Repentance that was not Blessed: The CGGC as a Case Study

As some who read this blog know, I am trained as a historian. 

In what follows, I attempt, using the tools employed by students of the past, to understand what I believe to be the most important ministry initiative in my faith tradition, the Churches of God, General Conference, in at least the last 80 years.

As you who read the blog also know, I believe that I am gifted to speak prophetically among God's people.  

No doubt, my prophetic inclination is present in this thread. Yet, if you read what follows, you'll probably find what I write here to be more academic than prophetic in tone. 

I've been musing over this for some time. While, as I write this I've not yet come to final conclusions, I hope what I write will be read and that it will edify the people of the Kingdom.

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In recent years, I have become a student of repentance.

I continue to call for repentance and I have a reasonably clear understanding of what repentance is but I am honest enough with myself to confess that I'm not entirely certain what it is.

In my faith tradition, the Churches of God, General Conference, there was an important and sincere move toward repentance approximately 25 years ago. I'm convinced the effort was heartfelt and genuine. Yet, in the end, it failed to produce a change that the Lord blessed.

I've been reflecting on how that happened and on what it means.

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When the move to a change of heart and mind and action began all those years ago, I was out of close touch with events taking place in the CGGC. At the time, I was working on a degree in Church History at a school in New Jersey and none of our congregations were in my area.

However, later on, as the move toward change was developing, I began working on staff at Winebrenner Theological Seminary and my wife was working on CGGC General Conference staff, and, for a time, she was actually reporting on events as the editor of The CHURCH ADVOCATE. 


In the end, after what I'm certain was much prayer and planning, a denomination-wide campaign was developed. The campaign was enthusiastically embraced by leadership at the General Conference level and by the leadership in many of the Conferences.

The campaign was vigorously promoted in church publications, at General Conference sessions, at local Conference sessions and even by the seminary in its History and Polity class, which I was teaching at the time.

The campaign had a title worthy of Madison Avenue:

MORE AND BETTER DISCIPLES: 35,000 in Worship by 2000

At that time there was a disturbed awareness, among many in the know in CGGC leadership, that the denomination was declining. More to the point, there was a heartfelt desire to vigorously confront the truths about the denomination that were driving the decline.

Then, after many prayers had been prayed, dozens of men and women in CGGC leadership rallied, with enthusiasm and focus, around the goal of increasing worship attendance among the approximately, at that time, 350 congregations of the CGGC by about one third--to a cumulative average of 35,000. That attendance goal was to be achieved by the year 2000.

Attendance goals were set and published for every congregation in the CGGC.

All of the people in leadership at the General Conference level, most leaders in the local Conferences, hundreds of pastors, many on congregational Church Council members and thousands of the members of the CGGC laity brimmed with optimism in the early days of the campaign.

In a body in which there was already a dangerous degree of cynicism, among some pastors and congregations toward denominational leadership, there was an unusual degree of unity and acceptance of the vision cast from headquarters.

Many pastors and churches pursued the goal and worked to fulfill the vision.

Nevertheless, in the end, the campaign failed miserably.

There was some playing with numbers near the end to try to give the impression that conditions improved but, in the end, people on the ground floor of the denomination, the congregations, knew the truth.

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In the aftermath of 35,000 X 2000, the statistical reality is that the CGGC continues to decline.

In the years since the end of the campaign, dozens of CGGC churches have closed their doors. Recently, Lance Finley, the current CGGC Executive Director noted that 80% of the remaining CGGC congregations are either stagnant or declining.

The optimism of the first days of 35,000 has been replaced by either an increased cynicism among many pastors and congregations or, at the very least, apathy toward any initiative coming down from the leadership of the General Conference or the Conferences.

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The question I'm asking is, why?

The Lord to Whom the framers of 35,000 prayed is the Lord of all power and grace and mercy and authority and love and blessing.

Yet, He did not bless. And, He is not blessing.

Paul of Tarsus says that godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation. Paul said that to a congregation, to a body of believers, who had recently experienced salvation, after falling into sin.

So, why, considering Who the Lord is and what the CGGC attempted, did salvation not come here?

In threads that follow, I'll struggle to suggest my own answers to the question of why.

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The generation of CGGC leaders who framed 35,000 has now, for the most part, moved on.

For the most part, the denomination is now being led by people who were relatively young men when 35,000 was planned and failed.

How the CGGC moves forward, if it moves forward, is in the hands of the people of a younger generation.

How will they? Will they, move forward?