The last day I showed up for work was Wednesday...one and a half weeks ago.
I originally hoped that I'd be able to return the following Monday but I felt more sick then than when I called off sick on that first day.
My doctor told me, last Monday, that he thought I should be off for the whole week. Indeed, I really felt bad.
And, I still feel bad...probably not as bad as I felt a week ago, but really, really lousy. Having said that, I'm not concerned that I'm contagious.
Friday was the day that we went to the rescue and met and decided to foster our new dog, Charlie. That involved a 10 mile round trip drive and sitting down and meeting Charlie and one other dog for about an hour.
The next morning, I was absolutely exhausted.
I walked Charlie three times yesterday, for a total of about 45 minutes of watching him sniff and poop and pee. And, by 7:00 last evening, I could barely move.
Tomorrow, I'll be scheduled to work ten hours.
The work's not really demanding but it's a lot more demanding than standing at the other end of a leash, watching a dog do what dogs do.
But, we need the money. I don't really have a choice.
So, until I get all of the way back on my feet, this will be a struggle.
Being a geezer ain't always a lot of fun.
Still, I have a ton to be thankful for.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
What to do with People who Believe but who Reject Organized Religion
As institutional Christianity declines and decays more and more in the United States, it seems to me that what remains of the church focuses more on the institution than it had in, at least, the past two centuries...and less on Jesus than it has in a long time.
So, what do you do if a kid shows up to a youth ministry activity and, in time, settles in, becomes a regular then, in more time, you meet the dad.
As soon as you meet dad, you pick up that he's standoffish. He seems to become uneasy and increasingly frustrated as you talk about your church and its ministries.
Then, he hits you with the classic line:
"I believe in God but I reject organized religion."
What do you do with that?
---------------
Now, I understand that the way a person who possesses the Holy Spirit responds will be determined, to a degree, by his/her spiritual gifts.
But, that aside, what do you do with the assertion:
I can be a Christian but not a church-goer.
----------------
I'm part of a denominational body that has recently, in effect, declared that it defines discipleship only in terms of a person's connection to organized Christianity.
It cares about three things:
1. Healthy, life-giving churches.
2. Healthy, life-giving pastors, and,
3. Healthy, life-giving (Conference) leaders.
However, in that same denominational body's early days, when it was thriving spiritually and growing numerically, the group's first focus was on connecting people, not with the institution of the church, but with a dynamic and vital relationship with Jesus.
Ironically, when the group didn't focus on church, it's congregations were growing and it was continually starting new churches. Now, as vision tightens around the organized and institutional church, it is closing churches and its focus on Jesus is nearly nonexistent, hence, the absence of Jesus in its threefold mantra:
Healthy life-giving churches, pastors and leaders.
Where's Jesus in that?
----------------
The question of what to do with people who believe in Jesus but who, also, reject institutional, if not necessarily organized, religion fascinates me...
...because, honestly, as I've devoted myself more and more to red-letter living, i.e., obedience to the teachings Jesus which, in some Bibles are printed in red,...
I've gotten to the point that I love Jesus more than ever and think less and less of what the institutionalists have made of the organization that carries Jesus' Name.
More and more, I love Jesus but hate the (institutional) church.
----------------
These days, if I met the dad who claimed to believe but also to reject organized religion, I'd talk about Jesus and living the life He taught and lived and of the Day when He'll separate the sheep from the goats.
The issue of the church would be secondary at best. The issue of the institutional church would never have a place in the discussion.
So, what do you do if a kid shows up to a youth ministry activity and, in time, settles in, becomes a regular then, in more time, you meet the dad.
As soon as you meet dad, you pick up that he's standoffish. He seems to become uneasy and increasingly frustrated as you talk about your church and its ministries.
Then, he hits you with the classic line:
"I believe in God but I reject organized religion."
What do you do with that?
---------------
Now, I understand that the way a person who possesses the Holy Spirit responds will be determined, to a degree, by his/her spiritual gifts.
But, that aside, what do you do with the assertion:
I can be a Christian but not a church-goer.
----------------
I'm part of a denominational body that has recently, in effect, declared that it defines discipleship only in terms of a person's connection to organized Christianity.
It cares about three things:
1. Healthy, life-giving churches.
2. Healthy, life-giving pastors, and,
3. Healthy, life-giving (Conference) leaders.
However, in that same denominational body's early days, when it was thriving spiritually and growing numerically, the group's first focus was on connecting people, not with the institution of the church, but with a dynamic and vital relationship with Jesus.
Ironically, when the group didn't focus on church, it's congregations were growing and it was continually starting new churches. Now, as vision tightens around the organized and institutional church, it is closing churches and its focus on Jesus is nearly nonexistent, hence, the absence of Jesus in its threefold mantra:
Healthy life-giving churches, pastors and leaders.
Where's Jesus in that?
----------------
The question of what to do with people who believe in Jesus but who, also, reject institutional, if not necessarily organized, religion fascinates me...
...because, honestly, as I've devoted myself more and more to red-letter living, i.e., obedience to the teachings Jesus which, in some Bibles are printed in red,...
I've gotten to the point that I love Jesus more than ever and think less and less of what the institutionalists have made of the organization that carries Jesus' Name.
More and more, I love Jesus but hate the (institutional) church.
----------------
These days, if I met the dad who claimed to believe but also to reject organized religion, I'd talk about Jesus and living the life He taught and lived and of the Day when He'll separate the sheep from the goats.
The issue of the church would be secondary at best. The issue of the institutional church would never have a place in the discussion.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Living on Mission...with Dogs
So, we went to a dog rescue that, for years, specialized in Golden Retrievers.
In recent years, it expanded its work to Labrador Retrievers and dogs, like Charlie, who are Golden mixes.
And, they do an amazing job. They rescue former puppy mill breeders and dogs who are victims of abuse. They have an extensive outreach. Charlie came to DVGRR from a shelter in Texas that was flooded by by Hurricane Harvey. DVGRR was proactive in reaching out to assist shelters in Texas. DVGRR did the same with the hurricane that hit Florida, whatever its name was.
In addition, DVGRR goes to great expense to import abandoned dogs from Puerto Rico and Turkey and, now, South Korea where dogs are food.
DVGRR is an amazing organization.
In addition, to their works of mercy and outreach, DVGRR creates an amazing sense of community among its employees, volunteers and clients. The DVGRR campus is located near to the store. I chat with people who work and volunteer there and those people are excited about the organization and the work it does. As clients, we are happy to be participants in its work.
Yet, I am angry.
What DVGRR does with dogs closely approximates what disciples of Jesus are commanded to do with people as a part of the Kingdom of God.
Acts of incredible mercy.
Outreach.
Sacrificial service to friends and neighbors.
Clearly, in the first days of the Church of God movement, we resembled, working among people, what DVGRR does with dogs. But, of course, not now.
When I see and participate, in my own way, in what DVGRR does, I burn in fury over what the Shepherd Mafia has done to devastate, among the people of the church, the way of living Jesus and His first followers modeled and taught.
Under pastor domination, the church, particularly our church,...
...as many others besides me have pointed out,...
...has become a provider of meaningless religious products and services and has turned its attenders into mere consumers who, as I read the Word, will not fare well on the Day the Great Shepherd separates the sheep the goats.
Oh, if, following Jesus, we could do, among the men and women of the world, what the people of DVGRR do with puppies.
We must repent.
In recent years, it expanded its work to Labrador Retrievers and dogs, like Charlie, who are Golden mixes.
And, they do an amazing job. They rescue former puppy mill breeders and dogs who are victims of abuse. They have an extensive outreach. Charlie came to DVGRR from a shelter in Texas that was flooded by by Hurricane Harvey. DVGRR was proactive in reaching out to assist shelters in Texas. DVGRR did the same with the hurricane that hit Florida, whatever its name was.
In addition, DVGRR goes to great expense to import abandoned dogs from Puerto Rico and Turkey and, now, South Korea where dogs are food.
DVGRR is an amazing organization.
In addition, to their works of mercy and outreach, DVGRR creates an amazing sense of community among its employees, volunteers and clients. The DVGRR campus is located near to the store. I chat with people who work and volunteer there and those people are excited about the organization and the work it does. As clients, we are happy to be participants in its work.
Yet, I am angry.
What DVGRR does with dogs closely approximates what disciples of Jesus are commanded to do with people as a part of the Kingdom of God.
Acts of incredible mercy.
Outreach.
Sacrificial service to friends and neighbors.
Clearly, in the first days of the Church of God movement, we resembled, working among people, what DVGRR does with dogs. But, of course, not now.
When I see and participate, in my own way, in what DVGRR does, I burn in fury over what the Shepherd Mafia has done to devastate, among the people of the church, the way of living Jesus and His first followers modeled and taught.
Under pastor domination, the church, particularly our church,...
...as many others besides me have pointed out,...
...has become a provider of meaningless religious products and services and has turned its attenders into mere consumers who, as I read the Word, will not fare well on the Day the Great Shepherd separates the sheep the goats.
Oh, if, following Jesus, we could do, among the men and women of the world, what the people of DVGRR do with puppies.
We must repent.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Another New Old Dog...Charlie
It was inevitable that we'd get another dog after Lizzie died so suddenly just a little more than a month ago.
I'm okay with dogs. I actually like them. But, Maggie, our Golden two dogs ago, was my idea of a perfect pet. I adored her and, when she died from cancer, I would have been content to end my pet-owning life with her.
But, Evie really wanted another Golden so we applied with Delaware Valley Golden Retriever Rescue for the privilege of rescuing one of their dogs.
What a process!
We had to have a home visit similar to what you'd go through to adopt a human child.
We passed.
A few weeks later we took home the dog we called Lizzie.
She was absolutely beautiful and she was playful and sweet but she wasn't a cuddler.
She was in the peak of health until she got sick with an autoimmune form of anemia and she was gone quickly.
When Lizzie died, we contacted DVGRR to let them know Lizzie was gone. And, not really that long ago we told them that we were interested in another dog.
Because we live in a condo, we are limited in the sort of dog we can adopt from DVGRR.
There were two dogs available to us at this moment. Both were Golden mixes. Both had issues.
We were satisfied enough with a 7 year old male named Charlie.
Charlie's smallish, even for a Golden mix, about 55 pounds.
He's extremely shy.
His paper work says that he had been confiscated from an owner who was severely abusing him. Charlie was taken to a rescue in Texas that was flooded by the hurricane last summer. DVGRR took in some dogs from Texas and some from the hurricane in Florida.
Charlie is still affected by his memory of the abuse. He's particularly fearful of men.
When we met him, he warmed up to Evie within ten minutes or so and allowed me to pet him gently after about twice that time.
He's a very nice looking dog...not in Lizzie's league, but he is a looker.
I'll be perfectly content if he ends up being Evie's dog and if I'm an afterthought in his life.
Dennis, the guy who showed us the dogs was anxious for us to pick Charlie. Clearly, he had a soft spot for Charlie, who'd been at the rescue for nearly 4 months...a long time by DVGRR standards. In fact, just the day before our visit, Charlie's adoption fee had been cut by more than half.
And, when it seemed clear that Evie, whose decision it was, was considering Charlie, Dennis offered him to us on a foster basis for 30 days. He gave us about $60 in free food and free vet care for a month.
We have until the end of February to make a final commitment.
Interestingly, when a dog is adopted from DVGRR, someone from staff takes a picture of the dog and his/her new family. As we were trying to get Charlie posed, about a half dozen workers from the rescue came out toward us and each one said, "Thanks for giving him a chance."
We'll do our best.
I'm okay with dogs. I actually like them. But, Maggie, our Golden two dogs ago, was my idea of a perfect pet. I adored her and, when she died from cancer, I would have been content to end my pet-owning life with her.
But, Evie really wanted another Golden so we applied with Delaware Valley Golden Retriever Rescue for the privilege of rescuing one of their dogs.
What a process!
We had to have a home visit similar to what you'd go through to adopt a human child.
We passed.
A few weeks later we took home the dog we called Lizzie.
She was absolutely beautiful and she was playful and sweet but she wasn't a cuddler.
She was in the peak of health until she got sick with an autoimmune form of anemia and she was gone quickly.
When Lizzie died, we contacted DVGRR to let them know Lizzie was gone. And, not really that long ago we told them that we were interested in another dog.
Because we live in a condo, we are limited in the sort of dog we can adopt from DVGRR.
There were two dogs available to us at this moment. Both were Golden mixes. Both had issues.
We were satisfied enough with a 7 year old male named Charlie.
Charlie's smallish, even for a Golden mix, about 55 pounds.
He's extremely shy.
His paper work says that he had been confiscated from an owner who was severely abusing him. Charlie was taken to a rescue in Texas that was flooded by the hurricane last summer. DVGRR took in some dogs from Texas and some from the hurricane in Florida.
Charlie is still affected by his memory of the abuse. He's particularly fearful of men.
When we met him, he warmed up to Evie within ten minutes or so and allowed me to pet him gently after about twice that time.
He's a very nice looking dog...not in Lizzie's league, but he is a looker.
I'll be perfectly content if he ends up being Evie's dog and if I'm an afterthought in his life.
Dennis, the guy who showed us the dogs was anxious for us to pick Charlie. Clearly, he had a soft spot for Charlie, who'd been at the rescue for nearly 4 months...a long time by DVGRR standards. In fact, just the day before our visit, Charlie's adoption fee had been cut by more than half.
And, when it seemed clear that Evie, whose decision it was, was considering Charlie, Dennis offered him to us on a foster basis for 30 days. He gave us about $60 in free food and free vet care for a month.
We have until the end of February to make a final commitment.
Interestingly, when a dog is adopted from DVGRR, someone from staff takes a picture of the dog and his/her new family. As we were trying to get Charlie posed, about a half dozen workers from the rescue came out toward us and each one said, "Thanks for giving him a chance."
We'll do our best.
Five Characteristics of a Healthy Church?
The ERC's new New Strategic Plan has something going for it. It's, what?, slogan, or key phrase? is snazzy, catchy and memorable and has three components:
Healthy, life-giving churches,
Healthy, life-giving pastors, and
Healthy, life-giving regional leadership.
So, it's components are snazzy, catchy and memorable...
...what they are not is biblical.
Scour the Word for what Jesus taught and what He did. Zero in on the Book of Acts, now the Epistles.
Where do you find teaching about health?
----------------
Actually, it is there.
There are New Testament Greek words translated as heal and healthy.
The word we translate as "heal" is fairly common in the Gospels. We've taken this word into English. It's therapeuo, you know, therapy, therapeutic? It's a verb.
As one example, "Jesus healed many who had various diseases." (Mk. 1:34)
The word therapeuo, however, is never used in connection, in any way, with the healing of churches or pastors or regional leadership.
More in line with the the terminology of the new New Strategic Plan, there is the adjective hugies, translated as healthy and the verb, hugiaino, to be healthy.
But, understand:
These words are never used in the Word to describe healthy churches or pastors or regional leadership!
Interestingly, they sometimes modify teaching or doctrine. As only one example:
"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound (healthy) doctrine." (2 Tim. 4:3)
----------------
But, sound, or healthy, churches? Pastors? Hierarchical leaders?
Uh uh.
These concepts are nowhere to be found in the Word of God. Nowhere at all.
----------------
I can see how ERC leadership finds authority for focus on healthy pastors (parish priests), healthy churches (parishes) and healthy regional leadership (Bishops and Popes)...
...in the theology of the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages...
