UCG Apparently Does Not Believe Their European Members Know How To Lead

 

Where would the Church of God be if it weren't for its American leaders telling the rest of the world how to worship God and be leaders in their churches? Apparently, they are still a little too backward to do things correctly so the Americans have to come to the rescue.

Mind you, this is the United Church of God, the epitome of bad leadership, that is telling the European brethren how to do things. This is the very same group of guys who in direct rebellion against the Worldwide Church of God and its leadership, conspired and planned their church while on the WCG payroll. They meticulously planned out how to take members and their money with them so that they, the dear leaders, could keep their income stream and their lifestyle of privilege intact when they jumped ship. Mailing lists and church supplies were taken with them, another violation of ethical leadership. Yet, UCG sees itself as the best leaders the church has ever had.

Here is what they are boasting about in the latest United News

Germany—On Dec. 22- 25, 2020, UCG-Germany conducted a leadership training seminar for 37 brethren from the German-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions via Zoom. The presenters were Gary Petty, Steve Myers, Peter Eddington and Gary Antion.

The need for training is essential and the time to develop leadership in congregations is now. Over the course of four evenings, presenters provided training sessions lasting 30-45 minutes. Participants were divided up into discussion groups. Each session closed with a short Q&A session.

The first presenter, Gary Petty, began with his presentation: “To the Measure of the Stature of the Fullness of Christ.” We are all given the commission to help prepare God’s people for works of service so the Body of Christ may be built up, and we can grow in unity and maturity. Everybody can contribute in the Church.

Christians have always understood that the Great Commission of the church is to  "make disciples of all nations" and to "baptize". This is a concept known across Christendom. UCG departure from that commission is subtle, While it is important for followers of Christ to do good works, care for each there and grow in maturity, that is NOT the Great Commission of the church. These are the byproducts of what happens to people who have been touched by the grace of God.

Steve Myers discussed fellowship. The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia, which involves actively doing God’s will and accomplishing the God-given purpose of the Church individually and collectively. We are called to an all-in, united mission in the fellowship of the King Jesus Christ. As Dutch member Ronald Djikman put it, “You can’t eat soup with one finger. But five fingers can form a bowl” (Suriname proverb).

When church members understand the concepts of grace and justification, they would be joyful participants in the earthy reign of Christ, presently in their lives. They live their lives to the fullest, worshipping their God, sharing the grace they have received from God with others, and resting securely in their justification. It's an automatic willful and joyful sharing of the bounty of God's love. Not something that they have to be told how to do over and over again, but, because Jesus is always on the back burner, evening in liberal UCG, church members do not really know their purpose, which in cidently is NOT to become god's.

Peter Eddington provided insight into the challenges of preaching the gospel in today’s media landscape. Christianity is facing an uphill battle against secularism, atheism and other negative “isms.” In the Church of God, the battle is even more pronounced because the message we bring is at times unpopular. We have a divine, scriptural commission to preach the good news of God’s Kingdom to as many people as we are able. 

COG groups all still try and model Herbert Armstrong's methods of preaching to the world whether it be in video/radio form or in print. It is 2021 and they still cannot seem to connect to the world around them. Their greatest gift to spreading a gospel lies directly in their members and NOT in some self-important presenter on some cable channel that no one really watches. It is the members that can draw people in by truly living as grace-filled individuals who are SECURE in their hope of a better world to come. Their trust in that should be so amazing that they are overwhelmed to share it now in the world around them, with their neighbors, their communities, and all they come in touch with. Helping that kingdom break worth in the world today, one person at a time should be their ministry. The church does not need its evangelists, its ministers, its TV/radio presenters, or any of the false prophets parading around the church today.

The last evening concluded with Gary Antion’s presentation, titled “Leaders Are Needed.” 

 

Leaders lead with love, enthusiasm and alertness. They delegate, evaluate and respect. A leader must lead and cannot stand behind. It is important to be alert to the needs of others. A leader is willing to enlist others to help. Leaders must respect those they serve and whom they are responsible for.

Leaders are certainly needed in the church and church members should NOT look to the present ordained ministry to be leading them. They have failed abysmally due to their previous conduct in the Worldwide Church of God, their duplicity in forming their own church money-stream, and their current lack of leadership skills. 

The Body of Christ has always been its people and not its leaders. It is the members who are to be the ones spreading the Good News because they know their lives have been richly touched by God and they want to share that. Sadly, COG members have never been taught that and have always been told to submit to the chain of command of those over them. Government is the only true gospel of the Church of God, not Christ.

No COG member needs a Vic Kubik, Dave Pack, Bob Thiel, Gerald Flurry, Gerald Weston, Clyde Kilough, or any other so-called minister/leader/chief overseer telling them what to believe and how to act. Church members grounded in their standing with Christ do not need to be told how to lead and when to do it. It is automatic.

Let COG members be so excited about their faith that the Kingdom of God breaks forth in the world NOW in one person at a time.

 

Fake COG Prophet Continues To Be So Self-absorbed That He Thinks People Are Going to "Deep Fake" Him

 

It is a beautiful sunny day here in California and the fake prophet of the Five Cities area is melting down again over people refusing to see that he is a real prophet of god. He continues to be angry that we mock him and ridicule him and have absolutely no respect for his ministry, his office, and his self-appointed prophethood status.

