Thanks for your continued input on the perils of the Church of God since you are no longer part of it. BTW, according to one of our officials, the average attendance of the Church of God weekly, around the world, is approximately 15 million. Membership is about half that. That doesn’t sound small to me. Could we be bigger? Yes! Could we also be smaller? Yes!
JPJ preached a revival in the church the ole timer growed up in when he was a young’un. He was on a cot, an would preach layin on his side an leaned up on his right elbow. Sometimes he would throw his pillow at folk (no, I aint jokin) an tell em to run with it. Ever time I seen him do it the feller what caught the pillow would commence runnin the aisles. He used a different scripture ever night, but the preachin was basically the same thing:Women with short hairWomen wearin pants, gouchos an coulottesWomen wearin jewelryFolk not tithingFolk layin outta church services Preachers letting their wives tell em what to preachBallgames, movies, pool halls, places a the worldBackslidden Christians
He came to my church for revival – my Dad went once and told Mom he wasn’t going back to the revival (Mom NEVER missed). I didn’t really understand why – for some reason I thought running around with a pillow was holy – when JPJ said it.I learned otherwise.Chalk one up for Dad________________
I have never seen that statistic. But, you can not single the Church of God out with a stat like this. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, 177,000 (59%) out of 300,000 churches in the US average between 7-99 in attendance. In their report, the average size church, across the board, is 75.
Most folks were scared of JPJ. Scared of running…scared of not running. As a teenager, one night he walked over his mother begging him not to leave the house that night & go out & party with his friends. He was shot in the spine that night & never walked again. He was later saved. He had a faithful wife who did the driving and everything else involved in taking care of him and traveling in a camper to revivals. He would throw his pillow at people and tell them to run for him (because he couldn’t.)He was certainly unconventional and a lot of people didn’t like what he did…but some did. What he preached about was what most all COG preachers were preaching about in the 50s and 60s. He stayed busy most of the time from what I can recall. I don’t actually remember going to a service. I think my dad said he had a red hot testimony. Different strokes for different folks..________________More of Him…less of me.twitter.com/camiracle77www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=691241499&ref=name
I see you knowed him! My daddy loved to get a crowd in church, always saying he would keep some. He never used JPJ. Dad was never a clothesline preacher and refused to have anyone who would beat his people who worked avg 48 hrs a week in the cotton mills and attended revivals ever night.He did like old Mahaffey (even if he was from Kentucky! ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
OT, Did he do a lot of hackin’? That is holy preachin’ man. Did you have to sit in the 4th row to keep from being spit upon? (or is that spat?) Was he good n mad when he preached? That orta convict anybody orten it? We had a young guy from the hills preach at our church once and he continually stared at the ceiling. I don’t know how he didn’t fall off the stage as he was looking up the whole time. I found myself looking up too to see what he saw. I had to serve as interpreter to my wife as she grew up in Wyoming and didn’t understand hillbilly spoken fast. He did a lot of hackin too. She was also raised Methodist and had only been Pentecostal for a couple years at the time. Also, the Churches in Wyoming were much more refined than the ones in sticks in Tennessee.
Thanks for your continued input on the perils of the Church of God since you are no longer part of it. BTW, according to one of our officials, the average attendance of the Church of God weekly, around the world, is approximately 15 million. Membership is about half that. That doesn’t sound small to me. Could we be bigger? Yes! Could we also be smaller? Yes! I used to attend a GBI in Indonesia. Wikipedia says that they have about 2.5 million members. I don’t know how many attendees. If COG membership is about half of 15 million, GBI makes up a huge chunk of GBI.I never heard clothes line type preaching in GBI over there. I’d imagine there might be a preacher who says something if women show too much skin. Indonesians usually don’t, or didn’t when I was there, except compared to the Muslims some of them do. There was an A/G in town pastored by a white pastor whose wife got some flack for wearing a backless sleeveless dress to a joint church event, and I hear some of the girls there show some skin. But I don’t remember seeing that in GBI. It’s not really the cultural norm for the whole country.I never heard any teaching on