...but there's no authority for those things in the Word.
----------------
As the plan is rolled out, the hierarchs may try to tell you what a healthy church or pastor or leader is.
Just understand, they'll be teaching those things on their own authority or on some other authority not connected to the Word...
...but not in anything rooted in Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or any other authority in the Word.
----------------
If you've gone to seminary, or Bible college, you know the terms, exegesis and eisegesis.
The terms will come into play...
...if, and this may be a big if...
...IF the hierarchs even turn to the Word,...
...beyond the platitude that God is the author of life.
They will be forced to read health, and life-givingness,...
...into...
...the Word...
...because those truths are not present to be taken out of the Word.
----------------
If they ever talk about those "Five Characteristics of a Healthy Church," and, if they claim authority in the Word, they'll be stuffing their own beliefs into God's mouth.
We'd be better served by seeking healthy doctrine...
...and leave the healthy churches and pastors and hierarchs...
...to the Catholics in the Dark Ages.
Healthy, life-giving churches,
Healthy, life-giving pastors, and
Healthy, life-giving regional leadership.
So, it's components are snazzy, catchy and memorable...
...what they are not is biblical.
Scour the Word for what Jesus taught and what He did. Zero in on the Book of Acts, now the Epistles.
Where do you find teaching about health?
----------------
Actually, it is there.
There are New Testament Greek words translated as heal and healthy.
The word we translate as "heal" is fairly common in the Gospels. We've taken this word into English. It's therapeuo, you know, therapy, therapeutic? It's a verb.
As one example, "Jesus healed many who had various diseases." (Mk. 1:34)
The word therapeuo, however, is never used in connection, in any way, with the healing of churches or pastors or regional leadership.
More in line with the the terminology of the new New Strategic Plan, there is the adjective hugies, translated as healthy and the verb, hugiaino, to be healthy.
But, understand:
These words are never used in the Word to describe healthy churches or pastors or regional leadership!
Interestingly, they sometimes modify teaching or doctrine. As only one example:
"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound (healthy) doctrine." (2 Tim. 4:3)
----------------
But, sound, or healthy, churches? Pastors? Hierarchical leaders?
Uh uh.
These concepts are nowhere to be found in the Word of God. Nowhere at all.
----------------
I can see how ERC leadership finds authority for focus on healthy pastors (parish priests), healthy churches (parishes) and healthy regional leadership (Bishops and Popes)...
...in the theology of the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages...
...but there's no authority for those things in the Word.
----------------
As the plan is rolled out, the hierarchs may try to tell you what a healthy church or pastor or leader is.
Just understand, they'll be teaching those things on their own authority or on some other authority not connected to the Word...
...but not in anything rooted in Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or any other authority in the Word.
----------------
If you've gone to seminary, or Bible college, you know the terms, exegesis and eisegesis.
The terms will come into play...
...if, and this may be a big if...
...IF the hierarchs even turn to the Word,...
...beyond the platitude that God is the author of life.
They will be forced to read health, and life-givingness,...
...into...
...the Word...
...because those truths are not present to be taken out of the Word.
----------------
If they ever talk about those "Five Characteristics of a Healthy Church," and, if they claim authority in the Word, they'll be stuffing their own beliefs into God's mouth.
We'd be better served by seeking healthy doctrine...
...and leave the healthy churches and pastors and hierarchs...
...to the Catholics in the Dark Ages.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
The Worst Cold/Flu I've had in Years...Listening to an Audio Book
Today (Wednesday) is the fifth straight work day that I've been off the job. The excuse I have from my doctor permits me to miss through the end of the week. And, I believe that I'll take advantage of it.
I'm sick.
I'm fuzz-brained (though you could ask, "How can you tell?"). I have congestion in my head and chest, a sore throat, cough, headache and low-grade fever. I've been to a doctor, twice. I've had a chest x-ray, but no pneumonia. And, I feel tired and very weak.
And, I'm bored.
I can't wait to get back on my feet.
When Evie was away last week, she went to a discount book store for me. She knows that, for recreational "reading," I love audio books. We still have two cheap boom boxes with CD players and she found a 4 for $15 deal on audio books on CD.
None of my favorite fiction authors were available but Evie mentioned the list of my faves: Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Linda Castillo, Lee Child, David Baldacci, the late Robert B. Parker, came to mind.
The clerk said she had a few books by Chelsea Cain, of whom we'd never heard. The clerk said she writes like Harlan Coben so, we took a chance on two of hers and an old Ed McBain and a T. Jefferson Parker. The last two didn't excite me at all but, at that price...
I'm killing sick time now with one of the Chelsea Cains. It's her first published novel, read by Caroline McCormick, who used to be the female shrink on Law and Order. She's a very good reader, which is extremely important in audio books.
The novel, HeartSick, is about serial killers. It's a little dark for me. I'm about half way through it. I can't see any resemblance to Harlan Coben. At times, I've LOLed listening to Coben's narrative though he's changed over the years. LOLing's not happening here, but, honestly, I didn't expect it, so I'm not disappointed.
I have about four hours of listening to go and nothing else to do, so I'll finish the book...with little in the way of expectation.
I don't ever watch TV, and this is certainly a much better option than Jerry Springer or Judge Judy anyway.
I'm sick.
I'm fuzz-brained (though you could ask, "How can you tell?"). I have congestion in my head and chest, a sore throat, cough, headache and low-grade fever. I've been to a doctor, twice. I've had a chest x-ray, but no pneumonia. And, I feel tired and very weak.
And, I'm bored.
I can't wait to get back on my feet.
When Evie was away last week, she went to a discount book store for me. She knows that, for recreational "reading," I love audio books. We still have two cheap boom boxes with CD players and she found a 4 for $15 deal on audio books on CD.
None of my favorite fiction authors were available but Evie mentioned the list of my faves: Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Linda Castillo, Lee Child, David Baldacci, the late Robert B. Parker, came to mind.
The clerk said she had a few books by Chelsea Cain, of whom we'd never heard. The clerk said she writes like Harlan Coben so, we took a chance on two of hers and an old Ed McBain and a T. Jefferson Parker. The last two didn't excite me at all but, at that price...
I'm killing sick time now with one of the Chelsea Cains. It's her first published novel, read by Caroline McCormick, who used to be the female shrink on Law and Order. She's a very good reader, which is extremely important in audio books.
The novel, HeartSick, is about serial killers. It's a little dark for me. I'm about half way through it. I can't see any resemblance to Harlan Coben. At times, I've LOLed listening to Coben's narrative though he's changed over the years. LOLing's not happening here, but, honestly, I didn't expect it, so I'm not disappointed.
I have about four hours of listening to go and nothing else to do, so I'll finish the book...with little in the way of expectation.
I don't ever watch TV, and this is certainly a much better option than Jerry Springer or Judge Judy anyway.
My "Leadership" Style
I've thought about blogging the core of this post for about a year and a half. I finally alluded to it in one of those off-the-blog chats I mention all the time. So, here it is:
----------------
When I was offered the opportunity to join the management team at the store, it was because a Front End manager position opened up.
Applications for the position were never invited.
I found out later that the General Manager of the store, the HR guy and the two remaining Front End managers talked among themselves and, they say, unanimously, chose to offer the position to me.
There was no interview.
One day, I was taken aside by the lead Front End manager, told that I had been unanimously chosen to fill the position and asked to consider accepting it.
During that conversation, the Front End manager told me why I was the person chosen for the position.
Surprisingly...to me, stunningly,...she said,
"Because of your leadership..."
Her comment led to a great moment of insight for me.
----------------
On that job, I had determined, from the first day, to be Jesus to everyone I encountered, as literally and obviously as I am able.
With every customer, but particularly, with the most difficult of them, in every moment, I imagined Jesus, on the cross, suffering for me and, I imagined Him saying, "Come, follow me."
I heard Jesus commanding me to turn the other cheek and to walk the second mile.
With every incident with a difficult coworker I reminded myself that, for a follower of Jesus, to be the greatest is to be the slave of all.
To be honest, I didn't always achieve Jesus, but I always, always, sought to.
-----------------
Then, there was that startling moment when I was listening to my manager offering me a position on the management team,...
...of all things,...
...not because of my servant behavior,...
...but, because of my LEADERSHIP.
Apparently, she...and the other remaining Front End manager and the HR guy and the General Manager,...
...when they observed my imitation of Jesus on the cross and the cheek turning and the second mile walking...
...didn't interpret that behavior as servanthood.
For them, I was being a leader.
----------------
Now, the truth in the CGGC, particularly, in the ERC, is that, in reality, there have been no leaders, for many years.
Here's why I say that:
There, clearly, have been no followers.
An example of proof of that reality is that no one followed the 2015 ERC old new Strategic Plan.
No one followed. Not even one person.
That's exactly what is meant by the hierarchs' admission that the plan became, words on paper.
No one followed. There were no followers. None at all.
If there are no followers, by definition, there were no leaders.
In real-world terms, and for many years, no one in the ERC, up through the dispensation of the 2015 old new Strategic Plan, has been a leader.
----------------
As I read the New Testament, I read that, in the Kingdom of God, to be great is not to lead or to attempt to lead,...
...in the Kingdom of God, to be great is to become a servant,...
...and, to be the greatest in the Kingdom is not to aspire to an important position in the religious institution,...
...it is to be the slave of all...
...of ALL, even, especially, to quote Jesus...
..."the least of these."
----------------
So, I was stunned speechless when, on the job, where I function intentionally as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God and the slave of all,...
...to hear that my attempt to serve as Jesus...
...was, all along, being interpreted...
...even, especially, by people in authority over me..., not as servanthood,...but as leadership.
ERCers and CGGCers: Read your Gospels. Take the commandments of Jesus as commandments, not suggestions. Live the life He lived.
Those of you who yearn to be followed, become servants...because that's how He chose to, well, lead.
Follow Him.
And,...
...you will be followed.
----------------
When I was offered the opportunity to join the management team at the store, it was because a Front End manager position opened up.
Applications for the position were never invited.
I found out later that the General Manager of the store, the HR guy and the two remaining Front End managers talked among themselves and, they say, unanimously, chose to offer the position to me.
There was no interview.
One day, I was taken aside by the lead Front End manager, told that I had been unanimously chosen to fill the position and asked to consider accepting it.
During that conversation, the Front End manager told me why I was the person chosen for the position.
Surprisingly...to me, stunningly,...she said,
"Because of your leadership..."
Her comment led to a great moment of insight for me.
----------------
On that job, I had determined, from the first day, to be Jesus to everyone I encountered, as literally and obviously as I am able.
With every customer, but particularly, with the most difficult of them, in every moment, I imagined Jesus, on the cross, suffering for me and, I imagined Him saying, "Come, follow me."
I heard Jesus commanding me to turn the other cheek and to walk the second mile.
With every incident with a difficult coworker I reminded myself that, for a follower of Jesus, to be the greatest is to be the slave of all.
To be honest, I didn't always achieve Jesus, but I always, always, sought to.
-----------------
Then, there was that startling moment when I was listening to my manager offering me a position on the management team,...
...of all things,...
...not because of my servant behavior,...
...but, because of my LEADERSHIP.
Apparently, she...and the other remaining Front End manager and the HR guy and the General Manager,...
...when they observed my imitation of Jesus on the cross and the cheek turning and the second mile walking...
...didn't interpret that behavior as servanthood.
For them, I was being a leader.
----------------
Now, the truth in the CGGC, particularly, in the ERC, is that, in reality, there have been no leaders, for many years.
Here's why I say that:
There, clearly, have been no followers.
An example of proof of that reality is that no one followed the 2015 ERC old new Strategic Plan.
No one followed. Not even one person.
That's exactly what is meant by the hierarchs' admission that the plan became, words on paper.
No one followed. There were no followers. None at all.
If there are no followers, by definition, there were no leaders.
In real-world terms, and for many years, no one in the ERC, up through the dispensation of the 2015 old new Strategic Plan, has been a leader.
----------------
As I read the New Testament, I read that, in the Kingdom of God, to be great is not to lead or to attempt to lead,...
...in the Kingdom of God, to be great is to become a servant,...
...and, to be the greatest in the Kingdom is not to aspire to an important position in the religious institution,...
...it is to be the slave of all...
...of ALL, even, especially, to quote Jesus...
..."the least of these."
----------------
So, I was stunned speechless when, on the job, where I function intentionally as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God and the slave of all,...
...to hear that my attempt to serve as Jesus...
...was, all along, being interpreted...
...even, especially, by people in authority over me..., not as servanthood,...but as leadership.
ERCers and CGGCers: Read your Gospels. Take the commandments of Jesus as commandments, not suggestions. Live the life He lived.
Those of you who yearn to be followed, become servants...because that's how He chose to, well, lead.
Follow Him.
And,...
...you will be followed.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
The ERC E. D. and the New Testament Plan
In another off the blog chat, I asked these questions.
These questions are NOT rhetorical. If you believe that the new New Strategic Plan is biblically justifiable, you need to be able to take these as serious questions:
1. How do you think Jesus would write job description of the ERC Executive Director?
2. Do you think Paul would have sought the position as it currently is written?
Peter?
Barnabas?
James?
I will accept and do encourage responses both on and off the blog.
These questions are NOT rhetorical. If you believe that the new New Strategic Plan is biblically justifiable, you need to be able to take these as serious questions:
1. How do you think Jesus would write job description of the ERC Executive Director?
2. Do you think Paul would have sought the position as it currently is written?
Peter?
Barnabas?
James?
I will accept and do encourage responses both on and off the blog.
Monday, January 22, 2018
Will there be a Servant Revolution in the ERC?
Yesterday, in two off-the-blog chats, uninitiated by me, people brought up the importance of servanthood. Both of these people hover higher up the ERC mountain than I ever climbed.
One of them was describing five priorities that he lives by which, he said, he listed not unnecessarily in any order but the first he mentioned was:
"1. Understanding and (producing) fruit of servanthood."
The other spoke eloquently of his passion to use his gifts to serve the people of the church he pastors. He decried the ambition that some seem to have to move on to a bigger church or to lead at a Conference level.
----------------
Now, of course, there is some context.
If you read this blog, you know that one of my major criticisms of the ERC and the CGGC is that the hierarchs are concerned with leading and with developing leaders.
I've been quoting Jesus on servanthood and reminding readers that Jesus declared that to be the greatest in the Kingdom is to be slave of all.
Yesterday, I said, in one of those chats,
"As far as servanthood is concerned, if we struggled to grasp what servanthood is with half the zeal we invest in figuring out what leadership is, the Kingdom would be exploding in the West."
One of the places that the ERC's new New Strategic Plan will fail...one of them...is in its desire to have healthy, life-giving regional LEADERSHIP.
We've been failing for generations as human beings in our body have aspirated to lead the church, not to follow the Lord of the Kingdom and to walk in His power.
I'm blessed that others in the body are striving to serve Him and others.
A hopeful sign for the future of the Kingdom, as far as we are concerned.
----------------
But, if we are going to become a community of servants...
...make no mistake about it...
...it will be because our people defy the vision of our hierarchs who want to lead the church...
...and not live as followers of Jesus and slaves of all.
We must repent, even if they don't.
One of them was describing five priorities that he lives by which, he said, he listed not unnecessarily in any order but the first he mentioned was:
"1. Understanding and (producing) fruit of servanthood."
The other spoke eloquently of his passion to use his gifts to serve the people of the church he pastors. He decried the ambition that some seem to have to move on to a bigger church or to lead at a Conference level.