This really concerns him when it comes to his African followers. Given the fact that they have an extremely high predisposition to jump ship from Sabbath-keeping group to Sabbath-keeping group whenever they perceive heresy is involved or they see a more lucrative money, computer, or seed supplier in their future, Prophet Bob is always one step away from losing thousands of members.

Of course, he blames this all on the "devil" working in the minds of bitter angry people intent on mocking him and his so-called ministry. That is always the easy way out for COG leaders when they have no substance to their accusations or even to their ministries.

The Great Bwana to Africa and Savior of 299 Caucasians is also still concerned that demon-possessed people will make "deep fakes" of him and make him say things he never actually said. Seriously dude, get over yourself!

Lies and Deepfakes

Jesus taught that God’s prophets would be reviled and spoken evil of. He also warned that the devil was a liar that worked to take the word of God away from those who heard it. The Apostle Paul warned that “evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13, KJV). He also warned that letters purported from him with false messages were an issue. COG leader Serapion of Antioch denounced a gospel falsely attributed to the Apostle Peter as pseudepigrapha. With the internet, lies can spread faster than before. With technology, like artificial intelligence, can we expect to see deepfakes that will make it look like Christian leaders say or do things that they did not? Do you, “prove all things” so you will not fall from the coming increased deceit? Will YOU hold fast to that which is good or be one who “loves and practices a lie’? Dr. Thiel refers to aspects of modern technology and various scriptures to warn Christians to not be misled by what is coming.

Guess What PCG Says Is The Greatest Thing The World Needs Today?

 

When it comes to the Philadelphia Church of God and its proclamations, nothing should surprise us anymore. The focus is never on Jesus, but on sacred rocks, Irish dance, Gerald Flurry's visions, breaking up families and proclaiming Gerald Flurry as King.

Today they featured an article on their website that is from 2003 and written by the King himself.

It discusses the MOST IMPORTANT thing in the entire universe that PCG is to proclaim. Is it Jesus, his words and what he has accomplished, or something else? This is a Church of God after all, so forget about the focus being upon Jesus.

This focus is God's most supreme goal facing humanity today. Without this goal, humanity will never understand anything about salvation! 

This must be God’s supreme goal for His Philadelphian elect today. 

So what is that goal? Many of you probably already know. It is the promotion of the most god-awful book ever written. A book so bad and sooooooooo incredibly boring that most COG members have never completed it and a book that they have stuck in a box in the garage or on the top shelf of a bookcase where it will never be looked at again. Yet humanity's salvation is dependant upon this book.

The greatest single gift we can give to the world is Mystery of the Ages. Let’s think and work like God and give it to “the largest audience possible”!

Who knew that the single greatest gift to the world was a frigging book! Not Jesus. Nope! But a stupid, poorly written book. A book filled with so many doctrinal errors and outright deceptive lies that it should be dumped in the trash just like the Worldwide Church of God did in the 1990s when it hauled tens of thousands of copies of the book and other literature in the Glendale dump.

Even Bruce Lyon in Servant News panned the book.

A Mixture of Truth and Error

“All teaching came from Christ through the apostles… God’s Church today, as in the first century, receives its teachings from the living Christ, through an apostle, just as in AD 31.” (Page 350)

Considering the plain errors noted in a number of the teachings of this book and the previous book (The Incredible Human Potential), something is terribly wrong here. I’ll trust the Bible over Herbert Armstrong any day. Sure, I could go through this book and list a dozen or more good things. However, I did not come to praise this book, but to bury it.

I honestly thought we had allowed these two books, Mystery of the Ages and The Incredible Human Potential, to die natural deaths after they were both withdrawn by the WCG about 1990. They were rarely, if ever, referred to even before 1990 in my experience. I assumed that was because the numerous obvious errors were plain to many—especially to educated elders. 

When books have upwards of ten percent error, then they are as much or more trouble as they are worthwhile.

In the categories of unproven statements and opinions stated as fact (many of which I believe are easily disproved), along with information that is simply erroneous, I estimate that The Incredible Human Potential is 30% or more flawed (and not just chapters 4 and 5!). I estimate that Mystery of the Ages is at least 25% flawed. I have only shown some of the problems in this book.

As a whole, these books have way too many holes!

When truth is greatly interlaced with errors, the credibility of the whole suffers and the credibility of those who promote it. Even unconverted people can often see some of the false concepts, scriptural and historical, noted above.

The mixture of good and error in these books is strongly intertwined. Several themes and concepts Mr. Armstrong weaves throughout both books are false or unsupported by the Bible (yet stated as fact).

My desire is simple: let’s get rid of obvious biblical errors and other misinformation (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and let’s not be unbiblically cult-like in any way.

God was never dependent on Herbert Armstrong. Nor does our salvation depend on Mr. Armstrong in any way; it never did.

If grossly inaccurate books are retained as beneficial and recommended, then continual and needless controversy and confusion will result. This is already the case.

Truer words could never be spoken than what Bruce Lyon stated above (highlighted in yellow).

God did not need Herbert Armstrong. He does not need Bob Thiel, Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, Vic Kubik, Gerald Weston, Bill Watson, or any of the other splinter group leaders out there to do His supposed "work". 

COG groups need to stop focusing upon "grossly inaccurate books" and grossly inaccurate teachings of people like Thiel, Pack, and Flurry. Their words are nothing more than stinking dung on a steaming pile of manure.