Time to Move?
Back to Herbert W. Armstrong
From 1941 to 1943, Mr. Armstrong had been holding evangelistic meetings in downtown Seattle and in Everett, Washington, resulting in a local congregation. The tithes and offerings of this small church led to going on the air at 5,000-watt station KVI, in Tacoma. Its signal was enhanced to about 25,000 watts, due to the station’s transmitter being sent from an island in Puget Sound. Meanwhile, the program continued to be broadcast from Seattle’s KRSC.
As more radio stations were added in 1943, the program’s audience grew to hundreds of thousands of listeners and The Plain Truth went to 35,000 copies, reaching every American state and every English-speaking province in Canada.
Mr. Armstrong made several trips to Hollywood, broadcasting from there several weeks at a time, while continuing to hold campaign meetings in Los Angeles. The baptisms resulting from this led Mr. Armstrong to form a small congregation of 23 people. This happened in the fall of 1943. Mr. Armstrong also decided to set over them a former minister, a man whom he had become acquainted with during his visits to Southern California. This man appeared to be friendly, had a good personality and seemed liked by all. Mr. Armstrong even had this minister visit Eugene, paid for by the Work, to help him in holding the Feast of Tabernacles there.
But one year later, Mr. Armstrong discovered that the little flock in Los Angeles had been destroyed. Of those he was able to contact, Mr. Armstrong learned that this minister was not so well liked after all.
At the next Feast of Tabernacles, in 1944, the man attended the Eugene services, and then gained the affection of the brethren from the Seattle/Everett congregation. He soon became their local pastor.
It turned out that this “minister” did not believe the truths of God’s Word, as he had proclaimed to Mr. Armstrong so many times previously. As soon as he made a following for himself out of the Seattle/Everett brethren, he preached against tithing. The brethren under him stopped sending in tithes to Eugene headquarters—and about 25 percent of the Work’s income was suddenly taken away!
Then, their new pastor proclaimed that tithing was okay after all. So the brethren resumed paying tithes—only now the money went directly to him.
This man’s treachery was a huge setback to the Work.
Due to low funds, the 1944 January-February issue of The Plain Truth was cancelled. Ten thousand requests for one of the earlier versions of Mr. Armstrong’s United States and Britain in Prophecybooklet went unfulfilled. The Work was getting behind in paying its broadcasting bills, and the radio program was in danger of being taken off the air. Co-workers did not send in enough money to avert this financial emergency. So Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong went the extra mile, selling their home to put the money back into God’s Work.
The March-April Plain Truth was published, as were extra copies of the booklet. The program continued broadcasting. The Work continued forward.
But Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong’s sacrifice meant putting their furniture in storage, and moving from motel room to motel room every three days, and sometimes living in motor courts up to a week or two at a time. It meant being refused by motel owners, who reserved their rooms for out-of-towners only. It meant eating out at restaurants every night, which was both costly and unhealthy, while struggling to raise two teenaged boys (the girls had since married and moved out). And it meant, months later, finally being able to at least rent two rooms in a boarding house, while still having to share a bathroom with other renters.
Meanwhile, The Plain Truth had grown too large for the local printing company to continue publishing it. Since Mr. Armstrong visited Hollywood to use its quality recording facilities as often as he could, he began to investigate potential large-scale printing operations in Los Angeles. The idea of permanently moving to Southern California was taking shape.
Back to Herbert W. Armstrong