Enabler-in-Chief (Part 2) “Fudging the Numbers”
July 9, 2022 | by Marc Cebrian
On June 24, 2022, a Friday-night Bible Study titled, “Your Work and The Work,” was delivered by Enabler-in-Chief Bradford G. Schleifer who is also “the last evangelist” in The Restored Church of God.
I knew about this Bible Study but purposefully held off listening to it for a while. I was dreading the idea of finding anything relevant to write about.
For the first 23.5-minutes, it was a standard message. He was setting up the premise by layering thoughts and scriptures like all the speakers do.
But then…dammit…the topic of the recent ordinations during the 2022 Ministerial Conference was introduced. Some of the numbers and how they were presented caught my attention.
@ 24:02 “…how’s this for an amazing statistic? We had seven ordinations and two appointments on the last day of the Conference…48-hours later in effect, on the Sabbath we had eleven. So, eighteen raises in rank or those being ordained and then two appointments. So, you can say twenty total…You know what the most we’ve ever had in one year in Restored?...Eleven. So, in one day we had as many as what we’ve typically or most we’ve ever had in one year. That is the grow that God’s church is seeing.”
Except, that is not growth at all. That is RCG manipulation in full effect. That is verbal sleight of hand. That is a way to present facts and twist them to say what they do not. That is a way to fudge the numbers into your favor.
That is BGS telling a little BS.
Brad is a science guy, so he will get a chuckle when he reads the math below.
Warning. Math ahead. Proceed with caution!
He wants you to SUBTRACT 11 from 20 to get to +9. That is 9 more ordinations this year beyond the highest 11 ever recorded in RCG history.
20 – 11 = 9
(20 ordinations that week) minus (11, the most in one year) equals a net gain of 9 over the previous highest record.
Wow, that is amazing. EXCEPT…
During the “Ordination Comments” video, David C. Pack said:
@ 0:44 “We have not had any ordinations for several years. I asked Mr. Schleifer to give me a kind of a rundown. I forgot that we did have one in April in Africa…so, there was an exception, but the last time before that was three years ago.”
Uh oh. Brad bases his spin on the numbers off of one year, but Dave confirms it has actually been three years. Why does this matter? Try scheduling out your car payments over three years instead of one and see if that makes a budgetary difference.
The math adjustment changes Brad’s “amazing statistic” dramatically. We now need to DIVIDE by three years before you SUBTRACT the previous highest.
(20 ÷ 3) – 11 = -4.3
(20 ordinations that week, divided by 3 years instead of 1) minus (11, the most in one year) equals a net loss of 4.3 over the highest record.
RCG is -4.3 in 2022 against “the highest ministerial growth” and not +9 as Brad explained.
I apologize if that hurt your brain. It can be confusing and that is the point.
A listener will grasp and retain what they can understand. A street magician will confuse you visually. The RCG “ministers” confuse you verbally.
If your resilience has been worn down by endless doctrinal shifts, you no longer retain the same mental strength to absorb every fact and make a spiritual judgment. You are so bombarded by biblical propaganda that you just let it flow through you and accept what you hear.
“This is God’s apostle and evangelist and ministers, after all. We have to trust that they are teaching the truth. We have to trust God’s government.”
As a member, you become numb to what is being thrown at you. You experience prophetic fatigue. You stay in the chair because it hurts your head too much to try to retain or even understand what is being poured on you week after week. Not only by Dave or his Enabler-in-Chief, but by other trusted men like Ed and Jaco and Ken.
“They all say it, so if there’s any doubt or confusion, it’s my fault. They keep telling us Mr. Pack is the real deal and they agree with his teachings, so I should, too.”
Bradford G. Schleifer gave numbers skewing the perspective of growth in the RCG ministry, knowing full-well he was doing it.
When you factor in what Dave said about holding off ordinations for three years, it shows that Brad actually exposed the shrinkage of RCG instead.
[Note: If I wanted to further scramble your brain, I would have added (+1) for April’s African ordination, but then remove (-2) for ministerial assistant appointments which do not count as ordinations. I’m leaving the numbers as Brad presented so that even the negative math results in his favor.]
I can already hear The Sundown Kid’s words in my ear, “Dude, who gives a shit about math?”
I do. This is an example of the spin and manipulation you do not always see while inside RCG. You simply accept what the “ministers” tell you at face value and move on. Only those who slow down and examine words, only those who fact-check afterwards in the spirit of “prove all things,” will see this.
It is exhausting to listen carefully and think on what you are actually hearing. It can be a mental work-out to ask yourself, “What is he really saying and is it true?” The people still inside The Restored Church of God are not lazy or weak. They are a people who have been worn down over time. Shifting into Neutral and letting the vehicle coast is far easier than going up hill in Second gear.
If Brad can get you to “look over here” and then pull an ace from behind your ear while using numbers…just how skilled do you think he is when it comes to Bible verses?