----------------
Now, of course, there is some context.
If you read this blog, you know that one of my major criticisms of the ERC and the CGGC is that the hierarchs are concerned with leading and with developing leaders.
I've been quoting Jesus on servanthood and reminding readers that Jesus declared that to be the greatest in the Kingdom is to be slave of all.
Yesterday, I said, in one of those chats,
"As far as servanthood is concerned, if we struggled to grasp what servanthood is with half the zeal we invest in figuring out what leadership is, the Kingdom would be exploding in the West."
One of the places that the ERC's new New Strategic Plan will fail...one of them...is in its desire to have healthy, life-giving regional LEADERSHIP.
We've been failing for generations as human beings in our body have aspirated to lead the church, not to follow the Lord of the Kingdom and to walk in His power.
I'm blessed that others in the body are striving to serve Him and others.
A hopeful sign for the future of the Kingdom, as far as we are concerned.
----------------
But, if we are going to become a community of servants...
...make no mistake about it...
...it will be because our people defy the vision of our hierarchs who want to lead the church...
...and not live as followers of Jesus and slaves of all.
We must repent, even if they don't.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
The Strategic Plan and "the Priesthood of all Believers"
In an off the blog chat about the new New Strategic Plan, a friend made this comment which, if I had the time and the energy, I'd write a whole series of full-length books about:
"I still don't know how any of this will effect the 'people in the pew' at (the church I pastor) or any of the other ERC churches."
Wow!
As I say, I could write a whole series of books!
Woe is we!
Understand that the guy who wrote this is bright. He's 500 watt light bulb bright!
He's pro-Conference. (He's been called a Sniper by Lew, but he ain't.)
And, he's connected to the hierarchs. He was invited to be on one of the new Commissions months ago.
He knows his Bible.
He knows his theology.
He's, by the metrics (oh, how I hate that fad word) embraced by the mountaintoppers, successful in ministry.
He attended a Round Table Meeting.
He voted, by your secret ballot, FOR the new New Strategic Plan.
Yet, with all of that going for him in the Conference, even he can't see the connection between the plan and the disciples in his life.
Gang,
This plan will be a such a historic disaster!
I could write book upon book, but, let that single, powerful, one sentence observation say it all.
We must repent.
"I still don't know how any of this will effect the 'people in the pew' at (the church I pastor) or any of the other ERC churches."
Wow!
As I say, I could write a whole series of books!
Woe is we!
Understand that the guy who wrote this is bright. He's 500 watt light bulb bright!
He's pro-Conference. (He's been called a Sniper by Lew, but he ain't.)
And, he's connected to the hierarchs. He was invited to be on one of the new Commissions months ago.
He knows his Bible.
He knows his theology.
He's, by the metrics (oh, how I hate that fad word) embraced by the mountaintoppers, successful in ministry.
He attended a Round Table Meeting.
He voted, by your secret ballot, FOR the new New Strategic Plan.
Yet, with all of that going for him in the Conference, even he can't see the connection between the plan and the disciples in his life.
Gang,
This plan will be a such a historic disaster!
I could write book upon book, but, let that single, powerful, one sentence observation say it all.
We must repent.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Young "Turks" in the ERC
One of the people who has filled me in on the Conference gathering on January 13, where the new New Strategic Plan was approved, added an interesting fact at the end of one of his notes. He said,
"You might be pleased to know that there were some young "turks" who questioned the status quo. Don't know their names, but they may be future leaders in the ERC."
I'm encouraged but, actually, I'm not surprised. I've been hearing about these people for a while.
I know a nice-sized handful of men and women, in their 30s or younger, who break out in a rash when institutional traditionalists, spout their latest, new and improved church-focused, pastor-dominated, hierarch-ist, uh, vision.
I'm especially encouraged to hear that there were enough of them at Conference to have captured the attention of my friend.
My friend is younger than I am. But, who isn't?!
But, he's not young.
I wonder at his description of these people as young "turks." Young is in the eye of the beholder.
----------------
Now that the institutional hierarchy has won this battle, I believe that the questions are:
1. How much will be left of the ERC when it becomes clear to one and all that this latest tweaking of church-ism, pastor-ism and hierarch-ism has crashed and burned? And,
2. How many of our young turks will still be around the ERC/CGGC to be resources to correct the generations of errors made by ERC mountaintoppers and the decline and decay they have masterminded?
I am encouraged that the tone of my friend's comment is positive.
If these young turks are not driven out or leave in frustration...
There might be a Jesus-rooted, Kingdom-focused, repentance-empowered future available for the ERC after all.
I'm praying for it.
We must repent.
"You might be pleased to know that there were some young "turks" who questioned the status quo. Don't know their names, but they may be future leaders in the ERC."
I'm encouraged but, actually, I'm not surprised. I've been hearing about these people for a while.
I know a nice-sized handful of men and women, in their 30s or younger, who break out in a rash when institutional traditionalists, spout their latest, new and improved church-focused, pastor-dominated, hierarch-ist, uh, vision.
I'm especially encouraged to hear that there were enough of them at Conference to have captured the attention of my friend.
My friend is younger than I am. But, who isn't?!
But, he's not young.
I wonder at his description of these people as young "turks." Young is in the eye of the beholder.
----------------
Now that the institutional hierarchy has won this battle, I believe that the questions are:
1. How much will be left of the ERC when it becomes clear to one and all that this latest tweaking of church-ism, pastor-ism and hierarch-ism has crashed and burned? And,
2. How many of our young turks will still be around the ERC/CGGC to be resources to correct the generations of errors made by ERC mountaintoppers and the decline and decay they have masterminded?
I am encouraged that the tone of my friend's comment is positive.
If these young turks are not driven out or leave in frustration...
There might be a Jesus-rooted, Kingdom-focused, repentance-empowered future available for the ERC after all.
I'm praying for it.
We must repent.
What it means that I STILL have my Ordination Certificate
I've been as clear as I can be...before and after the vote to approve the ERC's new New Strategic Plan: I'm convinced that the plan is theologically corrupt.
But, even if I'm the one who is off-base biblically, there's another problem with the ERC especially, and with the whole CGGC as well...
...a problem with executing our ideas and plans.
I'll illustrate that problem here. We are so dysfunctional. We are so broken.
----------------
If rumors are true, the Eldership of the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God, voted to instruct their hierarchs to retrieve my ordination certificate...20 months ago.
I still have the certificate.
Make no mistake about it: I have not refused to return my ordination certificate.
The hierarchs simply haven't asked me for it.
As I've made clear on the blog in the past, I did get notification of a Certified Letter from the ERC CGGC...
...101 days after the rumored vote...
...a whole hundred and one days...fourteen and a half weeks!
I didn't pick up the letter...
...and, I was clear on this blog, read by some among the mountaintoppers, that, as a member of the CGGC, I demand the hierarchs be true to the authority of the Eldership and submit to the Bible, as their only rule of faith and practice:
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.
As I've said, I still have my Ordination Certificate and I haven't refused to return it. Despite the rumored action of the Eldership, the hierarchs have not submitted to the authority of the Eldership. They have not acted on the body's instruction.
----------------
A defining truth of the ERC, and the whole CGGC, is that leadership talks, but never walks.
Evidence of that in the ERC?
The 2015 ERC old New Strategic Plan: Leadership presented it with enthusiasm and fanfare. The Eldership approved it unanimously.
And, it came to nothing. It became words on paper, and never, ever anything more than that.
The ERC hierarchs talk, but, for generations, they, very simply, don't walk...
...they don't lead.
----------------
Since before I entered the East Pennsylvania Conference in the 1970s, the hierarchs of this Conference have not put their words into action.
In all those years, they have never walked their talk.
How could the ERC Conference in session unanimously approve that 2015 old New Strategic Plan?
How could it approve, nearly unanimously, this year's new New Strategic Plan?
----------------
For generations, there has been an unspoken agreement between ERC leaders and the people of the Conference:
The leaders can say anything they want...
...so long as they don't ask the people of the Conference to actually do something about it.
----------------
The hierarchs sit in their ivory tower, in that office complex in Harrisburg that they rent from the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, and they plan and they scheme...
...and they share their brainstorms with the Conference...
...but ERC hierarchs never walk the talk and they never ask or expect anyone else to walk the talk either.
So,...
...the 2015 old New Strategic Plan became mere words on a page one second after it was unanimously approved by the Eldership...
...and, I still hold my ordination certificate rumored to have been recalled by the Eldership in 2016.
-----------------
We, in the ERC, may be at a crossroads.
The hierarchs are making noises, this time around, about breaking the unspoken agreement with the Conference and actually walking the talk...
...and expecting the rest of the Conference to abandon their part of the unspoken agreement...
...and to walk their talk, too.
If the hierarchs do that, the ERC will be in a dangerous moment.
Talk-ism has a long history in the CGGC. It's been functioning longer than any of the current hierarchs have been active in the ERC..
...maybe before some of them were born.
They have never experienced anything but Talk-ism.
Talk-ism is assumed and understood by everyone to be the way and the truth and everyday life the ERC.
Will the hierarchs really change? What will the Eldership do, if they do?
We'll see...we'll see.
But, even if I'm the one who is off-base biblically, there's another problem with the ERC especially, and with the whole CGGC as well...
...a problem with executing our ideas and plans.
I'll illustrate that problem here. We are so dysfunctional. We are so broken.
----------------
If rumors are true, the Eldership of the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God, voted to instruct their hierarchs to retrieve my ordination certificate...20 months ago.
I still have the certificate.
Make no mistake about it: I have not refused to return my ordination certificate.
The hierarchs simply haven't asked me for it.
As I've made clear on the blog in the past, I did get notification of a Certified Letter from the ERC CGGC...
...101 days after the rumored vote...
...a whole hundred and one days...fourteen and a half weeks!
I didn't pick up the letter...
...and, I was clear on this blog, read by some among the mountaintoppers, that, as a member of the CGGC, I demand the hierarchs be true to the authority of the Eldership and submit to the Bible, as their only rule of faith and practice:
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault just between the two of you.
As I've said, I still have my Ordination Certificate and I haven't refused to return it. Despite the rumored action of the Eldership, the hierarchs have not submitted to the authority of the Eldership. They have not acted on the body's instruction.
----------------
A defining truth of the ERC, and the whole CGGC, is that leadership talks, but never walks.
Evidence of that in the ERC?
The 2015 ERC old New Strategic Plan: Leadership presented it with enthusiasm and fanfare. The Eldership approved it unanimously.
And, it came to nothing. It became words on paper, and never, ever anything more than that.
The ERC hierarchs talk, but, for generations, they, very simply, don't walk...
...they don't lead.
----------------
Since before I entered the East Pennsylvania Conference in the 1970s, the hierarchs of this Conference have not put their words into action.
In all those years, they have never walked their talk.
How could the ERC Conference in session unanimously approve that 2015 old New Strategic Plan?
How could it approve, nearly unanimously, this year's new New Strategic Plan?
----------------
For generations, there has been an unspoken agreement between ERC leaders and the people of the Conference:
The leaders can say anything they want...
...so long as they don't ask the people of the Conference to actually do something about it.
----------------
The hierarchs sit in their ivory tower, in that office complex in Harrisburg that they rent from the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, and they plan and they scheme...
...and they share their brainstorms with the Conference...
...but ERC hierarchs never walk the talk and they never ask or expect anyone else to walk the talk either.
So,...
...the 2015 old New Strategic Plan became mere words on a page one second after it was unanimously approved by the Eldership...
...and, I still hold my ordination certificate rumored to have been recalled by the Eldership in 2016.
-----------------
We, in the ERC, may be at a crossroads.
The hierarchs are making noises, this time around, about breaking the unspoken agreement with the Conference and actually walking the talk...
...and expecting the rest of the Conference to abandon their part of the unspoken agreement...
...and to walk their talk, too.
If the hierarchs do that, the ERC will be in a dangerous moment.
Talk-ism has a long history in the CGGC. It's been functioning longer than any of the current hierarchs have been active in the ERC..
...maybe before some of them were born.
They have never experienced anything but Talk-ism.
Talk-ism is assumed and understood by everyone to be the way and the truth and everyday life the ERC.
Will the hierarchs really change? What will the Eldership do, if they do?
We'll see...we'll see.
Friday, January 19, 2018
The Theologically Corrupt Biblical Foundation of the ERC Strategic Plan
Quoting myself in an off-the-blog conversation about the biblical foundation for the new New Strategic Plan provided by Jim Moss at the Conference gathering this past Saturday:
"...the ideas that the Church can be life-giving or a pastor/parish priest can be life-giving, for me, come right out of the Vatican."
One of the Seven Deadly Choices, contained in the ERC's new New Strategic Plan, that I've been describing, is:
Middle Ages over New Testament.
I didn't hear Jim Moss give his biblical foundation for the new New Strategic Plan but, by now, I've had...am having...two conversations about it and I'm convinced that I understand what is crucial about what Jim did, and didn't, say.
The two recountings I'm receiving are from bright, involved people and those accounts are remarkably similar to each other. And, they are thumbs-up reviews of Jim's remarks.
The argument Jim made, I'm told, is that God is the giver of life. Jesus is the giver of abundant life. Part of our responsibility is to bring the life found in Jesus to the world.
Is there anything objectionable or anti-biblical or theologically corrupt there?
Not necessarily. Not as far as that goes.
However,...
...as soon as the ERC new New Strategic Plan-ners put those principles into practice, they hop into a time machine and they absolutely do not travel to Jesus and the New Testament (plan). As usual, they set the Vatican, Middle Ages as their destination.
As is well-known by now, they focus on three entities:
1. The local church, or parish.
2. The local church pastor, clergyman or parish priest, and
3. The church leadership hierarchy.
As we know:
1. Jesus hardly ever talked about church and, when He did, He never talked about the church in this way.
2. Jesus trained people to be apostles advancing the Kingdom, never, ever clergymen/pastors leading the local church, or parish.
3. In your wildest dreams, can you imagine Jesus suggesting that the Kingdom would be advanced through the work of a churchly leadership hierarchy?
As we also know, if you want to justify healthy, life-giving churches, pastors and hierarchs you will find that thinking, not in the pages of the Bible, but in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
----------------
The message of the Gospels is simple and clear. From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God...not the church...and, in light of the appearing of the Kingdom, Jesus called on all people to repent.
There is nothing of the message and ministry of Jesus in the ERC's new New Strategic Plan.
You approved it...
...but, if you love and follow Jesus, I can't guess why.
"...the ideas that the Church can be life-giving or a pastor/parish priest can be life-giving, for me, come right out of the Vatican."
One of the Seven Deadly Choices, contained in the ERC's new New Strategic Plan, that I've been describing, is:
Middle Ages over New Testament.
I didn't hear Jim Moss give his biblical foundation for the new New Strategic Plan but, by now, I've had...am having...two conversations about it and I'm convinced that I understand what is crucial about what Jim did, and didn't, say.
The two recountings I'm receiving are from bright, involved people and those accounts are remarkably similar to each other. And, they are thumbs-up reviews of Jim's remarks.
The argument Jim made, I'm told, is that God is the giver of life. Jesus is the giver of abundant life. Part of our responsibility is to bring the life found in Jesus to the world.
Is there anything objectionable or anti-biblical or theologically corrupt there?
Not necessarily. Not as far as that goes.
However,...
