It is now well into the third year of existence for the Church of God a Worldwide Association.
During their formation they deliberately worked behind the scenes seeking to fracture and destroy the United Church of God. They felt the need to be more loyal to the teachings of Herbert Armstrong than they thought United Church of God was doing. Once more, families were broken, marriages ruined, friendships destroyed, all so that another group of ministers could do what they wanted to do and keep getting paid.
Since that breakup and the formation of COGWA, it has been doing one of the most earth shattering works. Even Dave Pack trembles at their awesomeness!
From their web site:
From Cecil Maranville: The PC Department emailed 40 people and telephoned an additional person for a total of 41 outgoing contacts for December 2012.
From Cecil Maranville: The Personal Correspondence Department
mailed 77 responses (including one surface mail letter) in January 2013,
making the month’s activity one of our highest.
From Cecil Maranville: We sent out 49 emails and one surface
mail letter in February, for a total of 50. Counseling issues required
the most involved replies.
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Heading into year three of the COGWA existence, it has printed its first booklet. Wow! I am impressed!
In other media news, we are in the process of printing our first booklet
for all of the members in the United States! (We are working out how
the international areas will receive their copies.) In another week or
so these booklets and a letter from Jim Franks will be in the mail to
all members, and we are shipping an advance copy to all pastors. (The
pastors’ copies will be sent first-class; but the others are mailed at a
nonprofit rate, which will be a bit slower). We’ve had three booklets
available on our websites for a long time, but this is the first one in
print. As Jim explains in his letter, we chose to print “From Holidays
to Holy Days: God’s Plan for You,” because of the timeliness with the
new annual cycle of God’s holy days, beginning in just a few weeks.
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Money is still an issue in COGWA:
We have to carefully control print, of course, since print and postage gets very expensive very quickly.
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COGWA is finally getting around to doing an online magazine. Even the non-ordained self-appointed prophet Bob Thiel had an online magazine up and running in the first few weeks of his new personality cult. If one little grandiose man can do it by himself, what can't COGWA?
We have a lot of work and planning to do before we can start producing
an online magazine, though, so we’re being very cautious not to set a
target launch date just yet. It will be as soon as possible ...
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In COGWA there are a lot of steps to go through before one reaches salvation. Its hard work but someone has to do it:
The seven festivals outline in symbolic form the seven steps in God’s plan of salvation.
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Apparently getting their "gospel message" out to a hurting world is not too big of a priority, no matter the cost. I guess a persons salvation is determined by how much a stamp costs.
The greatest obstacle to printing more material isn’t the cost of
printing itself, which is relatively inexpensive, but the cost of
postage. Even using our nonprofit status, postage is still expensive. To
print each 46-page, full-color booklet cost about 88 cents, but to mail
it costs an additional $1.52 if sent first-class from the office or
about 35 cents for the nonprofit bulk rate (which we used). The cost of
postage will continue to be our biggest hurdle for distributing more
literature.
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Church attendance seems to be an issue also. Since no one from the "world" seems interested in the COG, they keep having to poach from other COG groups or pick up previous members. They now actually have four new members who
actually attend church! Wow! I am impressed! Really impressed! Does no one else in COGWA
actually attend church?
I met two new couples who found us on the Internet a few months back
and began attending services. One couple was looking for a group that
kept the holy days, and the other had prior Church of God background
from the 1990s. It was refreshing to see new people actually attending!
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Jim Franks continues with this:
I am reminded of the words of Christ to His disciples in John 4:35:
“Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white
for harvest!”
Yep! The field is ripe for harvest and you are raking them in! Will they
actually attend church?
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It is humbling to see a world with a population of over 7 billion and
compare that number to the size of the Church today. How many will God
yet call? We simply don’t know. What impact will we have on this world?
The honest answer is that we don’t know exactly what our impact will be.
Anyone with a COG background or from a COG can answer that question. The impact has been ZERO. No one cares! There is no earth shattering work and never will be.
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Then there is this about the weekly newsletter:
One last note: In last week’s In Accord I encouraged everyone
to subscribe to the Life, Hope & Truth Weekly Newsletter. While
having over 1,100 subscribers is good, that means that most of the
Church members do not receive this weekly email, sent every Friday, that
keeps you up to date on the new postings on LHT.
You know things are pretty bad with COGWA literature that they cant even get their own members to sign up!
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COGWA's college is up and going and making a huge impact upon the world and the COG! The numbers attending are earth-shattering! Quite amazing actually!
From David Johnson: On Monday, Jan. 7 Foundation Institute,
Center for Biblical Education, began its second semester of operation.
We added one student to the roster and now have 21 students attending
classes.
Twenty-one students. I stand in amazement! I am in awe!
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COGWA has less and less people attending their Feast sites. Is it because they are draining the members finances with quadruple tithing?
As more people become unable to drive long distances to attend the
Feast, the need for the Church to provide live services into specific
small sites or homes via computer continues to increase.
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And there you have it brethren, another successful earth-shattering Church of God doing a mighty work.
