I Still Don't Know Why I was Defrocked

If you were present at ERC sessions last week when the status of my credentials was discussed, you, apparently, know something I still don't know, that is, the grounds for the attack on my status as an ordained minister in ERC.


When I received the letter from Jack Selcher last year, Jack's letter informed me that my credentials were removed "for cause."


Later, I wrote to Dr. Richardson to ask what the cause was and he said that actually no specific cause was mentioned in the Ad Council meeting.


No one has given me one since then. I still don't know, from anyone in authority, what I did wrong or how I could have repented to be restored with my brothers and sisters in the Conference.


Obviously, reasons were given in ERC sessions. People apparently voted and with some reason. Right?


Does anyone else find this remarkable?


And, well, unbiblical?

How it FEELS to be Defrocked

Actually as the story of my defrocking was unfolding, and it took almost exactly a year from the time I became aware that the men on the Standing Committee were working to take my credentials away, I wondered how being defrocked would feel. And, ahead of time, I didn't know.


So, how do I feel now that I have been defrocked?


Oddly, surprisingly, I don't feel much. And, I don't think I'm in denial.


So I've been wondering why.


For a while, I thought that part of it is that my emotion is going elsewhere. For the last week or so, the family has been going through some especially difficult issues related to my parents' physical and mental health. So much so that, on the morning of the day the vote was going to be taken to defrock me I went for a walk early (before I left for work) and I planned to think and pray about the defrocking and found that I couldn't do that because my mind focused itself on mom and dad and how we, as a family, would work through their current problems.


In recent days, I've probed my heart for any emotion: Sadness, anger, frustration, fear, despair, abandonment or joy or relief or simple happiness. And, honestly, I'm finding nothing.


And, it finally dawned on me what's going on.


At times like this, my go-to prayer is based on Philippians 4, what is it? verses 6 & 7? "Don't be anxious about anything..."


And, I did pray according to that model when I did pray about being defrocked.


In the end, it has occurred to me that that prayer has been answered.


The promise in those verses is that God's peace that transcends all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.


That seems to be where I am.


I came to grips a long time ago that if I lived in my calling to be a prophet in the midst of a body in decline that I would have to say things people didn't want to hear and that I would become unpopular and would be despised by some.


And, that has become a reality to so great a degree that I have now been defrocked.


I'll take that over being unfaithful to what I believe the Lord has called me to be and do.


So, how do I feel being defrocked? Peaceful.

Thanks to all Who Tried

During the last 24 hours I held ordination in the CGGC's ERC, there was activity by some to attempt to find a way to preserve my status as a CGGC clergyman--more activity than I could have imagined.


To those of you who tried anything at all on my behalf, I say that I lack words to express the depth of my appreciation for what you did. I asked no one to do anything. I'm certain I only know a small part of the story. And, I am profoundly humbled by what I do know.


I love the Church of God and yearn to see it function as a powerful movement in the way it did in its early days. To those of you who still thought I could be a part of bright days for our body, I can do nothing more than thank you from the greatest depth of my heart.


While I no longer am a CGGC clergyman, I remain an active, or at least passionately interested, member of the CGGC laity and will do all I can in that capacity to advance the Kingdom through the Church of God community.


I believe the Lord is still calling me to use my gifts and calling in the Church of God community.

THE LAST DAY OF THE JASPERISM BLOG WAS A DOOZY

The day I was defrocked was the day I shut down JASPERISM.


It set amazing records that day.


In a normal day when I was active on the blog, I averaged 50ish page views a day over the courses of a month. The all time high on one day was just shy of 120.


On defrocking day, I put nothing on the blog and only checked it briefly during my afternoon break on the job and I was stunned. Google recorded 78 hits in just one hour and more than 150 for the day--and I shut down the blog before the day was over!


I mentioned that to Evie and she laughed about the free advertising the ERC gave me. But, alas, that address now leads nowhere.


Toodles, Jasperism. Those were interesting years.

Thoughts About How Being Defrocked Changes My Daily Life

It shouldn't change much, really, as far as I can tell.


My employer won't care. I am well known there to be a Christian.


In our gatherings, no one, probably will ever find out and, if they should, they won't understand. And, I stopped functioning as a parish priest a long time ago.