...as soon as the ERC new New Strategic Plan-ners put those principles into practice, they hop into a time machine and they absolutely do not travel to Jesus and the New Testament (plan). As usual, they set the Vatican, Middle Ages as their destination.
As is well-known by now, they focus on three entities:
1. The local church, or parish.
2. The local church pastor, clergyman or parish priest, and
3. The church leadership hierarchy.
As we know:
1. Jesus hardly ever talked about church and, when He did, He never talked about the church in this way.
2. Jesus trained people to be apostles advancing the Kingdom, never, ever clergymen/pastors leading the local church, or parish.
3. In your wildest dreams, can you imagine Jesus suggesting that the Kingdom would be advanced through the work of a churchly leadership hierarchy?
As we also know, if you want to justify healthy, life-giving churches, pastors and hierarchs you will find that thinking, not in the pages of the Bible, but in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
----------------
The message of the Gospels is simple and clear. From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God...not the church...and, in light of the appearing of the Kingdom, Jesus called on all people to repent.
There is nothing of the message and ministry of Jesus in the ERC's new New Strategic Plan.
You approved it...
...but, if you love and follow Jesus, I can't guess why.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Mom Fell Again
In the last year my mom has had problems with balance and weakness in her back and legs.
She is a typical 80something woman who has osteoporosis.
Mom's pretty easily confused and, so, it's difficult to find out from her what happened.
She fell.
Either it was when she was taking a shower or immediately after her shower but still in the bathroom.
She remembers becoming aware when she was lying on the floor.
Our greatest concern is that she's in pain and it's the same pain she felt when she crushed a vertebrae a while back.
We're trying to get her x-rayed.
She's also telling us that the home's quarantined due to the flu.
I'm trying to get in touch with the one person on staff who works with mom most regularly and can answer all the questions.
She is a typical 80something woman who has osteoporosis.
Mom's pretty easily confused and, so, it's difficult to find out from her what happened.
She fell.
Either it was when she was taking a shower or immediately after her shower but still in the bathroom.
She remembers becoming aware when she was lying on the floor.
Our greatest concern is that she's in pain and it's the same pain she felt when she crushed a vertebrae a while back.
We're trying to get her x-rayed.
She's also telling us that the home's quarantined due to the flu.
I'm trying to get in touch with the one person on staff who works with mom most regularly and can answer all the questions.
When We were a Movement: 239 Bible Verses
I've received two thumbs-up reviews of the Jim Moss's explanation of the new New Strategic Plan at the ERC gathering this past Saturday.
One reviewer said, simply, that Jim did a good job explaining the plan.
Another said that Jim did address the biblical foundation head-on and said that Jim's remarks were borderline preaching. (I think that that comment was praise, not criticism.)
Jim's message was summarized as describing God (the Father) and Jesus as givers of life and that it is for us to take the life found in Jesus to the world.
Clearly, Jim's remarks were intelligent and biblically oriented.
But, based on those two accounts, I don't think Jim's talk would have passed muster among our people during the movement days...
...for two reasons...
both are important...
...I'll do the lesser important of the two now, and if God is willing, the other later.
----------------
First, I've been looking over Winebrenner's 27 point description of the Faith and Practice of the Church of God which he wrote in the 1840s.
Two features of that list strike me as highlighting a crucial difference between today's CGGC and the Church of God in the days when spiritual and numerical growth were the order of the day.
1. Winebrenner painstakingly provided Bible verses to support each and every one of the 27 points. I count 239 Bible verses in all, provided by Winebrenner, to leave the reader in no doubt, and in the most detailed and specific way, of how the Word of God is the source of what the Church of God believes and does.
2. Winebrenner did not merely provide citations of chapter and verse. He actually printed out the passages of the Bible for the reader to see and judge personally and immediately.
----------------
It's time we faced up to the truth about how far we have fallen in our devotion to the Lord and the Word.
In the day when we were a movement, we were obsessed by a passion to do two things:
1. To know the truth fully, and
2. To practice truth literally...
...hence the marching orders, "New Testament plan."
What Winebrenner wrote, for instance, the 27 Points and his 1829, A BRIEF VIEW OF...THE CHURCH OF GOD, is so filled with Bible quotes and references that it takes dedication and effort to read. Those works are hard to read.
But, in our movement days, among our people, those almost unreadable writings were page-turners...
...because, in those days, the Church of God movement was passionate about Bible truth and our precise obedience to it.
How much time did Jim's talk on God as a giver of life take? How many DOZENS of Bible verses did he read? How painfully did he beat delegates over the head with biblical support for the truth that the Kingdom of God is built on, for instance, healthy, life-giving pastors? (Good luck with that one!)
----------------
I started out saying that I've gotten two thumbs-up reviews of Jim's remarks.
But, gang, the sort of talk that was described to me would have been an embarrassment in our movement days.
The fault, though, is not with Jim, who clearly knew his audience.
The fault is with the audience.
With the body.
With us.
To our people in our movement days, Jim's talk would have been considered flummery. (Great word. Take a minute. Look it up, if you need to.)
But, understand...our whole system is dysfunctional. It's hypocritical. It is talk-ist.
We need to dive head-first into the Word.
We must repent.
One reviewer said, simply, that Jim did a good job explaining the plan.
Another said that Jim did address the biblical foundation head-on and said that Jim's remarks were borderline preaching. (I think that that comment was praise, not criticism.)
Jim's message was summarized as describing God (the Father) and Jesus as givers of life and that it is for us to take the life found in Jesus to the world.
Clearly, Jim's remarks were intelligent and biblically oriented.
But, based on those two accounts, I don't think Jim's talk would have passed muster among our people during the movement days...
...for two reasons...
both are important...
...I'll do the lesser important of the two now, and if God is willing, the other later.
----------------
First, I've been looking over Winebrenner's 27 point description of the Faith and Practice of the Church of God which he wrote in the 1840s.
Two features of that list strike me as highlighting a crucial difference between today's CGGC and the Church of God in the days when spiritual and numerical growth were the order of the day.
1. Winebrenner painstakingly provided Bible verses to support each and every one of the 27 points. I count 239 Bible verses in all, provided by Winebrenner, to leave the reader in no doubt, and in the most detailed and specific way, of how the Word of God is the source of what the Church of God believes and does.
2. Winebrenner did not merely provide citations of chapter and verse. He actually printed out the passages of the Bible for the reader to see and judge personally and immediately.
----------------
It's time we faced up to the truth about how far we have fallen in our devotion to the Lord and the Word.
In the day when we were a movement, we were obsessed by a passion to do two things:
1. To know the truth fully, and
2. To practice truth literally...
...hence the marching orders, "New Testament plan."
What Winebrenner wrote, for instance, the 27 Points and his 1829, A BRIEF VIEW OF...THE CHURCH OF GOD, is so filled with Bible quotes and references that it takes dedication and effort to read. Those works are hard to read.
But, in our movement days, among our people, those almost unreadable writings were page-turners...
...because, in those days, the Church of God movement was passionate about Bible truth and our precise obedience to it.
How much time did Jim's talk on God as a giver of life take? How many DOZENS of Bible verses did he read? How painfully did he beat delegates over the head with biblical support for the truth that the Kingdom of God is built on, for instance, healthy, life-giving pastors? (Good luck with that one!)
----------------
I started out saying that I've gotten two thumbs-up reviews of Jim's remarks.
But, gang, the sort of talk that was described to me would have been an embarrassment in our movement days.
The fault, though, is not with Jim, who clearly knew his audience.
The fault is with the audience.
With the body.
With us.
To our people in our movement days, Jim's talk would have been considered flummery. (Great word. Take a minute. Look it up, if you need to.)
But, understand...our whole system is dysfunctional. It's hypocritical. It is talk-ist.
We need to dive head-first into the Word.
We must repent.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Working for Change in the CGGC
As dust settles in the wake of the approval of ERC's new New Strategic Plan, two thoughts emerge in my thinking.
One of them I've noted before. It is crucial. That is the new New Strategic Plan chooses:
Church over Kingdom,
Middle Ages over New Testament,
Leadership over servanthood,
Parish priests over APEST,
Hierarchy over the Holy Spirit,
CGGC church tradition over the Word and
Human planning over repentance.
The second is that the new New Strategic Plan doesn't change anything significant.
The seven choices described above are part of, what?, an "institutionalist coup"? staged in the Churches of God about 80 years ago by our body's first powerful...
...theologically conservative Lutheran wannabes.
But, please understand that the new New Strategic Plan is nothing more than a tweaking based on those seven chosen values.
Please, please understand:
In the days that the Church of God was a thriving, Spirit-empowered movement, our body chose differently on each of those seven points.
If the founders of our body knew that, in 2018, we would reaffirm those seven changes in values they'd be appalled.
But, apparently rather easily, the hierarchs convinced the ERCers that those seven changes in our values are still the bee's knees, as they were 80 years ago.
We had the chance to repent.
We didn't repent.
We must repent.
One of them I've noted before. It is crucial. That is the new New Strategic Plan chooses:
Church over Kingdom,
Middle Ages over New Testament,
Leadership over servanthood,
Parish priests over APEST,
Hierarchy over the Holy Spirit,
CGGC church tradition over the Word and
Human planning over repentance.
The second is that the new New Strategic Plan doesn't change anything significant.
The seven choices described above are part of, what?, an "institutionalist coup"? staged in the Churches of God about 80 years ago by our body's first powerful...
...theologically conservative Lutheran wannabes.
But, please understand that the new New Strategic Plan is nothing more than a tweaking based on those seven chosen values.
Please, please understand:
In the days that the Church of God was a thriving, Spirit-empowered movement, our body chose differently on each of those seven points.
If the founders of our body knew that, in 2018, we would reaffirm those seven changes in values they'd be appalled.
But, apparently rather easily, the hierarchs convinced the ERCers that those seven changes in our values are still the bee's knees, as they were 80 years ago.
We had the chance to repent.
We didn't repent.
We must repent.
Monday, January 15, 2018
Rewatching LEWIS Series 8 After Dad's Death
I'm batching it this week. Evie's on vacation with our niece Joyce.
I'll be spending spare time binge watching A & E's, NERO WOLFE mysteries.
Before she left, we were watching our discs of the last episodes the BBC show, LEWIS, one of our faves.
In the last episodes, Lewis' colleague, James Hathaway and his sister were watching their father deteriorate as he progressed through the latter stages of dementia.
Previously, I've mentioned being impressed by the sensitivity of the writing of those episodes.
Now that dad's gone, I wanted to watch them again.
So, as Evie was packing, we did.
Someone involved in the writing must have experience with a parent or other close relative or friend, or a spouse and dementia.
As before, I was deeply touched, though this time, the shows helped me, not in dealing with dementia, but mourning the loss of my dad.
It showed me that we have much to be thankful for in how dad's journey went and how the family handled it.
I'll be spending spare time binge watching A & E's, NERO WOLFE mysteries.
Before she left, we were watching our discs of the last episodes the BBC show, LEWIS, one of our faves.
In the last episodes, Lewis' colleague, James Hathaway and his sister were watching their father deteriorate as he progressed through the latter stages of dementia.
Previously, I've mentioned being impressed by the sensitivity of the writing of those episodes.
Now that dad's gone, I wanted to watch them again.
So, as Evie was packing, we did.
Someone involved in the writing must have experience with a parent or other close relative or friend, or a spouse and dementia.
As before, I was deeply touched, though this time, the shows helped me, not in dealing with dementia, but mourning the loss of my dad.
It showed me that we have much to be thankful for in how dad's journey went and how the family handled it.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Two Blown Opportunities for Revival
As you may know, I have been trained as a historian. My primary interest is in what was called, "The History of Christian Revivalism," in the day I was trained.
My dissertation was in the history of the Church of God that is connected to the ministry of the nineteenth century revivalist, John Winebrenner.
Winebrenner was, like me, no intellectual giant. And, like him, I am, theologically speaking, a radical primitivist. What remains of the body Winebrenner began is also, officially, but only officially, primitivist.
On the day Winebrenner's gang formed under the name, the Church of God, Winebrenner rallied the men and women who shared his passion and vision to, first of all, devote themselves to the conversion of sinners and, then, secondly, to establish churches "on the New Testament."
I am not ashamed to pursue what a friend of mine calls that "primal" faith in Jesus.
In my intentionally and self-consciously unsophisticated way of following Jesus, I read the Bible, not only as Scripture but also as a group of ancient documents describing life among the people of God.
----------------
In the Bible and within the history of Christianity, I see two ways in which people, who are no longer thriving spiritually, return to the Lord.
----------------
The, by far, less common of the two, is described, most dramatically, in the Bible in the Book of Jonah.
According to the story, Jonah showed up in the city of Nineveh saying that in 40 days the city would be overthrown.
The people of Nineveh, surprisingly, believed. And, the king of Nineveh put on sackcloth and commanded the whole city to do the same. The people followed along with their leader and the Lord showed mercy.
This is the Ninevite, top down, revival.
----------------
What happens more frequently is that fiery, often tumultuous, change that comes through whacked out radicals on the fringe, operating beyond the edges of institutional religion...
...the biblical prophets, people like Elijah and John (the Baptist), even Jesus wandering around Galilee, whom, the elite within the religious institution, must have seen as insane.
In the relatively recent history of Christianity, Luther, a lateral-thinking, young professor at an unimportant Roman Catholic university in Germany?, the methodists, the Wesleys and the others, who graduated from Oxford only to preach a simple message among the most common people of England, the unwashed holiness and Pentecostal revivalists whipping up a boisterous religious movement a hundred years ago and more.
----------------
As a lover of the tepid remains of John Winebrenner's movement, I am convinced that the body's Eastern Regional Conference has recently gone 0 for 2 as it bumped up against the chance for positive change...for revival.
----------------
More than a year ago, the Conference's institutional leaders realized that, as a result of decades of numerical decline and spiritual decay, the Conference was in crisis.
The dramatic example of the king of Nineveh shone before them in the Bible, their "only rule of faith and practice."
The several, less dramatic yet still powerful, examples of Old Testament kings who believed the words of the prophets and led radical, even violent, change provided, for ERC leaders, a biblical road map for revival.
Did Conference leaders become, as Jesus said it, "poor in spirit?" Did they put on sack cloth and tell others in the Conference to do the same? Did they beg for mercy?
No.
They turned inside themselves. They talked among themselves. They devised a plan that included themselves. And, elevated themselves.
They proposed a new Strategic Plan that presented a revised and expanded religious institution as the solution to the Conference's spiritual woes.
0 for 1.
----------------
In the Churches of God, even today, legal, and spiritual authority, according to its Constitution, still resides in the hands of the members of the Conference.
As much as the leaders of the Conference, wanted to attack the challenges of the future by reorganizing and expanding the institutional hierarchy, the members of the Conference possessed the power to choose its own way,...
...to decide which voice, or voices it would listen to...
...their hierarchical leaders who are advocates of institutional religion and who devised the new Strategic Plan...
...the Bible, it's only rule of faith and practice...
...or the voices, especially those speaking as the Conference gathered,...
...who boldly called the Conference delegates to stand against the leaders of the institution...
...and to seek a different way.
The Conference could have considered different voices.
Since leadership had presented its plan with no biblical foundation, delegates could have turned to the Word and demanded, from leadership, a presentation of their plan supported by teachings from the Word.
The Conference didn't do that. It didn't turn to the Word.
It, in effect, chose the people of the institution over the power of the Word.
