The COG and its whitewashed walls
The COG leadership call the members to sacrifice more money while they themselves especially the so-called elders earn upper-middle-class incomes and hide their salaries from their membership.
Perhaps the COG leadership's greatest failure is their unwillingness to take responsibility for the pathetic state of the churches. The COG are stagnant and/or dying. Clearly, the COGs are increasingly geriatric with relatively few young couples and children. All the members of UCG, LCG, and COGWA have to do is look around at church and see how few new people are attending church or being baptized. The handwriting is on the wall!
But you will never hear Jim Franks or Steve Myers (one of the more honest and talented COG speakers) or any others stand up and confess our collective incompetence, lack of hard work and good deeds, and unmitigated folly. Instead, we all -- lead by our leadership -- paint whitewashed walls.
"Everything is fine!"
Ezekiel 13:10-12
“‘Because they lead my people [COGs] astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash [The COG refrain "We are God's people"],
11 therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. 12 When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”
Perhaps the one thing that will save the COGs besides a miracle is if the members stop funding them. Church income is the only metric the LCG, UCG, and COGWA leadership truly care about. Perhaps when the salaries, vacations, and other perks end the leadership will finally say they are sorry, love the membership and God, and truly change from their heart, and then maybe just then the membership will truly begin to work hard for God and love their fellow man!
Aristophanes