I couldn't say this better myself!
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"Bill,
This is what troubles me! Read below" (the CGGC Office's announcement of "The Gathering 2013" which reads, in part):
"We have invited Justin Meier to introduce us to Transformational Church and the Transformational Church Assessment Tool (TCAT). Transformational Church and the TCAT (Transformational Church Assessment Tool) were designed to give churches tools to keep their focus on the biblical principles and guidelines for being the church while at the same time providing guidance on how to help them engage their culture and grow their church.
A Transformational Church is a church where:
- People become more like Christ
- The church acts more like the body of Christ
- The community becomes more of a reflection of the kingdom of God
- Learn what’s working
- Find out what needs attention
- Start having the right conversations"
(The email, only slightly edited to preserve the anonymity of its sender, continues)
"I am fully convinced that unless people fully repent or are aware of their
sin and how it separates us from God's blessing, we are, as Paul said, just
beating in the wind.
I am not angry at anybody and have respect for my superiors, but now have
more questions than answers; and this is after spending my life in the organized
church.
I sense that that alone is our problem. The
early church was never organized in the context we think of as "the organized
church."
It was (a CGGC pastor who recently planted a 'church') who had Bible School this year using fun and
games to attract people. I just don't get it! The old saying is as true today
as it ever was, the way you attract people, is the way you keep them. . ..
I've grown to dislike weddings, funerals, baptisms, as we know and practice
them.
...Someone
has to love the quest for truth and then hold that truth in passion and love.
So keep up, keeping up as (Rev. Whozitz) would say. He
went strong until he was in his 80s. He Loved God and people too."
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Gang,
As I sometimes say, there are people in the CGGC who see things more clearly than I do, feel at least as passionately about the misguided actions of leadership as I do and, at times, speak more strongly than I would. I shout, "Amen! Hallelujah!" to this entire commentary.
This commentator highlights three problems with today's CGGC. Unless we turn from them, they will be the death of our body:
- Lack of repentance and acknowledgment of our sin--even at the highest level of the CGGC,
- Increasing (top-ended) organization, and
- An absence of love for the quest for truth.
Gang,
ReplyDeleteWhat follows is a private reply I received to the post in which I recorded that email sent to me about the "Gathering." Interspersed (in bold) are comments I made to that reply.
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The problem with a solution to the 'decline' and responses to it is they are dependent on how much one 'feels' the decline. Amen! Very well said, my friend. As Paul makes clear in 2 Cor. 7, the act of repentance comes as a result of the feeling of an emotion. "Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation..." The problem with Western, organized Christianity is a malaise based in contentment. If I don't get headaches, I care little about headache medications, no matter how miraculous.
In my corner of the world, I have no sense of decline and no desire for a strategy out of it. My personal sense of decline comes, not from being in my corner of the world, but from reading the Gospels and the Book of Acts and from reading the history of Christianity and seeing what the norm is for God's people when the Spirit is present and blessing. At Faith, we are failing based on the values of the shepherd culture but we have started over "with the end in mind" and are attempting to understand who and what a disciple is and, based on that, seeking to become disciples. And, we are becoming what we understand disciples to be.
BUT, we haven't become who and what the early church disciples were. And, I grieve over that. My sense is that many of us (at Faith) share that grief.
Paul commands us to "work out (our) salvation in fear and trembling." I believe that, at Faith, we are doing that.
But, the shepherd mafia doesn't so that. From my experience, it resists the idea that those who encounter the Trinity, experience fear. But, read Acts 2:43. That word 'awe' (NIV) is the Greek word phobos--fear. Fear must be a central component of our walk with Christ through the Spirit.
If our churches were exploding in numbers, the problems would still be the same. The need for repentance would still be the same. Amen! Repentance is the first act of discipleship.
Many congregations and larger bodies are declining and I suppose that decline is an opportunity to speak a different word to them, but again, numbers (which is sadly how everyone seems to continue to define success) aren't the cause of our need for repentance. Not the numbers of people who sit their hineys in pews and chairs in sanctuaries--the goal of the shepherds. But, the numbers of people who love the least of their neighbors as themselves? The decline in that number IS the cause of our need for repentance.
And, I will say as I've said before, in the first days of the Church of God, we did love the least of our neighbors as Jesus commanded.
I suppose it's a good thing we are declining. If not, probably nobody at all would hear you... More people are listening to me than you may realize. Certainly more are than those on the mountaintop want to acknowledge.
However, my sense is that the people who hear and listen to me are still uncertain what to do--especially in reference to the shepherd mafia. Most of them do understand that our shepherd leaders--and their unwillingness to acknowledge sin and repent of it--are the essence of our problem..
Gang,
ReplyDeleteI have many problems with this Transitional Church/TCAT idea.
The most foundational is the foolishness that permits denominational leaders within and outside the CGGC to think that change can take place without repentance.
I spent many years as a member of the ERC Commission of "Church" Renewal. Many of the people the Commission encountered were in struggling churches.
In fact, there were instances in which I wondered--using the New Testament standard, "by their fruit you will know them"--if even one person in a church was genuinely a follower of Jesus.
Now, I'm imagining taking the TCAT to the typical CGGC congregation and, attempting without calling people to repentance and seeing repentance take place, seeing anything good happen.
The problem in most of our churches is a heart problem. People do not love the LORD with all their heart, soul and strength. They do not love their neighbor as themselves. They don't love each other as Jesus loved them and they certainly don't love their enemies.
They must repent of those things because, in failing in those loves, they are living in disobedience to the essential truths of God's Word.
How can our leaders read the Bible and imagine, for a moment, that another program will transform churches composed of people who have not themselves been transformed?
Read the Word.
It can't.
Gang,
ReplyDeleteI decided to look into this TCAT thingy that the General Conference wants us all to consume. I hoped to purchase a copy so I could check it out for myself.
Forget that! It goes for 200 Big Ones to start out!
Yet, without spending the bucks, I learned all I'm certain I need to know. The sales pitch begins,
"The Transformational Church Assessment Tool (TCAT) provides your church with the ability to assess the health of the congregation...."
Ah, the old church health ploy, with CHURCH, not Kingdom, not Jesus, in the center of our universe. Certainly, it's tweaked church focus. But, it the same old animal now dolled up in the clothing worn by sheep.
Check it out:
http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/transformationalchurch/tool.asp
This is precisely what those of us who once embraced the ideas sported on the blog: The CGGC in the Emerging World would have puked on.
Clearly, from a theological point of view, the CGGC is moving backwards.
We must repent!