The Conference chose the conventional and the moderate over the radical and the fringe.
0 for 2.
----------------
There are two ways that the people of God have chosen to return to the Lord.
The Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God, has chosen to reject both of them.
===============
I wrote this post in a more academic style than has become normal for me...
...a style of posting that was common for me in the days of The CGGC in an Emerging World blog.
I'm writing this post in this style because I believe that what the Conference did on January 13, 2018 is as mind-numbed and hypocritical as any action of the Conference at any time in its history.
We must repent.
My dissertation was in the history of the Church of God that is connected to the ministry of the nineteenth century revivalist, John Winebrenner.
Winebrenner was, like me, no intellectual giant. And, like him, I am, theologically speaking, a radical primitivist. What remains of the body Winebrenner began is also, officially, but only officially, primitivist.
On the day Winebrenner's gang formed under the name, the Church of God, Winebrenner rallied the men and women who shared his passion and vision to, first of all, devote themselves to the conversion of sinners and, then, secondly, to establish churches "on the New Testament."
I am not ashamed to pursue what a friend of mine calls that "primal" faith in Jesus.
In my intentionally and self-consciously unsophisticated way of following Jesus, I read the Bible, not only as Scripture but also as a group of ancient documents describing life among the people of God.
----------------
In the Bible and within the history of Christianity, I see two ways in which people, who are no longer thriving spiritually, return to the Lord.
----------------
The, by far, less common of the two, is described, most dramatically, in the Bible in the Book of Jonah.
According to the story, Jonah showed up in the city of Nineveh saying that in 40 days the city would be overthrown.
The people of Nineveh, surprisingly, believed. And, the king of Nineveh put on sackcloth and commanded the whole city to do the same. The people followed along with their leader and the Lord showed mercy.
This is the Ninevite, top down, revival.
----------------
What happens more frequently is that fiery, often tumultuous, change that comes through whacked out radicals on the fringe, operating beyond the edges of institutional religion...
...the biblical prophets, people like Elijah and John (the Baptist), even Jesus wandering around Galilee, whom, the elite within the religious institution, must have seen as insane.
In the relatively recent history of Christianity, Luther, a lateral-thinking, young professor at an unimportant Roman Catholic university in Germany?, the methodists, the Wesleys and the others, who graduated from Oxford only to preach a simple message among the most common people of England, the unwashed holiness and Pentecostal revivalists whipping up a boisterous religious movement a hundred years ago and more.
----------------
As a lover of the tepid remains of John Winebrenner's movement, I am convinced that the body's Eastern Regional Conference has recently gone 0 for 2 as it bumped up against the chance for positive change...for revival.
----------------
More than a year ago, the Conference's institutional leaders realized that, as a result of decades of numerical decline and spiritual decay, the Conference was in crisis.
The dramatic example of the king of Nineveh shone before them in the Bible, their "only rule of faith and practice."
The several, less dramatic yet still powerful, examples of Old Testament kings who believed the words of the prophets and led radical, even violent, change provided, for ERC leaders, a biblical road map for revival.
Did Conference leaders become, as Jesus said it, "poor in spirit?" Did they put on sack cloth and tell others in the Conference to do the same? Did they beg for mercy?
No.
They turned inside themselves. They talked among themselves. They devised a plan that included themselves. And, elevated themselves.
They proposed a new Strategic Plan that presented a revised and expanded religious institution as the solution to the Conference's spiritual woes.
0 for 1.
----------------
In the Churches of God, even today, legal, and spiritual authority, according to its Constitution, still resides in the hands of the members of the Conference.
As much as the leaders of the Conference, wanted to attack the challenges of the future by reorganizing and expanding the institutional hierarchy, the members of the Conference possessed the power to choose its own way,...
...to decide which voice, or voices it would listen to...
...their hierarchical leaders who are advocates of institutional religion and who devised the new Strategic Plan...
...the Bible, it's only rule of faith and practice...
...or the voices, especially those speaking as the Conference gathered,...
...who boldly called the Conference delegates to stand against the leaders of the institution...
...and to seek a different way.
The Conference could have considered different voices.
Since leadership had presented its plan with no biblical foundation, delegates could have turned to the Word and demanded, from leadership, a presentation of their plan supported by teachings from the Word.
The Conference didn't do that. It didn't turn to the Word.
It, in effect, chose the people of the institution over the power of the Word.
The Conference chose the conventional and the moderate over the radical and the fringe.
0 for 2.
----------------
There are two ways that the people of God have chosen to return to the Lord.
The Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God, has chosen to reject both of them.
===============
I wrote this post in a more academic style than has become normal for me...
...a style of posting that was common for me in the days of The CGGC in an Emerging World blog.
I'm writing this post in this style because I believe that what the Conference did on January 13, 2018 is as mind-numbed and hypocritical as any action of the Conference at any time in its history.
We must repent.
The Plan is Approved: What I Think...How I Feel
Of course, I was not present. The information I have about the meeting is second hand but from a reliable witness.
Based on what I've heard, the meeting was, well, bland. Or, very CGGC-ish.
All of the amendments passed easily. There was very little discussion. There might have been some minor boycotting but nearly 200 were in attendance.
Or,...
...the Conference rubber stamped the wishes of the hierarchs...
...in a manner very similar to the way it has been doing for decades.
Understand, though, that these decades of rubber stamping are the same decades in which the CGGC and ERC have been experiencing...
1. Numerical decline, and
2. Spiritual decay.
Hovering up here 8 miles in altitude, here's what I see:
The ERC chose to stay on course, the course that has born fruit in decline and decay.
Based on what I wrote yesterday, these are the choices my brothers and sisters made at the Conference gathering:
CHURCH, not Kingdom,
MIDDLE AGES, not New Testament,
LEADERSHIP, not servanthood,
PARISH PRIESTS, not APEST,
HIERARCHY, not Holy Spirit,
CGGC CHURCH TRADITION, not the Word, and,
HUMAN PLANNING, not repentance.
If I understand the report I've received correctly, no one asked for, and the hierarchs still haven't provided, the biblical foundation for the plan.
----------------
I've been probing my soul and heart, asking myself how I feel about the way the gathering worked out.
As of the moment, I don't feel much.
I had no expectation, though I suppose I had a vague hope that, from a remnant, the Eldership would have chosen Kingdom, New Testament, servanthood, APEST, the Holy Spirit, the Word and repentance.
But, the Eldership hasn't been making those choices since the earliest days of the Church of God, when we were a movement.
----------------
Did no one really ask for the biblical foundation of this plan?!?!?!!!!!
If that's the case, and the plan was approved without reference to truth beyond the wisdom of the hierarchs, what's the truth about the ERC?
Did the hierarchs really not proactively offer the biblical foundation of this plan!?!?!.?!!!!!
Apparently not.
----------------
Reading the Sermon on the Mount, reading Ephesians 2:8-10, reading James, reading all of the New Testament...reading the whole BIBLE...faith is revealed in what people do.
What you do is what you believe.
What the Conference DID yesterday, at least based on what I've heard, seems to be par for the course that it has been on during the whole era of its decline and decay.
----------------
So, the plan was approved. The hierarchs won. Recent CGGC church tradition prevailed. The ERC is staying the course, walking on the same path...affirming its faith in the, soon to be expanded, institutional hierarchy.
From 8 miles up here?...not good.
But, nothing new.
Same old, same old.
We must repent.
Based on what I've heard, the meeting was, well, bland. Or, very CGGC-ish.
All of the amendments passed easily. There was very little discussion. There might have been some minor boycotting but nearly 200 were in attendance.
Or,...
...the Conference rubber stamped the wishes of the hierarchs...
...in a manner very similar to the way it has been doing for decades.
Understand, though, that these decades of rubber stamping are the same decades in which the CGGC and ERC have been experiencing...
1. Numerical decline, and
2. Spiritual decay.
Hovering up here 8 miles in altitude, here's what I see:
The ERC chose to stay on course, the course that has born fruit in decline and decay.
Based on what I wrote yesterday, these are the choices my brothers and sisters made at the Conference gathering:
CHURCH, not Kingdom,
MIDDLE AGES, not New Testament,
LEADERSHIP, not servanthood,
PARISH PRIESTS, not APEST,
HIERARCHY, not Holy Spirit,
CGGC CHURCH TRADITION, not the Word, and,
HUMAN PLANNING, not repentance.
If I understand the report I've received correctly, no one asked for, and the hierarchs still haven't provided, the biblical foundation for the plan.
----------------
I've been probing my soul and heart, asking myself how I feel about the way the gathering worked out.
As of the moment, I don't feel much.
I had no expectation, though I suppose I had a vague hope that, from a remnant, the Eldership would have chosen Kingdom, New Testament, servanthood, APEST, the Holy Spirit, the Word and repentance.
But, the Eldership hasn't been making those choices since the earliest days of the Church of God, when we were a movement.
----------------
Did no one really ask for the biblical foundation of this plan?!?!?!!!!!
If that's the case, and the plan was approved without reference to truth beyond the wisdom of the hierarchs, what's the truth about the ERC?
Did the hierarchs really not proactively offer the biblical foundation of this plan!?!?!.?!!!!!
Apparently not.
----------------
Reading the Sermon on the Mount, reading Ephesians 2:8-10, reading James, reading all of the New Testament...reading the whole BIBLE...faith is revealed in what people do.
What you do is what you believe.
What the Conference DID yesterday, at least based on what I've heard, seems to be par for the course that it has been on during the whole era of its decline and decay.
----------------
So, the plan was approved. The hierarchs won. Recent CGGC church tradition prevailed. The ERC is staying the course, walking on the same path...affirming its faith in the, soon to be expanded, institutional hierarchy.
From 8 miles up here?...not good.
But, nothing new.
Same old, same old.
We must repent.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
On my Obsession with the ERC Strategic Plan
Years ago, when I was only beginning to explore what it would mean for me to walk in what I was, and still am, convinced is my gift and calling to be a prophet, one of my colleagues in ministry asked me why I never post anything positive about the CGGC.
At the time, the Emerging Church blog was still thriving.
And, I understood his point of view and the reason he asked the question.
I remember the question vividly, about ten years later, because it caused me to think through an aspect of walking in my calling that I'd not considered before.
My friend was speaking from the wisdom taught in homiletics (preaching) classes in theological education.
In that context, we're taught that a preaching plan should include balance in, among other things, positive and negative themes.
What I said then, is that I do my best to say/write what I believe the Holy Spirit leads me to. I'll let Him determine how positive or negative my words are.
As the years have passed, I've increased in my belief in that conviction.
One side note: History reveals that my negative take on what was going on in the CGGC and ERC was accurate. The numerical decline and spiritual decay across our body has followed the track I have described and predicted.
----------------
All of that said, my intense focus on the ERC Conference gathering to vote on the ARTICLE VII amendment to the ERC Constitution and, therefore, to implement the new New Strategic Plan is unprecedented in my prophetic ministry.
From the outside, it must seem like an unhealthy obsession.
But, I'll say what I said during the days of the Emerging Church blog. I do my best to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
There are times that I myself don't understand what I do.
What's the big deal with the new New Strategic Plan?
While I feel good about all that I've written about the plan, even I, from time to time, have wondered, "Isn't this enough, already?!"
If I've been successful in following the leading of the Spirit, what does this seeming obsession say about the Lord and the CGGC's relationship with Him?
I'd guess that this probably means that He hasn't given up on us.
I think that the specifics of what I've written are important to Him:
Kingdom, not church,
New Testament, not Middle Ages,
Servanthood, not leadership,
APEST, not parish priests,
Holy Spirit, not hierarchy,
the Word, not CGGC church tradition
Repentance, not human planning.
I suspect that He wants us to let Him break the bonds of our old ways to allow Him to lead us into doing what would feel uncomfortably progressive to us in taking the gospel to millennials and their families.
And, as I've said numerous times, I believe He thinks that our culture is dysfunctional. The attitude that leads to the existence of the group I call hierarchs and the deep-rooted cultures of cynicism and apathy are sinful.
----------------
As Forest Gump sometimes says, "And, that's all I have to say about that. "
At the time, the Emerging Church blog was still thriving.
And, I understood his point of view and the reason he asked the question.
I remember the question vividly, about ten years later, because it caused me to think through an aspect of walking in my calling that I'd not considered before.
My friend was speaking from the wisdom taught in homiletics (preaching) classes in theological education.
In that context, we're taught that a preaching plan should include balance in, among other things, positive and negative themes.
What I said then, is that I do my best to say/write what I believe the Holy Spirit leads me to. I'll let Him determine how positive or negative my words are.
As the years have passed, I've increased in my belief in that conviction.
One side note: History reveals that my negative take on what was going on in the CGGC and ERC was accurate. The numerical decline and spiritual decay across our body has followed the track I have described and predicted.
----------------
All of that said, my intense focus on the ERC Conference gathering to vote on the ARTICLE VII amendment to the ERC Constitution and, therefore, to implement the new New Strategic Plan is unprecedented in my prophetic ministry.
From the outside, it must seem like an unhealthy obsession.
But, I'll say what I said during the days of the Emerging Church blog. I do my best to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
There are times that I myself don't understand what I do.
What's the big deal with the new New Strategic Plan?
While I feel good about all that I've written about the plan, even I, from time to time, have wondered, "Isn't this enough, already?!"
If I've been successful in following the leading of the Spirit, what does this seeming obsession say about the Lord and the CGGC's relationship with Him?
I'd guess that this probably means that He hasn't given up on us.
I think that the specifics of what I've written are important to Him:
Kingdom, not church,
New Testament, not Middle Ages,
Servanthood, not leadership,
APEST, not parish priests,
Holy Spirit, not hierarchy,
the Word, not CGGC church tradition
Repentance, not human planning.
I suspect that He wants us to let Him break the bonds of our old ways to allow Him to lead us into doing what would feel uncomfortably progressive to us in taking the gospel to millennials and their families.
And, as I've said numerous times, I believe He thinks that our culture is dysfunctional. The attitude that leads to the existence of the group I call hierarchs and the deep-rooted cultures of cynicism and apathy are sinful.
----------------
As Forest Gump sometimes says, "And, that's all I have to say about that. "
A Dog for Mom?
It is usual for people with dementia, when they suffer a trauma, to advance in their illness.
The death of my dad has been, very understandably, a profound emotional trauma for my mother.
Mom and dad still walked the halls of the home holding hands as long as they were stable enough on their feet to do so.
The staff in dad's nursing care unit allowed mom to sleep in dad's bed through his last night.
Mom and dad were married for 65 years and were as emotionally connected as any two people I have ever known.
Certainly, mom is grieving. However, in addition to that, her Alzheimer's has worsened.
The most difficult part of it for her has always been the memory loss.
We were actually concerned that, on the morning after dad died, she'd have forgotten. But, she did remember.
-----------------
Our last two dogs have been Golden Retrievers. Goldens are usually very calm and gentle...and both of ours were.
Dogs are permitted to visit home residents if they are registered with the home. Both of our Goldens visited mom and dad during their years at the home. And, mom bonded deeply with both of them.
Mom told us that she didn't sleep at all the night after she learned that Maggie died.
Now, mom seems really to want to find comfort in our dog.
You may remember that Lizzie died on December 17, the day before dad's funeral.
So, a few nights ago, mom called Evie and asked how the puppy is. It broke Evie's heart to have to remind mom that Lizzie had died.
