Friday is a late, long day for me at the store and it will probably be a slow day there. Saturday will probably be busier with people who do the family meal on Sunday. The day after Thanksgiving is not a day that people come out in droves to buy groceries. I'll work from noon to ten on Friday and about four to ten on Saturday, if God is willing.
Here are some more things that are on my mind:
In the small community of fresh expressions of church with which we gather, we seem to suffer from a strain of the same virus that is slowly killing the CGGC. Most of the CGGC churches are dying from decades of shepherd domination. We seem to be suffering from prophet domination. The difference between the CGGC and us is that in the CGGC, shepherd domination is deemed to be the correct and only way, despite the deadly evidence to the contrary. Here, we believe in APEST and yearn, especially, for an apostolic and evangelistic presence. We strive for the righteousness Jesus demands in Matthew 5-7 and 25 and that James demands and Hebrews describes in chapter 11, as fruit of genuine faith. We struggle to make disciples out of each other but we don't easily bring new people into the community. Sadly, I'd love apostolic input and have asked the ERC and GC for it in the past but to no avail.
Recently, I wrote to one of the mountaintoppers that the difference between the CGGC's current crop of self-described leaders and John Winebrenner is that Winebrenner lived at least as radically as he preached but that, while Today's CGGC talk is sometimes radical, our mountaintoppers today live a very moderate, Middle Class existence. (What were the dimensions of Winebrenner's corner office? Of Jesus'?) so Back in the day, the whole CGGC was a radical prophetic community because our people imitated Winebrenner's way of living. Today, our people do imitate CGGC leaders. And we are moderating ourselves to death.
I also added that I speak and live radically, at least by this day's CGGC standards. And I am being defrocked. But, compared to Winebrenner? What would the mountaintoppers do to Winebrenner if he showed up in the CGGC today?
I have received a list of the reasons that drove the ERC Standing Committee to recommend that my ordination be recalled and the list fascinates me. I've just looked the list over again. One thing is missing and that is the suggestion that there is a doctrinal issue. What is present is a slew of accusations that I have had the audacity to disagree passionately with the direction mountaintoppers are attempting to take the body.
In fact, my take on this conflict is that most of what I do that vexes mountaintoppers is claim that THEY actually are violating and abusing CGGC teachings to which they should be submitting. (In fact, in the past, I told one of the people on the mountain that he was insubordinate. Needless to say, he didn't repent.)
While I refuse to defend myself against the charges, I will say that the reality is that I have been correct on every count that I can think of when I have been specific in challenging the wisdom of mountaintoppers. Whatever did happen with HEAR THE CALL, or TRANSFORMATIONAL CHURCH?
It seems to me that it has become a sin in the CGGC to be passionate and pointed in even questioning leaders and their embrace of the latest fads, ESPECIALLY when the person doing the criticizing proves to be correct.
But, the real life truth is that, despite the best efforts from the mountain, we are declining faster than ever. Remember the stats from 2014? Perhaps we should heed the naysayers.
It seems that I am in trouble for disagreeing with mountaintoppers and being correct and noisy about it.
I also guess that my repeated observation that there is theological bankruptcy and theological corruption on our mountains has gotten me in trouble. I stand by those claims.
BTW, I think I am beginning to understand how the defrocking thing will work out. Do with me what you will but if what I think I'm seeing happens, I am sad.
On a different note, it seems to me that I have alienated some who, in the past, have been sympathetic to my prophetic take on things CGGC over the same sex marriage issue. I'm not sure how that happened. I suspect that that some people may think that I favor same sex marriage or believe that we should be marrying same sex people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What I see in all of this is a reflection of the theological corruption so common among all our people. We know that we need to call LGBT people to repentance but, for the most part, our churches have not ever heard the word repentance preached, or, if it's an old congregation, no one currently living has heard the word preached. Shepherd theology has been trumped. The world has called "check" on our Shepherd Mafia theology and our mountaintop Mafiosi don't know how to avoid hearing the world call "mate" with the next move.
They need to repent themselves before they can call anyone else to repent and, I'm afraid, their hearts are too hard to do that. One of most frequent prayer requests is that repentance will take place on our mountains.
We must repent.
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