Crossing The Tiber, Part 2

I need to preface what led up to me leaving the Worldwide Church of God. The WCG was a legalistic faith, by that I mean a Jewish Old Testament faith with Christ as the Messiah. We were required to keep the Holy Feast days spoken of in Leviticus, Trumpets, Tabernacles, Atonement, Pentecost, Passover and so on to be saved. The biggest requirement was keeping the Sabbath, Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Also we were required to Tithe 10% every year to the church, another 10% for ourselves to spent on the Feast of Tabernacles (basically this was our vacation) and every third year another 10% for the widows and orphans, so every third year 30% of our income went to the church. Needless to say this put a lot of people in financial trouble, including myself.

Through the years the WCG began to soften their stance on a lot of issues and went from a legalistic faith to a grace faith dropping all the requirements made by them for salvation, in essence we were now just like all the other Protestant churches. Thousands left the church over this. The only congregation of the WCG in this area was in Kingsport, TN the one I attended. We went from 375 strong to finally in the end 30. That congregation no longer exists as of this posting.

Because we were now just like the Protestants many left the church, not because of the changes but to go somewhere else much closer to their home. Before the changes people were driving from North Carolina and Virginia to go to church in Kingsport because it was the closest congregation. My family drove from Elizabethton every Saturday. Then the Kingsport congregation moved services to Sunday. That's when I left and I began looking for a new place to worship and wound up at Grace Fellowship Church in Johnson City. ....more to follow, stay tuned.