Roderick C. Meredith

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Roderick C. Meredith was one of the first five evangelists ordained in 1952 by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Radio Church of God (later renamed the Worldwide Church of God or WCG in 1968). For many years he was one of the church's leading theologians, top executives, and college professors.

Today, he is the leader and founder of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based Living Church of God. The church espouses nearly all of Armstrong's teachings.

Meredith was born in Joplin, Missouri on June 21, 1930, and is the eldest of three siblings. His father worked as an accountant, and along with his wife, were able to provide their family with a middle-class lifestyle while raising their children in Joplin. During high school, he was very active and successful in sports. He participated in football, became a Missouri track champion in the 1-mile run, and was a Golden Gloves boxing champion. He and his family were also active members of the local Methodist church. However, from his early teenage years, along with and at the encouragement of his uncle, Dr. C. Paul Meredith (a doctor of veterinary medicine for the state of Missouri), he began listening to Armstrong's The World Tomorrow radio program on radio station XEG, and receiving the church's main publication The Plain Truth magazine, along with numerous other literature the church had offered free of charge. In the fall of 1949, after one year of attending Joplin Junior College while enrolled in its R.O.T.C. program, his growing convictions led him to enroll as a fulltime student at Armstrong's church-funded Ambassador College in Pasadena, California. He became one of the liberal art institute's earliest students (Armstrong had founded the college just two years earlier), and was the student body president during his senior year. Over the next 43 years, he would become one of the leading executives and most influential ministers and writers within the top levels of the WCG.

Following his graduation in June 1952, Meredith was assigned by Armstrong to raise up and pastor churches in Portland, Oregon; San Diego, California; and Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. On December 20, 1952, after summoning him back to the church's headquarters in Pasadena from his pastorship in Oregon, Armstrong ordained him and four other men - including his uncle C. Paul Meredith (1902-1968) - to the high-ranking position of evangelist. These were the very first evangelists of the WCG. He was the youngest of the newly ordained men.

In the following years, Meredith would raise up scores of congregations throughout the United States. He would also conduct many baptizing and evangelizing tours in the United States, Britain, Europe, and Africa. From the early to mid-1950's, and again in 1960, he was assigned by Armstrong to live in Britain to start up congregations for the church.

As a senior evangelist, Meredith held many high ranking and influential positions within the church. A number of these included being a member of the Council of Elders, a body of 12 evangelist-ranked men that helped Armstrong to clarify and establish doctrine; the 2nd Vice President of Church Administration (which was the third highest position in the church under Armstrong and his son Garner Ted Armstrong) throughout the 1960s; 2nd Vice President of Ambassador College (late 1950s to early 1960s); Deputy Chancellor of Ambassador College at the Pasadena (1972), Bricket Wood, England (1973), and Big Sandy, Texas (1986-1990) campuses; Dean of Faculty at Ambassador College in Pasadena (1978 and again from 1979-1980); a Senior Editor and Associate Editor of the church's flagship publication The Plain Truth magazine from 1953 to the early 1990s; and the Corporate Board of Directors (1979). He also served periodically as a guest presenter on The World Tomorrow radio program in the mid-1950s, and acted as the Superintendent of the church's United States ministry (later renamed Director of Pastoral Administration) from 1961 to 1972, and for the church's worldwide ministry from January to August 1979. He was the pastor of the church's largest congregation, in Los Angeles, California from 1976-1978, as well as the Senior Pastor of the Glendale, Bakersfield (he also pastored here in the early 1960s), and Reseda, California congregations during the same period. In 1979, he pastored the high profile Pasadena Ambassador Auditorium church.

For over a period of 35 years, he taught theological, speech, and leadership classes to hundreds of students at the three Ambassador College campuses.

On June 16, 1976, Meredith's wife of 20 years, Margie Helen McNair, age 40, died, due to the complications of cancer. She was a sister of several prominent WCG evangelists. They had two sons (Michael Rea and James Paul) and two daughters (Elizabeth Helen and Rebecca Anne) from their marriage. In November 1977, he married his second wife, Shyrel Ann Hensley of Bakersfield, California. They have two sons.

Over the next several years following Armstrong's death on January 16, 1986, nearly all of the traditional doctrines and teachings of the church established by Armstrong were drastically changed or completely discontinued by WCGs new leadership under Joseph W. Tkach. On December 4, 1992, Meredith was fired from the WCG ministry by Tkach for not agreeing to consent with these major, and in the eyes of the Armstrong faithful, heretical, doctrinal changes.

Several weeks later on December 26, 1992, he, along with 19 members of the WCG who also did not agree with the direction the church had undertaken, met for the commanded weekly Sabbath service in the living room of his home. One week later, on January 3, 1993, meeting in a small rented hall in Los Angeles, 42 people met for the first official Sabbath services of the newly incorporated Global Church of God (GCG), which he had recently founded. The new organization's teachings, doctrines, and stated objectives closely mirrored that of Armstrong's original WCG. Its world headquarters were located in San Diego, California. By the fall of 1993, the membership of the GCG had swelled to approximately 1,500.

Following a heated dispute with some members of the GCG's corporate Board of Directors over Meredith's (who had been Chairman of the Board since the corporation's inception) leadership and authority within the church, he was subsequently fired by a narrow majority of the Board on November 25, 1998. However, his firing was widely unpopular with the majority of the GCG membership, and approximately 80 percent came with him. In addition to the vast majority of the membership coming with him, approximately 80 percent of GCG's field ministry and Council of Elders joined with him. Within days of his dismissal, he had founded a new church organization, and named it the Living Church of God. It, too, was headquartered in San Diego, and, ironically, located in the same office building as the GCG.

As of December 2006, the LCG has a active membership of approximately 7,100 people, with over $10 million in revenue coming in the form of tithes, offerings, and gifts being received annually from its members, co-workers, and supporters. Meredith is the organization's Chief Executive Officer as well as the Presiding Evangelist of the church and the Editor in Chief of its main print and internet publication Tomorrow's World magazine. He is also one of the four regular presenters of the church's nationally and internationally aired television program Tomorrow's World. One of the program's presenters, evangelist Richard F. Ames, is married to his younger sister Kathyrn.

Meredith is a prolific writer who has written thousands of articles and many booklets since the 1950's on topics such as Christian living, endtime prophecy, the plan of God, and mankind's ultimate future. His personal interests include jogging, climbing, hiking, and the study of wines and wine lore. He also enjoys reading biographies and autobiographies of great people.

[edit] See also

• Living Church of God

[edit] External links

• Living Church of God Website
• Tomorrow's World website