Dave Williams's eNews 8/17/17 Video

If you didn't catch it, the latest ERC eNews video features Dave Williams, ERC Director of Congregational Care.

Here are a few thoughts:

1. It's not a YAY GOD video, as Dr. Richardson's recently have been. That's a good thing.

2. It does take a stab at making the case for change. That is also highly commendable.

3. It acknowledges a core problem facing traditional seeker-sensitive churches in 2017: The role of what Dave calls the "pastor"--really the parish priest--is not respected in the real world as it was when Leave it to Beaver was cutting edge TV entertainment.

4. The video makes it clear that the new New Strategic Plan doubles down, with greater emphasis than ever, on parish priest leadership. Dave is superb in defining the problems facing parish priest oriented ministry and then explains that the new New Strategic Plan will focus on the parish priest more than ever, in spite of the fact that the culture has moved on from the parish priest.

5. Dave describes the plan to enhance the effectiveness of our parish priests as if the concept is new and revolutionary, and, perhaps, he thinks it is. However, as I watched, I saw him describing the old ERC LEAD Teams, which I participated in, in which only a small percentage of ERC pastors participated in and which came to nothing.

6. Dave describes the new New Strategic Plan as already being adopted, attempting to foist that myth on the people of the ERC. As I've demonstrated, the plan has yet to be approved.

7. I was fascinated to hear Dave speak, in almost these exact terms, of creating "safe spaces" for pastors, very similar to the safe spaces colleges and universities created for its snowflakes who couldn't deal with the real-world result of last year's election.

8. I've known for years that Dave is the thinker among members of the ERC staff. He demonstrates that again in this video. It's what he believes in that has been failing for all these years and, it seems to me will continue to fail.

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I've predicted that it is the cynicism of the body of the ERC/CGGC that will be the cause of its ruin, unless the hierarchs break down that cynicism.

Dave demonstrates a crucial weakness of the new New Strategic Plan in that it will depend on the parish priests of the ERC entering the safe spaces the hierarchs will be creating for its hurting, snowflake parish priests.

I suspect that only the hierarchs and the parish priests already in their good old boy network will enter into those safe spaces.