I posted my Oozing Innovation blog three days ago, apparently, to great interest.
According to Google stats, readership of that post is already well more than two times the readership of a typical post on this blog and, already, approaching Top Ten status in readership here for all time! Over the years, I've put nearly 600 posts on this blog, under both blog names.
I'm not certain why the post has drawn so much attention. If you want to comment on why, on or off the blog, please do.
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When I entered that post, I planned to develop the topic with later posts because there is certainly more to say.
Here's where the putrefying denominational rubber meets the Kingdom road:
More than anywhere else in the CGGC, the ERC has been dominated by a Shepherd Mafia.
That domination extends many decades into the past.
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To simplify, and only as far as this issue is concerned:
Under the tyranny of the ERC Shepherd Mafia, only two types of people thrive:
1. People gifted by the Lord with the spiritual gift of being a shepherd,
2. People with other APEST gifts who subjugate their spiritual identity to institutional values and ways in order to advance in the system.
What happens to non-shepherd ERC APESTs who remain true to the Spirit and do not sacrifice their true spiritual self?
Three things:
1. They remain in the Conference yet function on the fringes of institutional power and influence and make no meaningful contribution to the cause of the Kingdom, or even to the institutional church.
2. They leave the ERC in frustration and take their spiritual giftedness elsewhere.
3. They remain in the Conference and become assertive, or even aggressive, in challenging the many dysfunctions of the Conference and if they don't desist, are, metaphorically, whacked by the institution's Mafia Dons.
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As a result, the ERC of the CGGC, has been declining spiritually and numerically for decades.
At the same time that it has been declining, the Shepherd Mafia has increased the number of staff positions and the number of Commissions in the institution.
It has diminished the role of credentialed and noncredentialed Conference members who are not in the hierarchy.
Beyond the hierarchy, it has centered congregational leadership in the Medieval role of the Pastor-as-parish-priest--who is a provider of religious products and services to be consumed by the laity.
In the past, for example in the first generation of the Church of God, when it was a spiritually empowered and growing movement, in Winebrenner's day, the so-called Priesthood of all believers thrived! It was the Universal Priesthood, not an institutional hierarchy, that dominated.
And the movement thrived spiritually and grew numerically.
One result of decades of domination by the Shepherd Mafia in the ERC is that the universal priesthood is now stone-cold-dead, and there is numerical decline and spiritual decay.
And, a larger-than-ever institutional hierarchy that had been unable to reverse the decay and decline of decades...
...which, of course, it produced in the first place.
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So, now, unable to ignore the reality that its earthly kingdom, its Tower of Babel, is about to collapse, the bureaucrats of the ERC have reached into their old bag of failed tricks and pulled out what?
ANOTHER STRATEGIC PLAN?
This one is different, though, because this one won't merely be words on paper.
"This one, trust us, we will really do. We mean it this time. Really, we do! You can trust us."
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Among the many reasons that this new strategic plan will fail...
...is that there is no one remaining in the Conference to lead dramatic change.
Every non-shepherd APEST whom the Lord has given to the ERC, in recent years, has either left the Conference in frustration, rusted out, abandoned his/her APEST calling to please the Shepherd Mafia or has been whacked by the Shepherd Mafia.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no one remaining in the Conference to lead the change its panicking Mafia Dons now agree must take place.
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As I said in the previous post, there may have been some apostle-giftedness/calling in Dr. Richardson. If there was, apostle cannot be his primary gifting.
He gave up the fruit of apostleship, if he had any, far too quickly and easily to be the Apostle to the ERC today.
Tell me, then, who, left in the ERC has the spiritual gifting to lead the change?
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As I've said, I believe that the cause is not lost.
With God all things are possible.
But, I'll say prophetically, no one from within the ERC institution is God's person for this task.
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We must repent.
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