Now, every time we talk to mom it seems that she's talking about dogs. She does remember now that Lizzie's gone but she keeps asking when we're going to get a new dog and what kind it will be.
I resigned myself to the reality that we'd probably get another dog anyway but now it seems we almost need to for mom's emotional and mental health.
My guess is that there's a one in three chance that we'll have one by the end of this month and a 4 to 1 chance we'll have one by the end of February.
Oh, well...
I like dogs and Goldens are sweet and lovable.
But, they die so young.
The death of my dad has been, very understandably, a profound emotional trauma for my mother.
Mom and dad still walked the halls of the home holding hands as long as they were stable enough on their feet to do so.
The staff in dad's nursing care unit allowed mom to sleep in dad's bed through his last night.
Mom and dad were married for 65 years and were as emotionally connected as any two people I have ever known.
Certainly, mom is grieving. However, in addition to that, her Alzheimer's has worsened.
The most difficult part of it for her has always been the memory loss.
We were actually concerned that, on the morning after dad died, she'd have forgotten. But, she did remember.
-----------------
Our last two dogs have been Golden Retrievers. Goldens are usually very calm and gentle...and both of ours were.
Dogs are permitted to visit home residents if they are registered with the home. Both of our Goldens visited mom and dad during their years at the home. And, mom bonded deeply with both of them.
Mom told us that she didn't sleep at all the night after she learned that Maggie died.
Now, mom seems really to want to find comfort in our dog.
You may remember that Lizzie died on December 17, the day before dad's funeral.
So, a few nights ago, mom called Evie and asked how the puppy is. It broke Evie's heart to have to remind mom that Lizzie had died.
Now, every time we talk to mom it seems that she's talking about dogs. She does remember now that Lizzie's gone but she keeps asking when we're going to get a new dog and what kind it will be.
I resigned myself to the reality that we'd probably get another dog anyway but now it seems we almost need to for mom's emotional and mental health.
My guess is that there's a one in three chance that we'll have one by the end of this month and a 4 to 1 chance we'll have one by the end of February.
Oh, well...
I like dogs and Goldens are sweet and lovable.
But, they die so young.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Does Anyone Disagree with me about This?
The problem in the ERC, and in the CGGC, is spiritual, not strategic.
Broken Relationships and the new New Strategic Plan
In 2015, I opposed the proposed strategic plan...alone.
But, more than that, I was certain that it would come to nothing.
...which it did...after it was approved...unanimously.
We all know that I was correct about the 2015 old new Strategic Plan.
-----------------
Part of the reason I was correct about the old plan has to do with my gifting as a prophet...
... that is, with my hyper-focus on Bible truth...
...but, part of it, I believe, has nothing at all to do with the gift of prophecy at all.
Part of it had to do with my common sense realization that, very simply, relationships in the ERC, in 2015, were broken.
Cynicism ran rampant through the ERC. And, apathy continued to be a serious problem.
Because of that, the 2015 Strategic Plan was unanimously approved and, immediately, became only words on a page.
And, my guess is that relationships are more broken, and dysfunctional, in 2018 than they were in 2015.
----------------
No one, besides me, as far as I know, has even mentioned...
...and, let me put it this way:
There is little of the love of Jesus in the ERC.
Jesus gave to His disciples...to us, too...what He called, "a New Commandment," that is, "Love one another."
When He said that, He had just washed the disciples' feet and, referring to that act of humiliation, Jesus said, "As I have loved you so must you love one another."
----------------
Please don't lose the significance of this next, crucial truth:
Shepherd dominated church institutions don't do the love of Jesus well.
Shepherd dominated church institutions practice mild and bland tolerance in place of love.
The love Jesus practiced, then turned into the New Command in John 13, is radical.
It attacks human norms of behavior. It challenges what is, humanly speaking, reasonable and logical.
The love Jesus commands in the New Commandment turns leaders into slaves.
It demands that the people of the Body of Christ struggle to out-serve their slave leaders.
In shepherd dominated church institutions, leaders seek to be followed, they don't want to become, as Jesus said it, "the slave of all."
Our shepherd leaders have been defying the New Commandment for decades.
And, their leadership has never, really, been followed by the ERC body.
What they have led is numerical decline and spiritual decay.
----------------
The Lord has not revealed to me what will be the result of the votes at the Conference gathering tomorrow in terms of whether or not the plan will be approved through the ARTICLE VII amendment.
What I do know, though, is this:
Until the people of the ERC change their ways and begin to obey the New Commandment...
...begin to love each other as Jesus loved,...
...nothing important will change.
Our problems are spiritual, not strategic.
We must repent.
But, more than that, I was certain that it would come to nothing.
...which it did...after it was approved...unanimously.
We all know that I was correct about the 2015 old new Strategic Plan.
-----------------
Part of the reason I was correct about the old plan has to do with my gifting as a prophet...
... that is, with my hyper-focus on Bible truth...
...but, part of it, I believe, has nothing at all to do with the gift of prophecy at all.
Part of it had to do with my common sense realization that, very simply, relationships in the ERC, in 2015, were broken.
Cynicism ran rampant through the ERC. And, apathy continued to be a serious problem.
Because of that, the 2015 Strategic Plan was unanimously approved and, immediately, became only words on a page.
And, my guess is that relationships are more broken, and dysfunctional, in 2018 than they were in 2015.
----------------
No one, besides me, as far as I know, has even mentioned...
...and, let me put it this way:
There is little of the love of Jesus in the ERC.
Jesus gave to His disciples...to us, too...what He called, "a New Commandment," that is, "Love one another."
When He said that, He had just washed the disciples' feet and, referring to that act of humiliation, Jesus said, "As I have loved you so must you love one another."
----------------
Please don't lose the significance of this next, crucial truth:
Shepherd dominated church institutions don't do the love of Jesus well.
Shepherd dominated church institutions practice mild and bland tolerance in place of love.
The love Jesus practiced, then turned into the New Command in John 13, is radical.
It attacks human norms of behavior. It challenges what is, humanly speaking, reasonable and logical.
The love Jesus commands in the New Commandment turns leaders into slaves.
It demands that the people of the Body of Christ struggle to out-serve their slave leaders.
In shepherd dominated church institutions, leaders seek to be followed, they don't want to become, as Jesus said it, "the slave of all."
Our shepherd leaders have been defying the New Commandment for decades.
And, their leadership has never, really, been followed by the ERC body.
What they have led is numerical decline and spiritual decay.
----------------
The Lord has not revealed to me what will be the result of the votes at the Conference gathering tomorrow in terms of whether or not the plan will be approved through the ARTICLE VII amendment.
What I do know, though, is this:
Until the people of the ERC change their ways and begin to obey the New Commandment...
...begin to love each other as Jesus loved,...
...nothing important will change.
Our problems are spiritual, not strategic.
We must repent.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Pastors: A Question about the new New Strategic Plan
One important theme in the Gospels has Jesus calling men to follow Him and to be equipped by Him to be apostles.
Jesus didn't establish churches and the position of the pastor of a congregation is absolutely foreign to everything Jesus said and did.
In fact, there were no congregational pastors at all in the New Testament. However, Ephesians says that until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus will give to His Body apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers.
----------------
Question: As a part of the Churches of God, General Conference, the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
On what biblical authority does the new strategic plan place emphasis on the position of the pastor of a congregation?
Jesus didn't establish churches and the position of the pastor of a congregation is absolutely foreign to everything Jesus said and did.
In fact, there were no congregational pastors at all in the New Testament. However, Ephesians says that until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus will give to His Body apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers.
----------------
Question: As a part of the Churches of God, General Conference, the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
On what biblical authority does the new strategic plan place emphasis on the position of the pastor of a congregation?
My Mistake! Commissions have NOT Stopped Meeting ON THEIR OWN
I corrected a previous post by noting that someone informed me that no current ERC commissions have been dissolved but, and this is how it was said to me, "(some commissions) have chosen to stop meeting on their own."
I got this information from someone who gets his own information from the top of the ERC food chain.
But, yesterday, I was set straight by a member of one commission apparently reported, to the person who informed me, to have chosen to stop meeting.
That commission, which, indeed, has stopped meeting...
...ABSOLUTELY DID NOT CHOOSE TO STOP MEETING ON ITS OWN!!!!!
It was, and this is my description, based on what I heard,...
...through an act of ecclesiastical thuggery...
...by a member of ERC staff who,...
...based on the account I heard...
...could have been a mentor to Joseph Stalin on how to carry out a purge.
While I'll do my best to conceal the identity of the particular commission from the hit men among the ERC Mafiosi,...
...I'll say that many heads were lost. Many who served that Commission faithfully and sacrificially for years were informed that their commission will no longer function...
...and that, under the new structure, their participation in that part of the ministry of the ERC will no longer be required.
----------------
Now, understand...
...I know that commission membership is always fluctuating...
...and, there has to be someone making decisions about who serves and who doesn't serve.
----------------
The issue here...
...AGAIN...
...is with the lack of honesty and integrity of this current batch of leaders.
These hierarchs just can't seem to tell the truth.
----------------
No matter what else happened...
...it is a hierarch who chose to dissolve that commission...
...the commission did not choose to stop meeting.
And, this is a commission whose existence is still required by the authority of the Conference.
----------------
In addition to the falsehood about who chose to stop the commission from meeting,...
...please note the arrogance.
These hierarchs appear to certain that you will let them have their way with you.
They're already acting as if you've approved the ARTICLE VII amendment to the ERC Constitution.
---------------
Lies and arrogance!
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing will never bless this mess.
We must repent.
I got this information from someone who gets his own information from the top of the ERC food chain.
But, yesterday, I was set straight by a member of one commission apparently reported, to the person who informed me, to have chosen to stop meeting.
That commission, which, indeed, has stopped meeting...
...ABSOLUTELY DID NOT CHOOSE TO STOP MEETING ON ITS OWN!!!!!
It was, and this is my description, based on what I heard,...
...through an act of ecclesiastical thuggery...
...by a member of ERC staff who,...
...based on the account I heard...
...could have been a mentor to Joseph Stalin on how to carry out a purge.
While I'll do my best to conceal the identity of the particular commission from the hit men among the ERC Mafiosi,...
...I'll say that many heads were lost. Many who served that Commission faithfully and sacrificially for years were informed that their commission will no longer function...
...and that, under the new structure, their participation in that part of the ministry of the ERC will no longer be required.
----------------
Now, understand...
...I know that commission membership is always fluctuating...
...and, there has to be someone making decisions about who serves and who doesn't serve.
----------------
The issue here...
...AGAIN...
...is with the lack of honesty and integrity of this current batch of leaders.
These hierarchs just can't seem to tell the truth.
----------------
No matter what else happened...
...it is a hierarch who chose to dissolve that commission...
...the commission did not choose to stop meeting.
And, this is a commission whose existence is still required by the authority of the Conference.
----------------
In addition to the falsehood about who chose to stop the commission from meeting,...
...please note the arrogance.
These hierarchs appear to certain that you will let them have their way with you.
They're already acting as if you've approved the ARTICLE VII amendment to the ERC Constitution.
---------------
Lies and arrogance!
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing will never bless this mess.
We must repent.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Big Government Church-ism in the new New Strategic Plan
The very first, as Lew calls it, sniping, I received from a Round Table Meeting at which the ERC new New Strategic Plan was presented, was the impression, which I received, that, in the plan, Conference leadership assumes a role for itself that is much greater than leadership in the CGGC had ever imagined before.
The description, BIG GOVERNMENT CHURCH-ISM is mine, based on that impression.
But, I think it's accurate.
ERC paid staff will increase in size under the new plan.
Perhaps, more importantly, the hierarch's reach into the workings of local churches, and into the ministry of ERC parish priests, will be more invasive, through the Conference-organized and operated Connecxtions groups.
And, that's one reason that the honesty and integrity of the human beings who want to run the Conference must be an issue.
From the secluded, deep, dark and distant valley where I live out my exile I don't even know the membership of the Task Force that wrote the new New Strategic Plan.
(Just curious: Do you know all of those names?)
Anyway,
Have you noticed that the authority of the Word hasn't been mentioned in connection with the new New Strategic Plan?
Have you noticed that the leading of the Spirit hasn't been mentioned?
Has it occurred to you how great a quantum leap in the authority of human leaders, over the activity of ERC ministers and churches, is being demanded by ERC hierarchs under the proposed plan?
----------------
Considering that the Word is not being cited, that the Spirit, by their own words (or lack of them), is being ignored and that the hierarchs want more control over ministers and churches...
...isn't it fair to say that the message of the new New Strategic Plan is:
He must decrease and we must increase!
I'm trying as hard as I can not to exaggerate. I think I'm not exaggerating.
I'm taking what they're saying...and NOT saying...at face value.
And, I'm offering a perfectly sincere prophetic warning.
----------------
Before you vote, "Aye," on this thing, demand a testimony from the hierarchs of their search for the guidance of the Spirit...a testimony you can believe, along with a believable explanation of why the guidance of the Spirit has not been mentioned, first and foremost, as the reason for this plan.
Before you approve, get the biblical foundation of this plan from the hierarchs and demand the opportunity to examine it and to pray over it and meditate and reflect on it.
Before you give the go ahead, ask the Lord if He wants you to have stronger human mediation between Christ and you, rather than less.
This plan is institutional. It is Big Government Church-ism...
...it is Big Institution. It's not Big GOD.
It's big on human programs and plans. It is not big on the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must repent.
The description, BIG GOVERNMENT CHURCH-ISM is mine, based on that impression.
But, I think it's accurate.
ERC paid staff will increase in size under the new plan.
Perhaps, more importantly, the hierarch's reach into the workings of local churches, and into the ministry of ERC parish priests, will be more invasive, through the Conference-organized and operated Connecxtions groups.
And, that's one reason that the honesty and integrity of the human beings who want to run the Conference must be an issue.
From the secluded, deep, dark and distant valley where I live out my exile I don't even know the membership of the Task Force that wrote the new New Strategic Plan.
(Just curious: Do you know all of those names?)
Anyway,
Have you noticed that the authority of the Word hasn't been mentioned in connection with the new New Strategic Plan?
Have you noticed that the leading of the Spirit hasn't been mentioned?
Has it occurred to you how great a quantum leap in the authority of human leaders, over the activity of ERC ministers and churches, is being demanded by ERC hierarchs under the proposed plan?
----------------
Considering that the Word is not being cited, that the Spirit, by their own words (or lack of them), is being ignored and that the hierarchs want more control over ministers and churches...
...isn't it fair to say that the message of the new New Strategic Plan is:
He must decrease and we must increase!
I'm trying as hard as I can not to exaggerate. I think I'm not exaggerating.
I'm taking what they're saying...and NOT saying...at face value.
And, I'm offering a perfectly sincere prophetic warning.
----------------
Before you vote, "Aye," on this thing, demand a testimony from the hierarchs of their search for the guidance of the Spirit...a testimony you can believe, along with a believable explanation of why the guidance of the Spirit has not been mentioned, first and foremost, as the reason for this plan.
Before you approve, get the biblical foundation of this plan from the hierarchs and demand the opportunity to examine it and to pray over it and meditate and reflect on it.
Before you give the go ahead, ask the Lord if He wants you to have stronger human mediation between Christ and you, rather than less.
This plan is institutional. It is Big Government Church-ism...
...it is Big Institution. It's not Big GOD.
It's big on human programs and plans. It is not big on the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must repent.