I don't get any financial remuneration from following Jesus, so there is no issue there.


In one way, I've known for years that this might eventually happen.


Still there is a sense of shock.


And, I still don't know the specifics of what took place in the actual defrocking.

Fresh Expression 4-17-16

A very, very nice meeting today.


The crowd was small but the fellowship grooved.


A few things were noteworthy.


One is that my mom has been ill for the past few days so, as we were mentioning prayer concerns, Evelyn picked up her phone and called mom to check up on her. When the call ended, we all shouted, "Bye, mom!!!" Try that in your Sunday morning show!


We normally allow everyone who wants to pray out loud to do so. One of the guys from the home did that today, for the first time. This is the guy whom I call Bennie, the guy who has digestive issues and who has clogged up the toilet a few times. Bennie is mentally challenged and has the mind of about a five year old. But, he prayed compassionately and intelligently.


It's at times like hearing Bennie talk to the Lord in our gathering that I know that what we are doing has a spiritual validity no traditional Sunday morning show could touch.


Also, quite unusually, I played a leading role in our time in the Word and in the taking of the bread and cup.


And, I boiled the pasta for our spaghetti and meatballs meal.


Big day pour moi, eh?


I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The ERC Yay God, Old Wineskin Sessions

We know that the CGGC is in significant spiritual and numerical decline and has been spiritually declining for 80 years and declining in number for 50 years.


And the truth is that people in its positions of power and authority, especially in the east, are still attempting to reverse the trend by perfecting the old ways that created the disaster in the first place.


So, here is a useful way to understand what will take place at ERC sessions this week:


Staff members and Commission leaders will stand up and smile and describe with unflagging joy and optimism, the latest techniques they are using to repair the old wineskin. They will praise God with their certainty that these new techniques will finally work.


They will also describe the new grape hybrids which, they really do know, will become tasty wine without bursting the wineskin--again.


Doesn't anyone remember that you can't make new wine in an old wineskin?


It seems clear to me that the object of their adoration is the wineskin, not the Lord.

My Pastoral Care Worker

Yesterday, on my day off from work, I had lunch with Randy Jenkins, my Pastoral Care Worker. The time I spent with him blessed me, as it always does.


One thing we discussed briefly is that the Pastoral Care Worker ministry of the Conference is being trashed at the end of June, due to financial priorities.


Last year, during Pastor Appreciation Month, Dr. Richardson noted that, in his opinion, the pastors of the Conference are our greatest resource. At almost exactly the same time, he published the new budget which preserved Conference staff salaries and the Conference office fund and eliminated 100% of the stipends of all Pastoral Care Workers.


This strikes me as a painful and tragic example of the CGGC Brand characteristic, TO TALK IS TO WALKISM.


As believers in Jesus, we know that what a person sacrifices for reveals what s/he actually loves.


The Conference is being called on to sacrifice so staff can be paid comfortable salaries while the people who are in the trenches caring for our pastors are being told not to let the door hit them on their way out of the ministry of the Conference.


Foolish.


Hypocritical.


Don't ever believe it again when you hear tender words about how the Conference values its pastors.


Follow the money.

The ERC Conference Sessions: Defrocking Me

In one way or another, the ERC leadership's effort to recall my ministerial credentials will be addressed at this year's Conference sessions. The last thing I heard from Dr Richardson suggested to me that he will consider the approval of the Ad Council minutes to amount to the Conference's act of recalling my ordination.


Here are several musings from me:


1. In my opinion, defrocking me through the approval of minutes is underhanded.


2. After exchanging several emails and having a face to face with Dr Richardson, I'm still not certain of the grounds for the removal of my credentials. As far as I know, there are none.


3. There is no doctrinal issue. I fully support all of the teachings of the church.


4. There is no issue, as far as I know, of practice. I live out, as faithfully as I can, the CGGC Mission and Vision statements.


5. My only "sin," as far as I know is exercising my duty as an elder, to interact with other elders and to express my opinions.

Thoughts about the ERC 2016 Yay God Sessions Beforehand

1.  The Conference took taken me off of its email list some time ago, which, in itself is interesting.  In the months since I have no longer received the email Newsletter or its Healthy Church Update, I have come to realize that there is an advantage in this to me.  Because of the greater metaphorical distance between the Conference and me, I find that I am better able to know the Conference by the fruit it produces--at least, the fruit I can see and smell and touch and taste. 

