Alright, yeah. A couple more thoughts.

After what's happened in the last couple days, I've been doing a lot of looking around online to see what I can find. And the things that I have found are just disheartening. It's amazing how many people are out there that were at one point part of WCG and/or Ambassador College, and now spend a healthy dose of their time writing up blog posts and comments just to put down and belittle anything that the church stands for. I've heard a few standard cases of people that would talk about how they were forced to give up something they loved so much like Christmas because of the church, and now they can enjoy it again. They even embrace the fact that it has pagan origins and go out of their way to prove (and by "prove" I mean, "mention without facts and then tell the reader that if they have any brains at all they can find reference material that backs up their claims") that the church also celebrates holidays of pagan origin. They also dig deep into every publication ever to come out of WCG (and sometimes up into the newer associations) so they can put down anything they can find that is scripturally unfounded. Newsflash: humans are imperfect. They make mistakes. And they had (and still have) a long road to travel on the way to spritual perfection. The Bible is a huge jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are there, but they're scattered throughout the book, and we have to put it all together. And when HWA started understanding the truth, he didn't even have a picture on the box to look at. Along the way, you can only expect someone to try to jam a piece into the puzzle where it's not supposed to go. Incidentally, I find it amusing that these same people who don't care for God's Word whatsoever are the ones that are going through these same articles with a fine-toothed comb looking for mistakes.

Then you have the other faction of naysayers: the ones that don't hate the church but put down all of the branches that exist (mostly LCG and UCG). I would say that if these people have such a problem with the way things are run that they should start their own church, but undoubtedly at this point, the majority of them already have. So how can we hold on to the faith with so much turmoil around us? I think these points are a good starting place:

I Thessalonians 5:16-22
Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Quench not the Spirit.
Despise not prophesyings.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Have a great Sabbath.