Preparing A People - For What?

United Church Of God - Bound For Petra, Jordan?

The UCG's ad slogan is preparing a people - but for what? Preparing A People For "Petra"-fication?

Aaron Booth did a snazzy presentation about UCG's internet marketing presence for 220 "petrified" elders, buried in snow-bound Cincinnati:

UCG Internet Update  http://prezi.com/jrvrzgmatqeu/united-church-of-god-web-internet-updates/

The presentation apparently is to show how implausibly good the UCG internet media efforts are going, especially now that with the reduced budget, WGN television ads can surely no longer be as affordable. If that is true, why even consider throwing away millions of dollars buying time on WGN Chicago, with all of the attendant overhead, to get just one new petra-fied visitor, fully qualified to enter the UCG's door? Do 30,000 likes, like constitute an avalanche of new members on Facebook? How about 7,000 Twitter UCG "followers"? Then there's the 591 old-fashioned UCG youtube videos getting 1.4 million views (not counting RevKScribes' numerous videos on Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, and UCG's antecessor Worldwide Church of God, viewed thousands of times).

To entangle more in the web, the UCG is asking for volunteers for the local congregation websites to post sermons with content and dish out local information.

Given the older demographics and WCG history, the question for the UCG may become more of survival, than smoke and mirrors church "growth" on the internet.