A bit dated, but Dr Robert Thiel, aka COGWriter, reported last month that “LCG Reports Record Telecast Response”. According to the report, over 6300 callers responded to the episode “You Can Understand Prophecy” by Richard Ames.
God uses events to wake people up, but often the response is more lethargy. It is encouraging to see people beginning to look for answers, even though the circumstances that bring them to it are usually unfortunate. There are other signs that people are looking for answers as well.
I’ve noticed this “holiday season” that in spite of Black Friday, there are far fewer cars on the road and in the parking lots of shopping centers than last year. With layoffs continue at a rate that boggles the mind, and confusing signals about whether or not we’ve seen the bottom of this cycle, people are certainly anxious and looking for answers.
This is also reflected in the number of hits on the web. United’s ucg.org appears to be up overall 52% the last 3 months, according to Alexa. While Living’s lcg.org barely registers, it is still up 30% in the last month.
Philadelphia’s pcog.org seems to be the only one that is down, but it oddly has a 90% increase in the last 7 days in spite of a 9% decrease in the last month. This indicates either a problem with the stats themselves (which can be difficult to determine), a fluke in the traffic, a suddenly popular item on the site or a more “manufactured” drive for traffic. I have previously reported on articles all of a similar nature showing up on various “media” types of sites, so it might be part of a campaign to drive traffic. There is nothing illegal or unethical about the practice, but it still takes content to sustain traffic and web rankings, so only time will tell to see if this is truly sustainable or not.
Just for giggles, even ronaldweinland.com is up over the last 7 days and 1 month period, although it is down 9% over the last 3 months. Maybe it is the posting of the ugly pic that is driving traffic. Traffic for cog-pkg.org is more confusing, though. It is down 70% for the past week, but up for the past month of 50%? Overall, it is down 40% for 3 months. Perhaps it is because traffic is so low as to make it very volatile.
Not withstanding the diversions, it seems that there is a hunger out there. That is both good and bad. It is good that people are searching. Unfortunately, there is a larger chance of them finding error than truth. However, God, in His infinite power, determines who is called and when.