sanctification as a one-time act of grace subsequent to salvation in GBI. There are some churches that teach prosperity and things like that. I didn’t meet many people who are followers of US WOF personalities like Copeland or Hagin. I think I heard Copeland’s name twice while there. I heard one Bible College student repeating some Hagin teachings about God not doing anything ‘bad’ to people, like bringing judgment. (I wish these people would read Exodus.) One missionary I knew went to Rhema and started a Bible college for what might have been the largest fellowship of congregations (mother church with satellite churches) in Indonesia, but he didn’t sound that WOF if you heard him speak. Indonesia has it’s own leaders with their followers. One of them, who used to be GBI is really big into anointing oil. Anointing with oil is supposed to make you holy. People run up to the front stampeding to get the oil he prayed over, I heard. Someone had a testimony about anointing a toilet with it and it worked after. The one guy I know who goes there anoints himself with it every day so he’ll be holy. I don’t know what the deal is with Indonesian Pentecostals using mineral oil as anointing oil. The no-movies, clothes-line Pentecostals I’ve met are with GPDI. Ironically, they teamed up recently with Foursquare. Locally, one of the Foursquares is really seeker sensitive and way on the other end of the ‘Holiness’ type stuff in terms of dress compared to some other churches, IMO. But I don’t remember hearing any preaching against drinking alcohol in GBI. Again, drinking is not really a huge part of the culture where I was.The denomination that became GBI and joined the COG actually split off from a group that became GPDI if I’m not mistaken. Gereja Pentekosta di Indonesia, the Pentecostal Church in Indonesia. I think they are a lot smaller than GBI, though.Some GBI’s overseas advertise as ‘Karismatik’– which is ‘Charismatic.’ The music style, the way people dress, etc. feels more ‘Charismatic.’ When I first started at the English service I attended for a year, I felt like I was on the set of a Charismatic TV show. It was also weird for me to go to a church where the worship leader would tell everyone to speak in tongues at the same time. My point is the COG is really big, but the flavor and style can be very different overseas. GBIs don’t have the same ‘feel’ and style of the COGs I’ve gone to in the US. They are big. I think the smallest one I spoke at for the main service had a couple of hundred. Some have thousands. I suspect the average size is well over 100. The small average congregation size is probably a US thing. It’s easy for the COG (Cleveland) to increase in size. Just team up with a large or growing indigineous denomination and offer to send them missions funds for various programs. It gives missionaries a venue to minister and locals to work with. If the projects are good, it gives the missions money somewhere to go. But it’s a little cheesy to brag about denomination size, IMO, when this is what’s going on. And the Foursquare apparently did it, too________________
http://www.holiness-preaching.com/audio/MP3/Jackson,%20James%20Poe/A%20Powerless%20Church.mp3
No thanks. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
This is a Good Example
Re: This is a Good Example
Thanks for your continued input on the perils of the Church of God since you are no longer part of it. BTW, according to one of our officials, the average attendance of the Church of God weekly, around the world, is approximately 15 million. Membership is about half that. That doesn’t sound small to me. Could we be bigger? Yes! Could we also be smaller? Yes!
JPJ preached a revival in the church the ole timer growed up in when he was a young’un. He was on a cot, an would preach layin on his side an leaned up on his right elbow. Sometimes he would throw his pillow at folk (no, I aint jokin) an tell em to run with it. Ever time I seen him do it the feller what caught the pillow would commence runnin the aisles. He used a different scripture ever night, but the preachin was basically the same thing:Women with short hairWomen wearin pants, gouchos an coulottesWomen wearin jewelryFolk not tithingFolk layin outta church services Preachers letting their wives tell em what to preachBallgames, movies, pool halls, places a the worldBackslidden Christians
He came to my church for revival – my Dad went once and told Mom he wasn’t going back to the revival (Mom NEVER missed). I didn’t really understand why – for some reason I thought running around with a pillow was holy – when JPJ said it.I learned otherwise.Chalk one up for Dad________________
I have never seen that statistic. But, you can not single the Church of God out with a stat like this. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, 177,000 (59%) out of 300,000 churches in the US average between 7-99 in attendance. In their report, the average size church, across the board, is 75.