A Question: Discipleship in the new New Strategic Plan
We all remember, don't we, that, in 2016, ERC hierarchs, as well as others who were elected, traveled to Findlay and gathered among other high-ranking CGGC mountaintoppers for the once-every-three-years General Conference sessions.
In the accounts passed down from those thin-air meetings, all of the talk was of the keynote speeches and the theme, discipling.
What's up with that?
It seems to me that, under current regimes, CGGC fads now come and go at the speed of light.
And, have you noticed that, in the ERC's new New Strategic Plan, there's no Commission or staffing devoted to discipleship?
Did the writers of the new New Strategic Plan ever hear of the Great Commission?!??!!!!!
----------------
The word church is absent from three of the four Gospels.
The concept of the position of the pastor of a congregation isn't anywhere in what Jesus taught and did.
The notion that there'd be an institutional hierarchy among the people of the Kingdom couldn't be dreamed of by the people who followed Jesus and, later, spread the Kingdom of God around the world.
Yet the new New Strategic Plan is all about church, pastors and Conference leadership.
----------------
Anyway...
Jesus never started a church. He devoted His time to making disciples.
Why does the strategic plan begin with healthy, life-giving churches and not with making disciples?
In the accounts passed down from those thin-air meetings, all of the talk was of the keynote speeches and the theme, discipling.
What's up with that?
It seems to me that, under current regimes, CGGC fads now come and go at the speed of light.
And, have you noticed that, in the ERC's new New Strategic Plan, there's no Commission or staffing devoted to discipleship?
Did the writers of the new New Strategic Plan ever hear of the Great Commission?!??!!!!!
----------------
The word church is absent from three of the four Gospels.
The concept of the position of the pastor of a congregation isn't anywhere in what Jesus taught and did.
The notion that there'd be an institutional hierarchy among the people of the Kingdom couldn't be dreamed of by the people who followed Jesus and, later, spread the Kingdom of God around the world.
Yet the new New Strategic Plan is all about church, pastors and Conference leadership.
----------------
Anyway...
Jesus never started a church. He devoted His time to making disciples.
Why does the strategic plan begin with healthy, life-giving churches and not with making disciples?
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Thoughts about the Hierarchs Already Creating New Commissions
The hierarchs really already have dissolved the Commission structure demanded by the current Constitution...and they did it without the approval of the body.
The people in conversation with me who are in a position to know all talk about it as if it's a normal sort of thing.
And, the hierarchs have organized the whole new Commission structure demanded by their proposed amendment to ARTICLE VII. As I hear it, the new Commissions are fully manned, uh, peopled, staffed. I believe they even have their chair people designated, but don't quote me on that...just ask the hierarchs at Conference on Saturday.
And, the hierarchs have now called the Conference together to ask you for permission to do what they've devoted hours to doing.
What if you say no?
What kind of a mess will that be? THE KIND OF MESS ONLY THE LORD CAN CLEAN UP.
-----------------
Can't you see issues of honesty and integrity with this current group of reigning hierarchs?
-------------------
I have two thoughts about what's going on on the ERC mountaintop.
1. This group of hierarchs merely did what ERC hierarchs have been doing for decades...
...i.e. behaving as if they're Popes and Bishops...
...not servants of the body of ERC elders...
...this time, though, they got caught in the middle of it. What they did is nothing new but it's always been wrong.
2. Things may really be changing in the ERC. Every time in the recent past, the ERC Ad Council has rubber stamped the hierarchs as if the hierarchs ARE the Popes and Bishops they act like. Then, the Conference in session says its bland, "Aye," and the scheme du jour becomes words on paper, and we all move on. But, the word I'm hearing now is that the Ad Council didn't rubber stamp.
Now, the hierarchs have been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.
They are asking you to let them do what they've already really done...
...and you can actually tell them that they can't do it.
How bizarre is this? Who could have written this script?
----------------
I have no idea if the Conference will approve the new New Strategic Plan. (I do know that the new New Strategic Plan won't transform the Conference.)
But, I also know that the Shepherd Mafia will, as I've said in the past, not go down without a fight.
But, it's long since past time that the Shepherd Mafia does go down.
The people in conversation with me who are in a position to know all talk about it as if it's a normal sort of thing.
And, the hierarchs have organized the whole new Commission structure demanded by their proposed amendment to ARTICLE VII. As I hear it, the new Commissions are fully manned, uh, peopled, staffed. I believe they even have their chair people designated, but don't quote me on that...just ask the hierarchs at Conference on Saturday.
And, the hierarchs have now called the Conference together to ask you for permission to do what they've devoted hours to doing.
What if you say no?
What kind of a mess will that be? THE KIND OF MESS ONLY THE LORD CAN CLEAN UP.
-----------------
Can't you see issues of honesty and integrity with this current group of reigning hierarchs?
-------------------
I have two thoughts about what's going on on the ERC mountaintop.
1. This group of hierarchs merely did what ERC hierarchs have been doing for decades...
...i.e. behaving as if they're Popes and Bishops...
...not servants of the body of ERC elders...
...this time, though, they got caught in the middle of it. What they did is nothing new but it's always been wrong.
2. Things may really be changing in the ERC. Every time in the recent past, the ERC Ad Council has rubber stamped the hierarchs as if the hierarchs ARE the Popes and Bishops they act like. Then, the Conference in session says its bland, "Aye," and the scheme du jour becomes words on paper, and we all move on. But, the word I'm hearing now is that the Ad Council didn't rubber stamp.
Now, the hierarchs have been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.
They are asking you to let them do what they've already really done...
...and you can actually tell them that they can't do it.
How bizarre is this? Who could have written this script?
----------------
I have no idea if the Conference will approve the new New Strategic Plan. (I do know that the new New Strategic Plan won't transform the Conference.)
But, I also know that the Shepherd Mafia will, as I've said in the past, not go down without a fight.
But, it's long since past time that the Shepherd Mafia does go down.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Questions for the Conference Gathering about ARTICLE VII
Is it true that, without the permission of the Conference, you have already dissolved the current Commission structure and organized three of the four new commissions?
What will you do if the Conference rejects ARTICLE VII?
What will you do if the Conference rejects ARTICLE VII?
Why Won't the new ERC Hierarchs tell the Truth about the Conference Meeting?
Weeks ago, after I read Jim Moss's email introducing himself as the new Interim Executive Director of the ERC, I wrote, in one of my many off-the-blog exchanges, that Jim's note was "well-composed and powerful."
It is both of those things.
So, it is meaningful to me that, snuggled down and tucked away near the end of that note is this well-composed and powerful, nevertheless obscure, sentence,
"At this (January Conference) gathering we will address the constitutional issues that might arise as we begin to implement our new plan."
As we know now, based on Jim's note from December 13, the new Conference leaders are, in truth, and in Jim's words "proposing three amendments to the existing constitution to be considered at the upcoming special session."
Please understand: The purpose of the Conference session in January is to get the amendments approved.
Make no mistake about it and understand fully and clearly:
If the ARTICLE VII amendment to the constitution, proposed by the hierarchs is approved, their new New Strategic Plan will be implemented.
There is no MIGHT about that.
If the Conference in session approves the change to ARTICLE VII, ERC leaders will be REQUIRED, under the authority of the Conference, to dissolve all of the current Commissions...
...(which, by the way, they've already done, [did you know that?] presumptuous little buzzards that they are)...
...and they will also be required, by the Eldership, to establish the new Commissions that are at the core of the new New Strategic Plan...
...(which, again, they've already done without the approval of the body).
And, the new New Strategic Plan plan will be reality.
It's simple and, if the ERC hierarchs were honest, it would be straightforward:
If the Conference approves the ARTICLE VII amendment, it is accepting and authorizing the new New Strategic Plan.
------------------
Not long ago, someone asked me for my understanding of what the hierarchs are doing in regard to something. Honestly, I don't recall the context. But, the truth is that I never understand what they do or why they do it.
The one thing I do understand is that...
...the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing NEVER has EVER blessed their programs and plans.
In the case of the new New Strategic Plan and this special Conference session, I don't understand all the fancy footwork.
Why was Jim saying that constitutional issues "might arise" when, if the hierarchs have their way with us, there is no other possibility.
If the Conference approves the ARTICLE VII amendment, the new New Strategic Plan will absolutely be a reality. Where's the might arise there?
-----------------
So, why not be up front and honest about the ARTICLE VII amendment? Why not just say outright that if the Conference approves the ARTICLE VII amendment, it will be choosing to implement the new Strategic Plan?
Clearly, Jim not only supports the new New Strategic Plan, he's enthusiastic about it and anxious to be the man in place to lead the transition until the next E. D. is chosen.
Jim writes well. He could make the truth obvious if he wanted to.
As I say, I never understood what the hierarchs do.
What I do understand is that the word being spoken from the ERC mountaintop is not clear and it's not the plain truth.
Why the new hierarchs are not telling the truth about the January Conference meeting is beyond me.
But, I'm afraid that they, very simply, want to pull one over on us.
I see no reason to trust their integrity.
Don't let them do what they are trying to do.
It is both of those things.
So, it is meaningful to me that, snuggled down and tucked away near the end of that note is this well-composed and powerful, nevertheless obscure, sentence,
"At this (January Conference) gathering we will address the constitutional issues that might arise as we begin to implement our new plan."
As we know now, based on Jim's note from December 13, the new Conference leaders are, in truth, and in Jim's words "proposing three amendments to the existing constitution to be considered at the upcoming special session."
Please understand: The purpose of the Conference session in January is to get the amendments approved.
Make no mistake about it and understand fully and clearly:
If the ARTICLE VII amendment to the constitution, proposed by the hierarchs is approved, their new New Strategic Plan will be implemented.
There is no MIGHT about that.
If the Conference in session approves the change to ARTICLE VII, ERC leaders will be REQUIRED, under the authority of the Conference, to dissolve all of the current Commissions...
...(which, by the way, they've already done, [did you know that?] presumptuous little buzzards that they are)...
...and they will also be required, by the Eldership, to establish the new Commissions that are at the core of the new New Strategic Plan...
...(which, again, they've already done without the approval of the body).
And, the new New Strategic Plan plan will be reality.
It's simple and, if the ERC hierarchs were honest, it would be straightforward:
If the Conference approves the ARTICLE VII amendment, it is accepting and authorizing the new New Strategic Plan.
------------------
Not long ago, someone asked me for my understanding of what the hierarchs are doing in regard to something. Honestly, I don't recall the context. But, the truth is that I never understand what they do or why they do it.
The one thing I do understand is that...
...the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing NEVER has EVER blessed their programs and plans.
In the case of the new New Strategic Plan and this special Conference session, I don't understand all the fancy footwork.
Why was Jim saying that constitutional issues "might arise" when, if the hierarchs have their way with us, there is no other possibility.
If the Conference approves the ARTICLE VII amendment, the new New Strategic Plan will absolutely be a reality. Where's the might arise there?
-----------------
So, why not be up front and honest about the ARTICLE VII amendment? Why not just say outright that if the Conference approves the ARTICLE VII amendment, it will be choosing to implement the new Strategic Plan?
Clearly, Jim not only supports the new New Strategic Plan, he's enthusiastic about it and anxious to be the man in place to lead the transition until the next E. D. is chosen.
Jim writes well. He could make the truth obvious if he wanted to.
As I say, I never understood what the hierarchs do.
What I do understand is that the word being spoken from the ERC mountaintop is not clear and it's not the plain truth.
Why the new hierarchs are not telling the truth about the January Conference meeting is beyond me.
But, I'm afraid that they, very simply, want to pull one over on us.
I see no reason to trust their integrity.
Don't let them do what they are trying to do.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
A Question about Jesus and Healthy, Life-Giving Churches
One of my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand is Ecclesiolatry, the worship of the church, not the Lord of the Church.
Clearly, one of the Characteristics of the ERC Strategic Plan also is Ecclesiolatry. The plan is all about churches, the pastors of churches and the hierarchy that leads pastors and churches.
However,...
Since Jesus almost never talked about the church and didn't organize even one local congregation, what is the reason, based on the life and teaching of Jesus, for focusing the Strategic Plan on healthy, life-giving churches?
Clearly, one of the Characteristics of the ERC Strategic Plan also is Ecclesiolatry. The plan is all about churches, the pastors of churches and the hierarchy that leads pastors and churches.
However,...
Since Jesus almost never talked about the church and didn't organize even one local congregation, what is the reason, based on the life and teaching of Jesus, for focusing the Strategic Plan on healthy, life-giving churches?
The Strategic Plan is NOT Grass Roots
Revelation 1:5b-6 opens the last book in Scripture declaring praise for Jesus with words that also condemn the plans and the latest Strategic Plan of the leaders of today's CGGC ERC.
"To him who love us and has freed us from our sin by his blood and has made to be a kingdom and priests..."
As ERC leadership puts its finishing touches on its plan to gather delegates to a special Conference session in Carlisle on January 13, I'm remembering the way people described to me the beginning of the process, as far as the credentialed minions of the Conference are concerned.
There was a series of...what did they call them?...information gathering meetings? held at various locations around the Conference.
I asked one of my...as Lew maligns them..."Snipers"...who ascends a nice distance up the ERC mountain, how many people were present at the meeting he attended who were not ERC pastors.
He said that there certainly were none.
And, he added, as if startled that I could be so uninformed, "I'm pretty sure that that these meetings were open only to get feedback from pastors."
And, I suspect that he was correct. And, at the very least, none of the uncredentialed deigned to soil his meeting.
His impression fits the M.O., and the Middle Ages theology, of ERC hierarchs.
----------------
Nevertheless, the New Covenant, prophesied in Jeremiah 31, speaks of a new arrangement between the Lord and the people of the earth, in which, as the Lord says it through Jeremiah, "...they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." (31:34)
The Gospels are clear, to the degree that making the point almost seems ridiculous. Jesus didn't lecture to Jewish priests in order to prepare the way for the New Covenant.
He called apostles from among the most common people and traveled and preached in rural villages to whomever would listen, from, as the Lord spoke through Jeremiah, the least of them to the greatest.
First Peter 2:9 declared to early disciples, "...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood..."
The early growth of the Kingdom Jesus announced did not come from among the theologically trained and those advanced within institutional Judaism.
It came from among any and every man and woman who had repented of their sin and believed the gospel that Jesus is the Christ.
That is the definition of a grassroots Christian movement.
But, according to what ERC mountaintoppers are actually doing...the grassroots of their church slums only as low as ERC parish priests who don't reside any distance up the ERC mountain.
As I followed those videos promoting the Strategic Plan, it seems to me that the focus and energy and passion is invested in those Safe Space Connextion Groups designed to buck up pastors wilting under the demand that they function as parish priests.
-----------------
I can tell you with absolute certainty:
Based on what Jesus taught and did and, based on the ministry of the early disciples, and, based on times of revival and awakening in the history of the Kingdom...
WHAT THE ERC HIERARCHS HAVE IN MIND IS ANYTHING BUT GRASSROOTS!
----------------
If we are going to change so that we join God in the work He is doing,...
...we are going to have to embrace the core New Testament reality that...
...He has made His Kingdom out of the priesthood of every sinner who has repented of sin and who believes the gospel,...
...that His work is centered, not in the pastors of churches,...
...but that everyone who repents and believes is already a priest.
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing will not bless this plan...
...because this plan can not possibly be His plan.
Their plan is church first, not Kingdom only.
It steals the priesthood from, well, the grassroots, to strengthen the divide between laity and clergy...