It has been nearly impossible for me even to get a link to the 2016 Yay God Journal but, in the end, recently, I did get a look at it.  That Journal provides fruit for all to inspect and, as Jesus says, to judge.

Having looked it over, my heart bleeds.

2.  Again this year, as almost every year, the ERC is working to perfect its Constitution.  This year, the mountaintoppers are suggesting several tweaks.  So much energy, so much passion devoted to getting the Constitution just right.  We are farther along than ever in pursuit of our passion to perfectly institutionalize our body. 

There is an incredible irony in this.  When John Winebrenner introduced his 27 point list of the faith and practice of the Church of God in 1844, he said,

The Church of God has no authoritative constitution...but the Bible. The Bible she believes to be the only creed, discipline, church standard, the test-book, which God ever intended his church to have.

How could it hurt us, really, to throw out the Constitution, de-incorporate and simply trust God's Word?

When do you suppose was the last time the ERC devoted energy and passion to getting our handling of the Bible correctly?  Well, He knows us by our fruit.

Very seriously: It seems to me that, at the level of the ERC mountaintop, the Conference has become everything that Winebrenner's opponents in the Harrisburg German Reformed Church in the 1820s wanted the church to be.

3.  As I've noted in the past, this is the Conference in which my fortieth anniversary in ministry is to be celebrated.  It, of course, isn't being celebrated, even acknowledged.

It strikes me that, in its handling of the touchy issue of how to acknowledge my years in the Conference, the ERC is producing fruit that is worth noting and, indeed, judging.

The ERC does a horrible job in dealing with truth, and by that I do not mean biblical truth (though that, too, is a problem).

When the ERC is confronted with a reality that is difficult, one of its strategies is to pretend away that reality.  That's what it has been done in the case of the fortieth anniversary of my ministry.  It's just pretending that my forty years of ministry didn't happen.  This is an extremely dysfunctional way of behaving.

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Because I have a full-time job, I will miss Conference again this year.  Again, my emotions over that fact are mixed.  One prominent emotion is sadness.  To all of my friends whom I only spoke face to face at Conference, I will miss you.

I do plan to attend next year's Yay God session, as a delegate, even if it is as a lay delegate.

I will also Run as a MINISTERIAL Delegate to General Conference

Why not?


Since the status of my credentials is currently in dispute, I could be a ministerial delegate to General Conference as well. So, FYI, I will also accept that nomination and serve as a ministerial delegate.


If nominated, I will run; if elected, I will serve.


FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE IN TWENTY ONE SIX, VOTE FOR BILL SLOAT TO BEGIN THE FIX!

I Am Willing to Serve as a Lay Delegate at General Conference Sessions

The ERC holds its annual Yay God sessions next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I haven't heard any official word from anyone on how the mountaintoppers are going to handle my defrocking.


The last I heard, months ago, is that the plan was to consider me defrocked when the Administrative Council minutes are approved.


So, if you are a voter at the ERC Yay God meeting next week and you mindlessly grunt for the approval of those minutes, understand that you probably are voting to remove my credentials.


In any event, the mountaintoppers are determined to do at least enough to get the Conference to call for my credentials.


That being the case, I will still be a member of the ERC laity. I am a member of an ERC Congregation and have held membership in the Conference for more than 40 years. I am keenly aware of issues within the Conference and am as informed regarding the teachings and practices of the CGGC as anyone. And, I am as committed to advancing the ministry of our body as possible.


Therefore, I believe that I would be the ideal Lay Delegate to General Conference sessions. So I am making it known that...


IF NOMINATED TO BE A LAY DELEGATE TO GENERAL CONFERENCE IN 2016 I WILL RUN AND IF ELECTED I WILL SERVE.


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Now, for this to happen, at least one person will have to nominate me from the floor of Conference when lay delegate nominations are entertained.

Fresh Expression 4-10-16

It strikes me that our Sunday group is finding an identity and, for the moment, I believe, that that is a good thing. The comfort that comes with a settled identity can lead to spiritual apathy in the future and that potential problem will have to be kept in mind but it's not a problem for us yet. We seem still to be growing spiritually.


