Sunday, October 30, 2016

Another ERC Strategic Plan! Can You Believe it?

That word came down from the mountain top recently.

I could write a tome against it, and perhaps I will.

For now, I'll point out that it was just in 2015, LAST YEAR, that the ERC approved the last Strategic Plan. Can those of you in the ERC remember the enthusiasm for it spoken by the mountaintoppers when they sold it to you? JUST LAST YEAR?

And, I will add that I reviewed this blog from that time last year.  I was passionately critical of the, now old, Strategic Plan and predicted, last year, that it would come to nothing.

Shall we count that another prophecy about the CGGC/ERC on this blog fulfilled.

We must repent.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Gathering: 10-23-16 and Ramblings

This will be another time that we simply round up our gang from the home and take them to a local restaurant.

In the wake of clearing out my parents' Independent Living apartment, so much of their stuff is cluttering our place, and we are so exhausted from other commitments, that we chose not to invest energy in cleaning to be ready to host people.

I have a new position at the store which is a major assault on my introvert-ism. I'm exhausted from that more than anything else and Evie is juggling two part-time jobs at the moment plus keeping track of mom and dad and their adjustment to Assisted Living.

The mom and dad thing is a heavy emotional burden. Dad doesn't know where he is.  He's in Lancaster but is obsessed with getting back to Pennsylvania. Though we visit regularly, he thinks his children don't know where he is.

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One of my favorite BBC TV series, which has now ended, is Lewis. Lewis, when it was running, was one of the series that could be seen on PBS' Masterpiece Mystery.

Lewis' sidekick, James' Hathaway was struggling, as the series ended, with his father's decline into dementia in a way that hits pretty dern close to home for me and the show's treatment of the relationship between son and father is poignant to me. We have the whole series on DVD and I've been watching the final episodes.

Hathaway, incidentally, is very similar to me. He is a very cetebral person and a former seminary student who still passionately believes in God but has given up on the priesthood.

In the next to last episode, Hathaway is talking to Lewis about his pain and frustration related to his dad's loss of memory and Lewis says to him, "Life is only a series of moments and that's all we have."

For Hathaway's father, of course, those moments are now not connected with each other but for James, they still are.

At the end of the episode, Lewis and Hathaway make a moment with James' dad, which James will remember but his dad will lose.

Paralyzingly powerful to me.

I'm guessing that one of the writers of the show must be going through something similar to what our family is going through with dad.  In any case, Lewis' insight startled me.  I wasn't watching the show to glean life wisdom.

All I have now with dad are moments. For dad, the memory of those moments will dissolve as soon as the moment passes. And, that is profoundly sad.  But, for me, they will live on, probably even after I develop dementia, if I follow both of my parents path.

And, that is something that is very valuable.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

My Comment on the 10/14/16 eNews

If you haven't read it yet, Lance suggests churches set up programs and strategies that will present a welcoming image to people who might attend.

One of his suggestions is of the 21st century, i.e., to have an attractive, informative and up to date web site.  The others are from the 90s' failed 35,000 by 2000 program.

All of them amount to creating a skeleton that suggests that a church is welcoming.

My comment, which the administrator published, hits a theme that I began to scream at the CGGC in the days of Brian Miller's blog, which is that our real problem has nothing to do with the skeleton, or with programs and strategies, it is a matter of heart.

Our problem is that our people don't obey the love your neighbor as yourself command.

Our problem is that our leadership has been preaching, for years, that people attend church to consume religious products and services provided by clergy and staff, that our people attend church to BE loved, not to love and to be served, not to serve. And, our people are entrenched in that cheap grace Gospel.

Our problem is with leadership and its preaching of a false Gospel.

We can do what Lance suggests but if we don't repent of the false truth we embrace and if there is no change in our hearts we can have award winning web sites and perfect welcoming strategies and still produce no benefit for the Kingdom.

Nothing has changed.

