Here's the central truth defining the demise of the CGGC:
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing is not blessing the CGGC.
In the wake of this decades long decay, the ERC mountaintoppers have developed yet another Strategic Plan.
It will fail.
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For many people, the most beloved of all Old Testament verses is Jeremiah 29:11 in which the Lord says, "I know the plans I have for you..."
Yet,...
...ERC mountaintoppers are saying, AGAIN:
"No Lord, forget that. We've got this covered. Forget your plans. Forget YOUR will. Do we have such a plan for you?!"
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Another beloved Old Testament verse has the Lord commanding, "Be still and know that I am God."
Yet, like a room full of four year old boys near the end of a too-long Sunday School lesson, ERC mountaintoppers can't wait and won't be still.
They don't trust in the Lord. Instead, they lean on their own understanding.
They insist on making their own ways.
And, as history has proved, their ways are futile.
If there is any future for the CGGC, it will be when its leaders stop.
Enough with their planning, enough with their programs, enough with their strategies and their ways.
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My academic training is in the history of revivalism.
I realized a long time ago, that what I was really studying was the history of paradigm change.
For years, I been aware of the fact that, as Hebrews 13:8 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever and, yet, life in the Spirit in always dynamic and vital, fresh and new.
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I've been reflecting on my last version of the Characteristics of the CGGC Brand, from 2015, and I'm noting change in some ways.
However, one CGGC trait that remains and, perhaps, has hardened, is Traditionalism.
In reading over the explanation on the Characteristic, I recalled that, from the beginning of the Church of God movement, John Winebrenner judged the Protestant Reformation to have failed.
In forming the Church of God, Winebrenner, and all of his brothers and sisters were calling for, and working for, "another great Reformation."
Yet, today's CGGC identifies itself with a definition of Christian community rooted, not so much in the Reformation of the 16th century, but with the congregational parish priest-focused leadership model rooted in the Middle Ages.
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What today's ERC mountaintoppers do when they create these plans is to attempt to blend Middle Ages ideas of Christian community with concepts of leadership from the Life Coach Fad and look to the future without turning to the Word or walking in the Spirit.
And so, THEY tell the Lord what THEIR plans are and what THEY hope He will bless.
Leaders of institutional religion have been doing that since Old Testament High Priests and kings were ignoring, even persecuting the likes of Elijah Isaiah and Jeremiah.
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Since the days of the Old Testament, religious people walking outside of God's will and blessing have taken their (strategic) plans to the Lord. He never blesses human plans.
The Lord's word through Jeremiah tells the truth.
It's God's plan, alone, that matters. It's His will we should be seeking.
Don't be on the wrong side of this one.
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"Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my father..." -- Jesus
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