It is unfortunate that Feast Damage Control sermons cannot be quoted. Those types of messages that act as the P.M. Service “cleanup duty” are not produced or distributed after the fact. Who wants to be reminded that Jesus Christ and/or The Father did not come on The Last Great Day again? How edifying is a sermon that focuses on addressing your disappointment and lack of faith in the face of prophetic fraud?
The only people who can attest to those messages had to be in the room when it was given.
In the later half of this recent Friday night message, the proof of “the fruits” were listed. Baptisms. Church Inquiries. Ordinations.
@ 53:44 “Well, we’ve had more baptisms every year for the last five years than we had the previous year. So, that number keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
Notice how no actual number was given. Not even a percentage. Being the “information skeptic” that I have become, it occurred to me that even a +1 could be spoken about as growth. For example, let’s just say for illustrative purposes that 100 people were baptized in 2017.
In 2018 there were 101.
In 2019 there were 102.
In 2020 there were 103.
In 2021 there were 104.
Brad could still say the church has grown every year consistently for the past few years and it would be factually correct. But if you were a member of The Restored Church of God, would you get excited about a 1% growth rate? Would you be happy with a 1% raise?
Knowing that he can fudge the numbers with ordinations, how can we assume that any other “fact” would be free from fudge? Mmmm…fudge.
The next point of “church fruit” was in regards to Church Inquires:
@ 54:04 “We’ve seen our Church Inquiries grow ’21 over ’20. And we’re currently projected with what we’re seeing right now to beat last year by about 35 percent.”
That sounds like a very good projected number. Bravo. Which raises the first question about baptism numbers from plain text to bold. Why not also give a percentage about baptisms?
When giving a speech, I would opt to leave out a number if it were so insignificant as to not be relevant to the topic. But that is just me…an “information skeptic” who also happens to be an antichrist. Take any of these observations with that grain of salt.
Church Inquiries is also a tricky thing. The percentage of follow-through from contacting the church to actually attending is known to be “very low.” The numbers do not always translate together. It’s not like 500 CIs makes 5 attendees so that 5000 CIs makes 50 attendees. It is not cut and dry. Everyone who has touched this part of the RCG machine knows it is wildly variable.
So in reality, the whole CI 35% may look good on paper, but that is a mirage marker of growth.
If it were true that The Restored Church of God’s attendance was growing at a rate anywhere near 35%, Dave would be crowing about it from the rooftop of the Hall of Administration with a bullhorn. They would hear about it in the Giant Eagle parking lot. Dave would not be able to shut up about it.
The fact that “big growth” numbers are not being trumpeted tells me the real numbers of new attendees and baptisms are not nearly as rosy as Brad tries to present. (That is inductive reasoning on my part. I admit that. This is a judgment call based upon the pattern of history.)
One part of the process not mentioned was Church Invites. How many people were invited to attend in the last twelve months? We do not know because he did not say. If it were good news, that would have been mentioned. Or you could argue that this is confidential information that is so awesome, it should not be “leaked” publicly, so he opted to keep it a secret. Uh…yeah right.
Sometimes the RCG manipulation is not only what you hear, but what you do not hear.
After the 2020 Feast of Tabernacles, Headquarters became nearly “lock-down” status. A skeleton crew conducted Sabbath services for video production. COVID-19 recommendations were taken more seriously than ever before.
I will never forget this. Bradford G. Schleifer goes up to the lectern and tells us, “Mr. and Mrs. Pack are fine. They’re staying home today like most of you brethren are, watching this over the live stream.”
I knew in that moment that David C. Pack had COVID. Not because of what Brad said, but what he did not say. The Enabler-in-Chief at work, doing his verbal magic.
Weeks later, Dave announced he had COVID-19, but it was part of a prophetic fulfillment by being a “type of Ezekiel” who was “shut up in his house.” He curiously did not remind people how he mocked those in LCG across the hall for wearing masks and not singing hymns. Those faithless dopes.
Surely, Dave instructed Brad to not say anything. He had to figure out a way to obey that directive, but also not lie. “Just say we’re fine, Brad.” I would like to know how that all went down.
That is also something for me to ask Brad about over a beer some day.
Bradford G. Schleifer is really good at slipping things past you, getting you to think one way when reality is another. Listen carefully to any message he gives that draws parallels to “the prophecy series,” or concepts about tests of faith or doubt or authority of God’s ministers, or even a flat mention of Dave by name. The subtlety of the RCG manipulation is there if you have ears to hear it.
Brad is a very sharp guy. He knew what he was doing with those ordination numbers. He knew about the three years. He knew about getting to a round twenty in comparison to eleven. He knew how to approach “growth” about baptisms without giving a number. He knew the Church Inquiry percentage would sound impressive, though it is smoke. He knew to stay away from Church Invites or attendance numbers.
Brad knew all of that and said it anyway.
Just like Dave would want. Just like Dave would do.
David C. Pack claims he is both an apostle and a prophet. History has proven that to be false. Yes, Bradford G. Schleifer is The Enabler-in-Chief, but is he also really an evangelist? That will be addressed in a later Part.
