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Re: Christian Life Center Stockton Question
As a follow up to explain my inquiry above I was raised UPC and spent about the first half of my life in the UPC. For that reason I have an ingrained interest in the organization.
That interest includes it's beliefs, culture, success / failure, trends, and individual churches and prominent personalities I know or know of.
I didn't want to overwhelm with questions about a lot of different UPC churches at once but one of the things I am curious about is growth among the churches traditionally considered the largest in the UPC vs. other UPC churches that may be outperforming them now in growth.
I consider the churches traditionally thought of a the UPC's largest and most successful as;
1. Christian Life Center - Stockton CA
2. The Pentecostals of Alexandria
3. Life Tabernacle - Houston, TX
4. Whatever C.L. Dee's church in Houston is called now and whoever the pastor now is
5. Calvary Tabernacle - Indianapolis
6. FPC - Jackson, MS (not in the last 10 or 15 years but in 70's - 80's ran over 1,000)
What is the current attendance of these churches?
Does that number reflect growth in the last five to ten years, stagnant attendance, or shrinkage?
What churches not listed now are as large as these in the UPC?
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"I think some people love spiritual bondage just the way some people love physical bondage. It makes them feel secure. In the end though it is not healthy for the one who is lost over it or the one who is lives under the oppression even if by their own choice"
Titus2woman on AFF
"We did not wear uniforms. The lady workers dressed in the current fashions of the day, ...silks...satins...jewels or whatever they happened to possess. They were very smartly turned out, so that they made an impressive appearance on the streets where a large part of our work was conducted in the early years.
"It was not until long after, when former Holiness preachers had become part of us, that strict plainness of dress began to be taught.
"Although Entire Sanctification was preached at the beginning of the Movement, it was from a Wesleyan viewpoint, and had in it very little of the later Holiness Movement characteristics. Nothing was ever said about apparel, for everyone was so taken up with the Lord that mode of dress seemingly never occurred to any of us."
Quote from Ethel Goss (widow of 1st UPC Gen Supt. Howard Goss) book "The Winds of God"
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