Last week Kevin Richardson announced that the ERC Administrative Council has decided to begin a search for a new Executive Director and that he would not be the person in executive leadership to lead the Conference into the next strategic plan.
Kevin made that announcement with grace and with class.
I've said repeatedly that, despite the attacks against my credentials and the ministry I participated in here at Faith during Kevin's tenure, I still love Kevin and I still like him.
I'm not surprised that Kevin was able to announce what amounts to his own firing as graciously as he has.
Clearly, Kevin loves the ERC and continues to wish the best for it.
Shortly after I read his note, I began to assess, in big picture terms, where it all went wrong for Kevin.
Here's what I think was his greatest error: Kevin bought into the old ERC ways.
By that I mean that Kevin embraced everything that his predecessors in the previous regime were doing...
...ways that were miserably failing...
...shepherd ways...
...institutional ways.
Kevin chose to champion church, not Kingdom, and to focus on parish priest leadership, not apostolic servanthood.
He was a good ERCer.
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing has never blessed those ways. ERC decline continued under Kevin because the Lord never will bless those ways.
But, understand.
It was the ERC ways and its theologically corrupt values, not Kevin himself, that drove the ERC decline during the last decade.
So, don't scapegoat Kevin.
His biggest sin was that he bought into ways already in place long before he ascended the mountain.
If there is any hope at all for the ERC, it is to acknowledge that even a man of Kevin's grace and class could not incline the Lord to bless the ERC shepherd oriented, parish priest dominated mess.
It's time now to thank Kevin for trying and to repent of the beliefs that have transformed a once thriving spiritual movement into a cold and dying institution.
We must repent.
No comments:
Post a Comment