Monday, October 29, 2018
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Dave Pack: The Shoe of the Unconverted
Who could have ever imagined that laceless men's shoes would be banned by a Church of God leader? Oh wait, they have banned so many other things, so why not!
I remember decades ago that penny loafers were considered the shoe of choice for gay men, at least according to some COG ministers. According to these ministers, putting a penny in the loafer and not wearing socks with the shoes was a signal to other men that the person was looking for sex.
David C Pack, the leader of the most superfantabulous Church of God to ever exist has supposedly banned his "men" from wearing loafers.
God expects a properly dressed man to have laces in his shoes and tied in a proper bow.
An LCG Member Comments on Life in Church
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.
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.
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Just Another Typical Sabbath Day Sermon
It is the Sabbath in Church of Godland and people are heading off to services to be edified in the word of God, well...except for one Church of God. You will be heading off to services to listen to a tape of your leader expounding for 1 hour 16 minutes on Masonry.
Forget learning about the awesome significance of how Jesus came, what he did, and what was accomplished or coming in to be edified in your Christian walk by learning godly principles or being inspired to be a type of Christian that emulates the Good Samaritan. Nope, you will never hear any of that in the improperly named "continuing" Church of God, but you will hear all about Masons and Freemasonry.
This is what happens when your church leader has never had a proper biblical education and every truly practiced exegesis and hermeneutics.
This is what happens when a church member is spoonfed answers to every topic under the sun by a church that claimed to have all the answers about everything and then proceeded to put those "answers" into booklets, form letters, and correspondence courses.
This is what happens when church leaders don't understand who Jesus is and what he accomplished.
This is why some self-appointed church leaders of today were consistently overlooked and bypassed along the way for ordination to leadership positions in the church. That is why doubly-blessed Bob Thiel can only wildly-jester a sermon by pulling out of the file cabinet a form letter or a booklet off the shelf about a topic his mother church had previously deemed spiritual significant.
Tackling the Sabbath Question: Old Covenant, Blended To New, But Not Fully, Yet Forever?
No topic has caused more debate in the Churches of God than the Sabbath and Holy Day Question.
HWA Said concerning the Sabbath in the Bulletin, 1/13/76:
Here's the Ratification of the Old Covenant as recorded in Exodus 24:
Exodus 24 (Biblegateway)
3 When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”
4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.
He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
5 Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.
6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar.
7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”
8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up
10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.
11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God.
14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”
15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it,
16 and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud.
17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.
18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Here's the Sabbath placed into Law in Exodus 31.
The Sabbath Covenant, Exodus 31:(Biblegateway)
The Sabbath
12 Then the Lord said to Moses, 13 “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.
14 “‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people. 15 For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death. 16 The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. 17 It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”
18 When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.
Herbert said "Forever" has not ended?
Some obvious errors.
Now back to HWA's reasoning: January 13, 1976, Bulletin:
"For example, in the Old Testament the old covenant of the law is referred to as the "everlasting covenant" (Lev.24:8) implying that it was to endure for eternity. Yet the New Testament records that the first covenant was "done away" and "abolished" 2Cor.3:11,13. God "has made the first old" Heb.8:13. Either God is confused, or else translators have rendered the text inaccurately. Since the former cannot be true, it is incumbent upon us to search out the exact meanings of words and to find the answers to such discrepancies.
The Aaronic priesthood is spoken of as "an everlasting priesthood" Ex. 40:15. If "everlasting" means "eternal," then the direct descendants of Aaron and only they, would be allowed to function as priests, and this for all time. Yet Heb.7:14-18 declares an end to the Aaronic priesthood and a new priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. Peter describes the church as "a spiritual house, an holy priesthood" (1Ptr.2:5), a statement which John confirms when he writes that by Jesus' blood the church has been cleansed from sin and made "kings and priests unto God" Rev.1:6. Thus in the above Exodus reference, "ever-lasting" cannot possibly mean "everlasting."
The children of Israel were to "observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant" Ex.31:16. Yet Paul states there remains "another day" of Sabbath rest for people of God" Heb.4:8,9. Though translators may have used the word "perpetual," the Holy Spirit disproves this choice of words, exposing it as incorrect.
The misuse of words expressing "unlimited duration" when specific time periods were intended is most obvious in the following cases. Jonah was not in the fish's belly "forever" Jon.2:6. A bondslave could not possibly serve his master "forever" Ex.21:6. God did not dwell in Solomon's temple "forever" 1Kg.8:13.
The Hebrew word from which the aforementioned "everlasting," "perpetual" and "forever" were translated, is "olam." Wilson's Old Testament Word Studies by William Wilson, gives the meaning of "olam" as "duration of time which is concealed or hidden." In other words, an unknown length of time. Though it may have been a very long or even indeterminable period of time, the sense that it would come to an end was always there. This concurs with our New Testament texts which confirm that indeed these established practices were abolished and replaced with something better. The King James translators would have been more accurate to record that the old covenant and its priesthood were for an "age of time.""
Is it possible that Herbert's lack of understanding and training of the understanding of Old Testament linguistics may have enabled him to come up with the interpretation concerning the Sabbath he came up with?
submitted by SHT
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