Today, one of our friends from the home confessed that she was struggling with anxiety. We responded in two ways. First  we addressed a lot of our song time and Word time and prayer time to issues related to assurance.  Second, Evie suggested that we reconfigure the chairs and light a fire in the fireplace, which we did and the sight and sounds of the fire were relaxing.


Here are a few things I've been noticing or noticed today.


-Maggie, the world's greatest church greeter, relaxes to the point that she almost melts as soon as we begin singing. It's amazing.


-While it's true that our purpose in gathering is very serious, the tone of our time together is very lighthearted. I paid close attention to the amount of laughter that took place today and I was surprised. We make a joyful noise, not in our singing but in the glee that is in our hearts. The laughter especially predominates our meal time together. (Try that in your mega church, eh?)


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One other more general note. I write this gathering journal for many reasons. One is to show you who read it what life in community is like for people who walk together in the way we do.


When we began this, I believed in it but had no idea what this would look like or feel like, or if it was even possible.


Based on comments I receive, I know that many of you are reading and are following along with us as we journey.


I appreciate your interest and the kind and supportive comments you make from time to time.

Comments on Lance's eNews "Boomboxes and iPods" Challenge

Gang,

Immediately below is a poorly formatted copy of the April 1, 2016 eNews.

I had hoped to comment on it on the blog but lacked the time early on.  If I entered my comments today, the current issue would be replaced by the next one before my comment could be approved--if it would even have been approved--for publication on the blog.

Please struggle through the poor formatting.  Lance, again, has composed a potent challenge for our body.  Following my copy of the text of the eNews I make a few comments that I feel strongly about. 

Please read them and feel free to respond on or off the blog.

bill

------------------------------------------

Boomboxes and iPods

April 1, 2016

Sometimes it’s the ordinary things that help us in seeing the big picture. I was in the shower last
Saturday morning and was somewhat surprised by the music that was blaring through the bathroom
wall from my daughter Molly’s room. She had cranked up an old CD and was singing along and
thumping around her room (either dancing or bouncing off the walls – or maybe a combination of both).

My immediate reaction was to sympathize with my parents who often had to ask or demand that I “turn down that racket." Then it hit me with full force: this is so odd to hear someone else’s music.
I grew up during the advent of the “boombox.” The bigger the
boombox, the better. The music had to be loud. The boombox was
portable and it wasn’t uncommon to see people walking about,
boombox on shoulder with music blaring for everyone to hear. This
was also the era when stereos with large speakers were the norm.
It had to be bigger and louder. It was fun to “crank the dial to
eleven.” This probably explains why I have a hard time hearing
today.

Hearing the sound pouring the wall last Saturday morning
reminded me of how much things have changed since I was a kid.
While my parents had to occasionally ask me to “turn down the
racket,” I assume that my struggle with my own children will be
more along the lines of “take off your headphones” or “take out
your ear buds.”

Music (and all media) is much more personalized today. You don’t
see many boomboxes or big speakers, but you do see lots of ear
buds and Beats by Dre headphones. While my generation might
have blasted their music for everyone to hear, whether anyone
wanted to hear it or not; today we see something very different. Headphones and ear buds are
everywhere. Whether music, podcasts, movies or television shows, it’s become the norm to enjoy
these artistic expressions in the privacy of one’s own earphones via some form of portable technology.

Imagine the looks I might get today if I decided to take a stroll down Main Street with a boombox
blaring on my shoulder (this is the kind of thing I could see my friend, pastor George Jensen, doing for an April Fools’ Day joke)!

Now we can debate whether this is good or bad, but that’s really not my point. I don’t see many
boomboxes these days and I doubt they’re going to make a comeback anytime soon.
So what’s my point to all this besides rambling down memory lane? The world of the boombox was
different than our present iPod world. You had to go to the store to buy a cassette or CD for your
boombox. You had to use an insane amount of DD batteries or use a power cord to keep the thing
playing. Today’s world is different. You don’t have to go to a physical
“store” to buy music, you just download it. Your electronic device of
choice not only plays music, but it can do lots of other things as well.
It’s not necessarily better or worse, but it is different!