Most folks were scared of JPJ. Scared of running…scared of not running. As a teenager, one night he walked over his mother begging him not to leave the house that night & go out & party with his friends. He was shot in the spine that night & never walked again. He was later saved. He had a faithful wife who did the driving and everything else involved in taking care of him and traveling in a camper to revivals. He would throw his pillow at people and tell them to run for him (because he couldn’t.)He was certainly unconventional and a lot of people didn’t like what he did…but some did. What he preached about was what most all COG preachers were preaching about in the 50s and 60s. He stayed busy most of the time from what I can recall. I don’t actually remember going to a service. I think my dad said he had a red hot testimony. Different strokes for different folks..________________More of Him…less of me.twitter.com/camiracle77www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=691241499&ref=name
________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
I see you knowed him! My daddy loved to get a crowd in church, always saying he would keep some. He never used JPJ. Dad was never a clothesline preacher and refused to have anyone who would beat his people who worked avg 48 hrs a week in the cotton mills and attended revivals ever night.He did like old Mahaffey (even if he was from Kentucky! ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
OT, Did he do a lot of hackin’? That is holy preachin’ man. Did you have to sit in the 4th row to keep from being spit upon? (or is that spat?) Was he good n mad when he preached? That orta convict anybody orten it? We had a young guy from the hills preach at our church once and he continually stared at the ceiling. I don’t know how he didn’t fall off the stage as he was looking up the whole time. I found myself looking up too to see what he saw. I had to serve as interpreter to my wife as she grew up in Wyoming and didn’t understand hillbilly spoken fast. He did a lot of hackin too. She was also raised Methodist and had only been Pentecostal for a couple years at the time. Also, the Churches in Wyoming were much more refined than the ones in sticks in Tennessee.
Re: This is a Good Example
Thanks for your continued input on the perils of the Church of God since you are no longer part of it. BTW, according to one of our officials, the average attendance of the Church of God weekly, around the world, is approximately 15 million. Membership is about half that. That doesn’t sound small to me. Could we be bigger? Yes! Could we also be smaller? Yes! I used to attend a GBI in Indonesia. Wikipedia says that they have about 2.5 million members. I don’t know how many attendees. If COG membership is about half of 15 million, GBI makes up a huge chunk of GBI.I never heard clothes line type preaching in GBI over there. I’d imagine there might be a preacher who says something if women show too much skin. Indonesians usually don’t, or didn’t when I was there, except compared to the Muslims some of them do. There was an A/G in town pastored by a white pastor whose wife got some flack for wearing a backless sleeveless dress to a joint church event, and I hear some of the girls there show some skin. But I don’t remember seeing that in GBI. It’s not really the cultural norm for the whole country.I never heard any teaching on sanctification as a one-time act of grace subsequent to salvation in GBI. There are some churches that teach prosperity and things like that. I didn’t meet many people who are followers of US WOF personalities like Copeland or Hagin. I think I heard Copeland’s name twice while there. I heard one Bible College student repeating some Hagin teachings about God not doing anything ‘bad’ to people, like bringing judgment. (I wish these people would read Exodus.) One missionary I knew went to Rhema and started a Bible college for what might have been the largest fellowship of congregations (mother church with satellite churches) in Indonesia, but he didn’t sound that WOF if you heard him speak. Indonesia has it’s own leaders with their followers. One of them, who used to be GBI is really big into anointing oil. Anointing with oil is supposed to make you holy. People run up to the front stampeding to get the oil he prayed over, I heard. Someone had a testimony about anointing a toilet with it and it worked after. The one guy I know who goes there anoints himself with it every day so he’ll be holy. I don’t know what the deal is with Indonesian Pentecostals using mineral oil as anointing oil. The no-movies, clothes-line Pentecostals I’ve met are with GPDI. Ironically, they teamed up recently with Foursquare. Locally, one of the Foursquares is really seeker sensitive and way on the other end of the ‘Holiness’ type stuff in terms of dress compared to some other churches, IMO. But I don’t remember hearing any preaching against drinking alcohol in GBI. Again, drinking is not really a huge part of the culture where I was.The denomination that became GBI and joined the COG actually split off from a group that became GPDI if I’m not mistaken. Gereja Pentekosta di Indonesia, the Pentecostal Church in Indonesia. I think they are a lot smaller than GBI, though.Some GBI’s overseas advertise as ‘Karismatik’– which is ‘Charismatic.’ The music style, the way people dress, etc. feels more ‘Charismatic.’ When I first started at the English service I attended for a year, I felt like I was on the set of a Charismatic TV show. It was also weird for me to go to a church where the worship leader would tell everyone to speak in tongues at the same time. My point is the COG is really big, but the flavor and style can be very different overseas. GBIs don’t have the same ‘feel’ and style of the COGs I’ve gone to in the US. They are big. I think the smallest one I spoke at for the main service had a couple of hundred. Some have thousands. I suspect the average size is well over 100. The small average congregation size is probably a US thing. It’s easy for the COG (Cleveland) to increase in size. Just team up with a large or growing indigineous denomination and offer to send them missions funds for various programs. It gives missionaries a venue to minister and locals to work with. If the projects are good, it gives the missions money somewhere to go. But it’s a little cheesy to brag about denomination size, IMO, when this is what’s going on. And the Foursquare apparently did it, too________________