping, and I hope all of you will take time to read it, as it contains a lot of good information that is not widely known about this new and popular habit. We are attempting to build up our television presence with strategically placed stations. Sunday, November 11, Tomorrow’s World will begin airing over KRCW Portland, Oregon at 7:00 a.m. Cost per response (CPR) varies from station to station and we drop those stations that do not produce well in favor of newer stations. This can sometimes cut our CPR in half. I mention this because members are understandably disappointed when we drop a station in their area, but we must remember that the primary purpose for the program is to preach the Gospel to the world. We hope all of you watch the program where you can, but we must concentrate on our first priority and be good stewards of the resources available. Remember, the telecasts can be accessed at any time at our website, www.TomorrowsWorld.org. We will continue to drop stations that do not produce well, try new stations, and retain those that are producing. Although television is not as effective as it once was, television is still a powerful tool in doing the Work.—Gerald Weston

We Are Not Qualified to Counsel in Some Areas of Sex and Marriage.

BULLETIN 07/27/76: 

RON DART: We Are Not Qualified to Counsel in Some Areas of Sex and Marriage. 

YOU DON'T SAY!

submitted by SHT

For decades certain minister stuck their noses into the bedrooms of church member without any fear whatsoever.  Just look at what Rod Meredith for decades.  Has there ever been a Church of God minister so obsessed with sex than he was?  If he wasn't railing against gays he was pitching fits over certain sex acts that married couples chose to do in their own bedrooms. When it wasn't him, it was Herbert Armstrong with his pathetic book on sex, written because his wife was resisting his romantic attempts, as frightening as that is to contemplate.  

Most COG ministers were certainly out of their elements when it came to marriage counselling.  Almost none of the ministers had any real training in what counselling entailed.  The only training they had was an Ambassador College classroom.  No hours were ever logged with a supervisor in training situations where counselling techniques were used.  To be an effective counsellor meant having empathy, a quality that many COG ministers were/are totally bankrupt in.