"How Dare You Take what I Write Seriously!"

A newsletter is a shepherd thing. It's flock- focused--especially in the way CGGC mountaintoppers do it.

For me, there's one every week from the ERC.

And, of course, there's the eNews from the General Conference, which is not really a General Conference newsletter as much as it is about the whims and reflections, the travels and the dreams and the nightmares of the current occupier of the corner office in Findlay.

And, there have been times that The CHURCH ADVOCATE has been little more than a flock-following newsletter.

And, I read all of them...with care...and I take them seriously.

No one who writes for the various denominational publications has ever told me that I shouldn't read them carefully or take them seriously but, as I've said in the past, one of them has told me that he wishes I wouldn't read him as carefully as I do.

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In a shepherd driven religious body in which relationship is everything and truth is virtually nothing, what a mountaintopper writes, by the very nature of the body's cultural values, means nothing, except that s/he wrote something to make contact and maintain the relationship.

And, if a person lower on the hierarchy reads what's written at all, the content of what's written is not taken seriously. Merely noting that something was written is enough to maintain the tepid, tolerance-oriented relationship that the CGGC today is built on.

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One way that I bring APEST balance to the CGGC community is to read what mountaintoppers write as if truth matters.

Hence, I noted recently that Dr. Richardson has written that he believes that the church is built on pastors functioning as Middle Ages parish priests when, at the same time, he wants to lead the Conference in changing direction to abandon the very model of ministry he believes in.

And, just yesterday, I noted that Lance believes that people who are gifted to be shepherds and teachers are actually discredited and underappreciated in the church today and that we have to take care as we embrace ministry driven by apostles, prophets and evangelists.

Huh?!

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I'll say this:

No one made Dr. Richardson promote, as central to the ministry of the church, the parish priest as the provider of cradle to grave religious products and services to a passive laity. And, on his own, Lance urged us to be careful to give credit to and to properly appreciate shepherds and teachers as we conduct ministry under the giftedness of APEs. 

I've known both of these guys for decades. I love and like both of them.

But, our body is in a free fall decline.

And, despite the relationship-is-everything values that have driven our body during all of the decades of its decline,...

...truth matters.

We need to seize the future embracing truth, being served by men and women unafraid of the truth.

We must become people who, at least, consider the value of truth.

We must repent.