Missing Conference

I am not attending the 2014 ERC sessions.  I will miss the whole thing--with, by the way, a valid excuse passed on to me by Kevin Richardson.  I have a valid reason, I suppose, for my absence.  My job keeps me away.  I will be working every day ERC is in session and I would have to pass up a large chunk of one week's wages to attend Conference.

While my excuse has been accepted and I know that I genuinely have to be a place other than Conference sessions, I am discovering that to be away from Conference is creating strong, mixed and unexpected emotions in me.

Among them are:

1. Guilt.  I know full well that, as an ordained minister in the ERC, I have taken vows in the name of the Lord, to the Conference.  Among the responsibilities that fall on me, as a result of taking those vows, is to attend annual Conference.  I take the vows I have made to the church, as an ordained clergyman, very seriously.  I believe that I am accountable to the Lord for the promises I have made to the ERC.  I also believe that, on the Day I stand before Him, I will give an account to Him for the way I have fulfilled the oaths I have taken.  Hence, for reasons that impact eternity, missing Conference is hard for me.
   
   In addition, a great part of the prophetic criticism I offer of Ed Rosenberry and his staff and, to a much lesser degree, of Kevin Richardson and his staff, is based on my conviction that they are obscenely unfaithful to promises they have made to the CGGC and that they hold themselves above the Eldership Covenant we all share--especially those among them who have taken CGGC ordination vows.  While I am convinced that my reasons for absenting myself from Conference are legitimate and based in what I have come to believe is important for me in living out my calling, and while my absence is excused, I will feel a twinge of guilt the next time I point to our leadership's acts of insubordination and their cavalier abuse of their Eldership Covenant with us.
2. Loss.  I have given up a lot in order to choose truth over relationship in my involvement in the CGGC.  There was a time when I counted Ed Rosenberry among my close acquaintances and when I numbered Justin Meier, Don Dennison and Lance Finley and Kevin Richardson among my friends.  There is no time in a year when I sense the loss of those cordial relationships and my isolation in the CGGC more than I do when ERC is in session.
   
   Last year, at ERC sessions, I was ignored by many who once greeted me warmly.  I was greeted coolly and only in passing by others.  The one person in the Conference who remains closest to me left after the first morning's session, never to return.  Another brother in spirit and prayer warrior never showed at all.  Two who had remained attentive, if not supportive, to my gift and calling took the opportunity to forcefully, yet lovingly, confront me over what they see as my errors in judgment in living out my gift and calling.
   
   The Spirit tells me that I have to contend for the gospel and its truth as energetically, uncompromisingly, tenaciously and faithfully as I am able and I know that I must do that because I will stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ one day.  Still, this is the moment in the year when I feel what I have lost.
   
   In the past year, I have come to feel the emotion packed into the writings and acts of the biblical prophets with great intimacy.  I feel their frustration and their sorrow, their fear for themselves and for those to whom they minister.  And I know the loneliness that Elijah expressed and the weeping Jeremiah engaged in.  Never do those feelings emerge and tempt me more powerfully than they do when my brother and sister Elders in the ERC gather.
3. Self-Pity.  Many have been the times when I've wanted to give in and to repent of what I am saying and doing, to confess to my CGGC brothers and sisters my sin of outside-the-CGGC-foldism and to promise to be a good pastor/parish priest, to preach sermons, to lead Bible studies to engage in ordinances and to provide some congregation with the best ecclesiastical products and services I am able to so a congregation can sit in its seats/pews and consume to its heart's content.  And, there are times when I blame Him for what I believe is His Spirit preventing me from doing that. 
   
   There are times when I so want to blame Him and pity myself.
   
   And, during this time, I am most tempted to place that blame and walk that path.

I wish my ERC brothers and sisters well in my absence.  It hurts not to be with them.  I have read the email about repentance.  I hope they begin that journey.  I hope they find their way.

Blessings.

For His Kingdom,


bill

Mixed Signals from the ERC about Conference Sessions

Gang,

I've been reading through my ERC Conference docket for next week's gathering with the greatest of interest.

This year's theme?  (BTW, theme?  What, in the New Testament plan, is a theme for a gathering of elders?)

The theme?  "It is well!"

And, while it is true that the official explanation of the theme highlights the need for wellness among "pastors, leaders and congregations in order for God to bless the work of the Conference," based on the reports contained in the docket, things are already extremely well!

It is already extremely well, we are told, with Church Planting and Church Renewal.  All is now very well as far as Conference leadership is concerned--and with finances too.  This has been a year of abundant wellness in the ERC--on par, it seems, with the wellness experienced by the church in the year of the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost!

The docket is nothing less than a manual for a "Yay God" orgy!

It is surprising then--or, is it, really?--that ERCers'd receive an email from the Commission on Discipleship last week containing these words: 

"...we are asking each congregation within the region to pray for the annual conference in session.  These past several years have shown that Satan likes to work against us, we have seen the need for repentance and for relationships to be healed and we have seen the benefit of being united in Christ."

"The need for repentance?"

So what are we to believe?  Is all well?  Or do relationships need to be healed?  Has our shepherd leadership become so desperate that it's now able to publish the "R" word and confess that it sees the need for repentance in the ERC?  Do we lack unity?

This is typical.

And it highlights four of my "Characteristics of the CGGC Brand:"

1. Mellow Relationships over truth.  We, very simply, don't seem to know what the truth about the state of the ERC is.
2. Strong Central Planning with low-level Clergy and Congregational Rebellion.  Relationships in need of healing?  The need for the R word?  Could it be that, outside of the good-old-boy/girl-network, few of us are really feel blessed by what's happening on the ERC mountaintop?
3. Cynicism.  There is a serious lack of trust coming from the top down, going from the bottom up and stretching from side to side in the ERC.  Leaders feel unsupported by those they presume leadership authority over and those in the hinterland often feel as if their visions and passions are disrespected by the people who will ascend the stage next week.
4. To Talk is to Walk-ism.  The docket seems to possess the deep-seated CGGC conviction that leaders can talk a Spirit-led and blessed reality into existence simply by saying it exists while others sense that those people don't possess that authority in the Kingdom of God.

The truth? 

It is not well in the ERC.  The Commission on Discipleship is correct in its assessments of the problem of broken relationships, the need for repentance and for unity.

I suggest that the pattern to be followed must come from the Book of Jonah where the leader put on sack cloth and led, by example, confession of sin and repentance.

But, reading that email, my sense is that ERC leaders are convinced that "they," not "we," need to do the confessing and repenting.