We must repent.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

While My Cousin David was Dying

He's dead now.  He was the first of my generation of my dad's side of the family to die, and he was the second most young out of 20.

He developed lung cancer, which was stage 4 and had spread to his liver, spine and brain before he experienced symptoms.

He struggled for about six months until he succumbed.

One week before he died, his dad, my uncle, called me and told me that David was very ill that he was declining rapidly, was paralyzed from the waist down and that, before he died, he wanted to marry his long-time girlfriend.   My uncle called to ask me if I would go to David's home and perform the wedding.

I wanted to do exactly that.  Not because I enjoy doing weddings but because, in doing so, I would have a golden opportunity to offer David an opportunity repent of his sin and believe the Gospel.

But, I couldn't accept the invitation because the status of my credentials is cloudy due, in my opinion, to many acts of disobedience to the teachings of Jesus practiced by men who see themselves as leaders of my Conference.

I had to reject my uncle's invitation because I didn't want to bring David's widow into ERC politics. And put her in the position of having to deal with an illegal marriage. There are inheritance tax issues at stake.

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And, for the first time, I felt a negative emotion toward the people who set aside many teachings of Jesus to defrock me.

The fact is that I still have my ordination certificate and I have no intention, at the moment, of returning it. But, Evelyn said to me--shouted at me, "Bill, you are a defrocked minister!" In my mind, I'm not, but I couldn't bring my cousin's family into this ridiculous squabble.

And, as I said, for the first time I felt a negative emotion about the defrocking thing.  I was, well, furious doesn't touch describing my emotion. And, I'm still feeling that emotion.

Interestingly, I've been surprised about the emotional component of the defrocking thing.  I've been purely neutral and I guess it's because I believe I am a prophet walking reasonably faithfully in God's will and that this is what happens to prophets and, I guess, this is the peace of God that transcends all understanding. I only know that I have been emotionally neutral.

But, not when what my defrockers' actions touch my family in the way they have.

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Even at that, I forgive them, but when I think of my family, I can not forget this.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Gathering Update

The last time I journaled a Gathering was seven weeks ago, due to the malware issue. I have to say that, during the time I couldn't access the blog, I missed journaling our Gatherings more than anything else I do with the blog.

During that time, a coworker joined with us one time.   When we met at work later the next week, she asked if we did what we did during our Word time specifically to address an issue she is dealing with in her walk.  The truth is that we hadn't. I told her the truth: It was the Holy Spirit working, either in her or in us, or all of us.

One other time, when Evelyn led us to a passage, the time in the Word edifed me so powerfully that I needed to write it down here, but couldn't.

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Most weeks, however, we have not gathered.

Much of what we removed from my parents' place is still stored here and there were times our place was too cluttered to host people, other times that we were too exhausted to go to the effort and, last week, we were at the tail end of a cancer scare that involved Evie being rushed into a biopsy.  Thankfully, the biopsy showed no cancer.

All that said, we didn't gather today. This is a day when I expected to be too tired, and I am very tired.  The new responsibilities on the job make me more people-tired and wear on my introvert-ism, so I  am more tired of people than anything else.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

An Update for My Commission

It's been quite some time since I reported to my commission, due to the malware issue.

Actually, there is little to report.

I still have received no notification from the Conference regarding the recall of my credentials.

Possibly because of that, I've heard nothing from the Commission which began to forge a process to depants Faith Community.

Fascinatingly, I did get material from the Conference recently dealing with my pastoral contract for 2017.  Go figure.

I have initiated one more process, which is related to the Conference's decision to recall my credentials, that I can't detail at the moment out of obedience to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Malware

This is my first post here in about six weeks. I've been inactive because some malware blocked my access to the blog and we were up to here with stuff to do related to moving my parents into Assisted Living. Plus, I was adjusting to a new position on my job.

Obviously, I got the malware issue resolved. So, I'm back!

For now, I'll just add this:

WE MUST REPENT.