Is our approach to ministry perfectly designed for boomboxes in a world
filled with iPods? People are asking different questions today than they
did in previous generations, are we willing to answer those questions or
just simply offer the answers we’ve been prepared to answer? People
are interacting with information and with others in different ways than
they did in the past: are we willing to adapt or will we keep offering up
the same old, same old because we’ve always done it this way or
because it’s comfortable for us.

I don’t want to imply that this is easy or even that I’ve somehow figured
it all out. It’s not easy and I certainly struggle to know how to respond to
some of the challenges that we’re seeing in our world, but I’m
convinced that we’re going to have to take a different approach if we
want to bear spiritual fruit.

What needs to change in our approach to ministry in light of the changing context we find ourselves in?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and ideas on this.

Have a great weekend (in light of my reflections this past week, I plan to retreat to the basement and
show my kids how to crank dad’s old stereo up to 11 – Brenda’s away and this is what happens when
I’m left unsupervised). Let’s keep stretching to understand what Jesus is doing in this world of His and how He wants us to join Him in that work!

Christ’s Peace,

Lance

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I have three comments to contribute to the conversation.  The first two are 40,000 foot comments.  The third, which I have considered not entering but will, is sea level and connects to what we here are doing on the most intimate level.  It is for that reason I considered not entering it.  In the end, I decided that it raises a truth worth considering.

1.  Using Lance's idea, I believe that the most important reason for the decline of the CGGC is that, if a pastor adopts the iPod, as soon as a sixtysomething or seventysomething Church Board member who prefers 33 1/3 LPs on vinyl played on a stereo consul becomes upset and complains to the Conference, (at least in my Conference) Conference leaders will say, "No problem Deacon Jones, we'll remove your iPod pastor and find you one who still play vinyl on your stereo consul.

Conference leadership has, in all of my four decades in the CGGC, never even one time, made a risky decision to stand up for truth and, most importantly, for the people who believe what they are saying and begin to put it into practice.

That's why our congregations are still playing vinyl LPs vinyl on stereo consuls.  And it's why we will continue to be a couple of generations behind the times.

Repenting of this will be hard for our mountaintoppers to do but we will never put Lance's wisdom into practice until they practice repentance in this way.

2.  More important than the device we use is the music we listen to.

In the CGGC we have given up life lived according to the message preached and modeled by Jesus and His early followers for something cheaper and faddish.

Using Lance's idea, in Boomer-speak, we have given up Abbey Road to groove on The Best of the 1910 Fruitgum Company: Simon Says.

Even if our Conference leaders would stand up for the iPod and sacrificially defend and stand up for the men and women who use it, if they don't return to unashamed obedience to the Way Jesus taught and lived, we are forever lost.

We must all repent of the bubble gum Gospel that passes for truth in the CGGC today.

-------------------------------

3.  And, very personally, as profoundly as I am challenged by what Lance has written, from firsthand experience, I, honestly, don't believe he means it enough to actually live it.

Here's why:  Lance has never even sniffed what we are doing here in our small community of gatherings.

If he was committed to the iPod, he would have at least taken what we are doing seriously enough to briefly investigate it.  And, he hasn't done that, even for one nanosecond.

Certainly, upon knowing what we do, and why and how we do it, Lance might conclude that there is nothing here for him and the rest of the body.

In fact, my guess is that, if Lance did take a look at the iPod we have developed, he would conclude that there is little, if anything, of value here.

But, the real life truth is that, as far as we are concerned, Lance has never left the highest peak of the CGGC mountain since he was elevated to it.

I, personally, know of nothing that leads me to conclude that Lance actually practices his very challenging thinking.

Having said that, I love him as much as I ever have.

Fresh Expression 4-3-16

We almost didn't gathering today. It was very cold for this time of year and there was a blustery wind with a wind chill factor barely above zero. We were concerned about bringing the folks from the home out in the cold and, since showing them grace and mercy has become so big a part of the Sunday group's raison d'être, I, at least, considered just bagging the whole deal.


I'm glad we didn't.


The fellowship grooved.


It was noteworthy in that, more than has become usual, there was a high level of participation by the gatherers.


If there can be a connection between gathering and disciple making, I believe that the freedom of potential disciples to participate in the gathering is essential. That happened better this time, than it has in the past.