Perhaps the greatest obstacle to recalibrating the CGGC from church obsession to Kingdom focus is our leadership's need to keep feathers unruffled, even [especially] the feathers of the people who are church-obsessed and, therefore, on the broad road that Jesus says leads to destruction.
What the Word demonstrates, and what it teaches, is that human change from its own way to God's comes only from a broken heart, hence David, in his sin, prayed, "Create in me a pure heart, O God."
Paul says it clearly, as the NIV has it, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation..." (2 Cor. 7:10)
The lives of the prophets and the framers of the Gospel story in the New Testament, John the Baptist and Jesus who cleansed the temple, make it apparent that for the change that leads to salvation to occur feathers have to be ruffled. Our hearts must be broken.
To this point, in his eNews series, Lance is attempting to teach us that Kingdom focus is a better way than church orientation. And, in the end, he may convince many that he is correct and they may intellectually agree with him but he will not lead change unless the hearts of CGGCers are broken.
Godly sorrow brings repentance. It was necessary for the prophets to work to achieve that sorrow. John pursued that sorrow. So did Jesus.
How foolish are we if we think we can create the change that is salvation without breaking hearts first, as they did.
The gentle, nurturing way of the shepherd/teacher is not suited to the challenge of this day.
What Paul does in 2 Corinthians 7:10 is to create the most extreme contrast between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow, he says, produces repentance which leads to salvation. However, worldly sorrow produces death.
ReplyDeleteDEATH
In the passage, Paul describes behaviors that indicate that the sorrow of the Corinthians is godly. These fruit of godly sorrow should scare the bejeebers out of shepherd mafia people. Among them: Indignation, fear, longing, zeal, punishment (ESV).
Honestly, I don't see godly sorrow in the call to move the CGGC to kingdom focus. If there is sorrow at all, it is worldly sorrow, motivated by the realization that our decline has reached the point that, if it continues much longer, our leadership hierarchy may crumble because there won't be enough money to pay salaries and upkeep of office facilities.
Godly sorrow, I believe, is rooted in the most constructive fear of the Lord. It is the sorrow that results when disciples realize that they have begun not to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and strength. It, organically, produces repentance and, from that act of repentance, comes restored relationship with God, and, therefore, salvation.
And, that is not the sorrow I'm seeing in the call to Kingdom focus. We seem to be sorry that our churches are declining/dying. Our sorrow is about the decline of the institutional church, not about our separation from the Father and His Son.
When there is godly sorrow, the call for repentance comes early and the act of repentance that follows is bold and radical.
Have you noticed that no call to repentance has even been uttered in the CGGC yet?
What we lack now, more than anything else, is godly sorrow.
Then, we must, well, repent.