...and, of course, to increase the size and power of their churchly hierarchy.
Jesus came and lived and died for a purpose. As Revelation 1 says, He made us "to be a kingdom and priests."
But, that's not the vision of the new New Strategic Plan.
We must repent.
"To him who love us and has freed us from our sin by his blood and has made to be a kingdom and priests..."
As ERC leadership puts its finishing touches on its plan to gather delegates to a special Conference session in Carlisle on January 13, I'm remembering the way people described to me the beginning of the process, as far as the credentialed minions of the Conference are concerned.
There was a series of...what did they call them?...information gathering meetings? held at various locations around the Conference.
I asked one of my...as Lew maligns them..."Snipers"...who ascends a nice distance up the ERC mountain, how many people were present at the meeting he attended who were not ERC pastors.
He said that there certainly were none.
And, he added, as if startled that I could be so uninformed, "I'm pretty sure that that these meetings were open only to get feedback from pastors."
And, I suspect that he was correct. And, at the very least, none of the uncredentialed deigned to soil his meeting.
His impression fits the M.O., and the Middle Ages theology, of ERC hierarchs.
----------------
Nevertheless, the New Covenant, prophesied in Jeremiah 31, speaks of a new arrangement between the Lord and the people of the earth, in which, as the Lord says it through Jeremiah, "...they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." (31:34)
The Gospels are clear, to the degree that making the point almost seems ridiculous. Jesus didn't lecture to Jewish priests in order to prepare the way for the New Covenant.
He called apostles from among the most common people and traveled and preached in rural villages to whomever would listen, from, as the Lord spoke through Jeremiah, the least of them to the greatest.
First Peter 2:9 declared to early disciples, "...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood..."
The early growth of the Kingdom Jesus announced did not come from among the theologically trained and those advanced within institutional Judaism.
It came from among any and every man and woman who had repented of their sin and believed the gospel that Jesus is the Christ.
That is the definition of a grassroots Christian movement.
But, according to what ERC mountaintoppers are actually doing...the grassroots of their church slums only as low as ERC parish priests who don't reside any distance up the ERC mountain.
As I followed those videos promoting the Strategic Plan, it seems to me that the focus and energy and passion is invested in those Safe Space Connextion Groups designed to buck up pastors wilting under the demand that they function as parish priests.
-----------------
I can tell you with absolute certainty:
Based on what Jesus taught and did and, based on the ministry of the early disciples, and, based on times of revival and awakening in the history of the Kingdom...
WHAT THE ERC HIERARCHS HAVE IN MIND IS ANYTHING BUT GRASSROOTS!
----------------
If we are going to change so that we join God in the work He is doing,...
...we are going to have to embrace the core New Testament reality that...
...He has made His Kingdom out of the priesthood of every sinner who has repented of sin and who believes the gospel,...
...that His work is centered, not in the pastors of churches,...
...but that everyone who repents and believes is already a priest.
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing will not bless this plan...
...because this plan can not possibly be His plan.
Their plan is church first, not Kingdom only.
It steals the priesthood from, well, the grassroots, to strengthen the divide between laity and clergy...
...and, of course, to increase the size and power of their churchly hierarchy.
Jesus came and lived and died for a purpose. As Revelation 1 says, He made us "to be a kingdom and priests."
But, that's not the vision of the new New Strategic Plan.
We must repent.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Reflections on Yesterday's Authority Post
Through off the blog conversation and thoughts that have been percolating, I have this to say on the matter of authority in the, ERC, specifically:
1. This Strategic Plan presented without reference to biblical authority is yet another example of what I got in a lot of trouble a few years ago by accusing CGGC leaders of Popism.
I've since apologized to the Popes and the Roman Catholic church for the comparison. But, I also lost a few friendships in the CGGC for making the point.
The truth is that Roman Catholic Popes wouldn't even think about making a major pronouncement or creating a plan for the future direction of the church without making at least a show of consulting the authority of the Scriptures.
Here, of course, the hierarchs of the ERC have done it again with the Strategic Plan.
And, it would be a scandal in the Roman Catholic church for a Pope to set out a plan without referencing the Word.
But, such is not the case within the ERC CGGC.
Off the blog, I know some others are bothered by ERC leaders thinking they could hold those Round Table Meetings and not show the biblical roots of the plan...
...but, honestly, there's no scandal here.
This is same old, same old in the ERC and CGGC.
Is it any wonder that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing us?!?!????!!!!
2. I have been assured that Jim Moss is promising that there is a biblical foundation for the plan and that Scripture will be connected to the plan at some future time.
I take as truth that Jim is saying that and that he's telling the truth about it.
But, as someone who understands that the ERC is an Eldership, this deeply disturbs me and it strikes me as leadership's defiance of the covenant all of us have with each other.
Since, the people called to serve the Conference in staff positions have Scripture to support their plan, they should be sharing it with the Eldership, which they serve and which has authority over staff members so that the Eldership can pass judgment on its servants' stewardship of the Word because...
...frankly,...
...in my opinion, their use of Scripture has been highly suspect in the past.
3. I was reminded, after I wrote the post on authority in the ERC, that the new New Strategic Plan is being presented as a grassroots plan...
...one that represents the views of the people of the Conference.
Isn't that the reason that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing us?
Our authority is not the Lord, or His Word, or, as Cindy would have it, the Holy Spirit...
...it is the people of the ERC who wouldn't go along with the old New Strategic Plan.
I said to someone that this approach to determining future direction is shepherd-polluted as much as anything CGGC leaders have ever done...
...it is purely...
...and without shame...
...rooted in human relationship and authority.
What a dysfunctional mess!
We must repent.
1. This Strategic Plan presented without reference to biblical authority is yet another example of what I got in a lot of trouble a few years ago by accusing CGGC leaders of Popism.
I've since apologized to the Popes and the Roman Catholic church for the comparison. But, I also lost a few friendships in the CGGC for making the point.
The truth is that Roman Catholic Popes wouldn't even think about making a major pronouncement or creating a plan for the future direction of the church without making at least a show of consulting the authority of the Scriptures.
Here, of course, the hierarchs of the ERC have done it again with the Strategic Plan.
And, it would be a scandal in the Roman Catholic church for a Pope to set out a plan without referencing the Word.
But, such is not the case within the ERC CGGC.
Off the blog, I know some others are bothered by ERC leaders thinking they could hold those Round Table Meetings and not show the biblical roots of the plan...
...but, honestly, there's no scandal here.
This is same old, same old in the ERC and CGGC.
Is it any wonder that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing us?!?!????!!!!
2. I have been assured that Jim Moss is promising that there is a biblical foundation for the plan and that Scripture will be connected to the plan at some future time.
I take as truth that Jim is saying that and that he's telling the truth about it.
But, as someone who understands that the ERC is an Eldership, this deeply disturbs me and it strikes me as leadership's defiance of the covenant all of us have with each other.
Since, the people called to serve the Conference in staff positions have Scripture to support their plan, they should be sharing it with the Eldership, which they serve and which has authority over staff members so that the Eldership can pass judgment on its servants' stewardship of the Word because...
...frankly,...
...in my opinion, their use of Scripture has been highly suspect in the past.
3. I was reminded, after I wrote the post on authority in the ERC, that the new New Strategic Plan is being presented as a grassroots plan...
...one that represents the views of the people of the Conference.
Isn't that the reason that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing us?
Our authority is not the Lord, or His Word, or, as Cindy would have it, the Holy Spirit...
...it is the people of the ERC who wouldn't go along with the old New Strategic Plan.
I said to someone that this approach to determining future direction is shepherd-polluted as much as anything CGGC leaders have ever done...
...it is purely...
...and without shame...
...rooted in human relationship and authority.
What a dysfunctional mess!
We must repent.
Friday, January 5, 2018
A Question about the new ERC Strategic Plan
I know that the Conference is providing a forum for the asking of questions about the proposed Strategic Plan...
...but, they're not sending that information to me.
So, I'll use the blog to suggest questions that might be asked.
Understanding what my giftedness is, it makes sense that mine are big-picture questions.
I plan to list other questions later and, most of them will be brief and to the point and more specific.
But, there is one issue that I think is central.
I'll ask it of you, the blog readers...who might be anyone...and, therefore, the entire ERC/CGGC body...and beyond.
----------------
Who/what do the leaders of the ERC, the people who support and are promoting the Strategic Plan, see as a higher authority than themselves?
Seriously.
In composing the Strategic Plan, the writers of the Strategic Plan ignored Scripture.
The PDF used when the leaders presented includes no references to Bible truth to support any part of the plan. There is nothing in the Word cited as the authority for this plan.
The writers of the Strategic Plan also defied the authority of the Conference.
From the first days of the Church of God, our body has declared, without compromise, that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. Our highest human authority, the General Conference in session, affirmed that principle as recently as 2013 when it approved a new We Believe and a Statement of Faith. The men and women who lead the ERC were delegates to that Conference. They approved those documents. They affirmed the principle that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
Again, the Word is not being used as the authority for any part of the Strategic Plan.
The ERC people I associate with the new Strategic Plan: Kevin Richardson (who's no longer a part of the promotion of the new Strategic Plan) and Jim Moss, the current interim Executive Director, are nice guys. They are sincere. They love the church. They sincerely want the best for the Conference. I've known these guys for decades. I personally know all of those things to be true about them. I have no doubt at all.
But, then, all of those qualities describe every CGGC leader who's been leading as our body's decay for about 80 years.
The truth is, the writers of the new Strategic Plan,...
...based on what they have actually done,...
...have placed the authority of their own opinions over the truth in the Word...
...and, and over the covenant all of us in the ERC agree to, and which binds the entire ERC body together.
----------------
The issue of who has authority in the ERC/CGGC is extremely important.
Even if the plan is perfect, do we want to approve it merely on the basis that it is the opinion of the people in leadership?
If this plan would happen to be perfect, and we approve it merely on our leaders' authority, without reference to the Word, what will we do in the future when nice and sincere people propose something on their own authority that is not perfect?
On what authority would we question them?
I think the writers of the Strategic Plan are asking too much of us.
Wouldn't the delegates to this Conference be submissive to Jesus, who obeyed the Word, and to our own ERC covenant which demands that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice...
...and wouldn't they be wise...
...to ask ERC leaders to come back to the body, at a later time, with their plan, demonstrating that it is rooted in the authority of the Bible as our only rule of faith and practice?
...but, they're not sending that information to me.
So, I'll use the blog to suggest questions that might be asked.
Understanding what my giftedness is, it makes sense that mine are big-picture questions.
I plan to list other questions later and, most of them will be brief and to the point and more specific.
But, there is one issue that I think is central.
I'll ask it of you, the blog readers...who might be anyone...and, therefore, the entire ERC/CGGC body...and beyond.
----------------
Who/what do the leaders of the ERC, the people who support and are promoting the Strategic Plan, see as a higher authority than themselves?
Seriously.
In composing the Strategic Plan, the writers of the Strategic Plan ignored Scripture.
The PDF used when the leaders presented includes no references to Bible truth to support any part of the plan. There is nothing in the Word cited as the authority for this plan.
The writers of the Strategic Plan also defied the authority of the Conference.
From the first days of the Church of God, our body has declared, without compromise, that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. Our highest human authority, the General Conference in session, affirmed that principle as recently as 2013 when it approved a new We Believe and a Statement of Faith. The men and women who lead the ERC were delegates to that Conference. They approved those documents. They affirmed the principle that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
Again, the Word is not being used as the authority for any part of the Strategic Plan.
The ERC people I associate with the new Strategic Plan: Kevin Richardson (who's no longer a part of the promotion of the new Strategic Plan) and Jim Moss, the current interim Executive Director, are nice guys. They are sincere. They love the church. They sincerely want the best for the Conference. I've known these guys for decades. I personally know all of those things to be true about them. I have no doubt at all.
But, then, all of those qualities describe every CGGC leader who's been leading as our body's decay for about 80 years.
The truth is, the writers of the new Strategic Plan,...
...based on what they have actually done,...
...have placed the authority of their own opinions over the truth in the Word...
...and, and over the covenant all of us in the ERC agree to, and which binds the entire ERC body together.
----------------
The issue of who has authority in the ERC/CGGC is extremely important.
Even if the plan is perfect, do we want to approve it merely on the basis that it is the opinion of the people in leadership?
If this plan would happen to be perfect, and we approve it merely on our leaders' authority, without reference to the Word, what will we do in the future when nice and sincere people propose something on their own authority that is not perfect?
On what authority would we question them?
I think the writers of the Strategic Plan are asking too much of us.
Wouldn't the delegates to this Conference be submissive to Jesus, who obeyed the Word, and to our own ERC covenant which demands that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice...
...and wouldn't they be wise...
...to ask ERC leaders to come back to the body, at a later time, with their plan, demonstrating that it is rooted in the authority of the Bible as our only rule of faith and practice?
Thursday, January 4, 2018
The ERC Strategic Plan and Millennials
Based on my substantial experience, millennials and people of the boomer and builder generations, don't get along together easily or well.
I love my job for many reasons.
There are about 50 people in my department. About 20 of them are 16 - 21 years old and about 20 are older than 65.
And, I see, on a daily basis, that the two groups have extremely diverse worldviews and values systems.
It takes a strong leadership team, made up of people with diverse gifts, to get the two groups to work effectively together.
And, I'm talking about customer service in a grocery store, not ministry in a church.
Based on what I've learned from living in the world as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God,...
...today's hierarchical, institutional, pastor-as-parish-priest, boomer and builder obsessed church will never reach millennials and their families unless serious repentance and turning from tradition takes place within the church.
So, let me say this by way of introduction:
We must repent.
----------------
Even if you buy into the theology that lies at the foundation of the 2017 new New ERC Strategic Plan...
...which I, and others don't,...
...the plan has a deadly flaw.
The plan is vivid in its Middle Ages passion to reform local churches, and their pastors and the church's institutional and hierarchical leadership...
...but, while it uses the church's inability to reach millennials as a justification for the plan,...
...the 2017 ERC Strategic Plan contains no strategy to reach people under the age 40.
Face it: If the hierarchs were really concerned about actively reaching millennials they'd be adding to the expanded Conference staff positions something called, Director of Millennial Outreach or something like that.
Follow the money.
But, none of the hierarch's money is going toward expanding our ministry to younger people.
These guys clearly don't care about reaching millennials. We know that because they don't invest institutional energy or money in it.
----------------
If I'm reading the PDF correctly, there actually is no plan to reach younger people...
...and, incidentally, even people pretty high up the mountain tell me that I read the PDF better than they themselves do...
...there's, very simply, no vision on the highest peaks of the ERC mountain to reach millennials.
In truth, if such a vision existed, the Lord would empower it in apostles and prophets and evangelists...
...not shepherds.
What there is, in the new New Strategic Plan, is a...
...I think, deeply flawed belief...
...that, if the Conference fixes the problems with our churches designed to make happy consumers of the parents, grandparents and great grandparents of people under the age of 40 and their families,...
...we'll see people from aged 0 to 40 knocking down the doors of our churches to be able to squeeze their fannies on to one of the front pews.
That's a delusional fantasy.
----------------
Millennials and people of the boomer and builder generations, have vastly different worldviews and values systems and, even if they are bound by a life-altering belief in the gospel,...
...the idea that we'll attract millennials to sit in the front pews long abandoned by mom and dad and grandma and great grandma is ludicrous.
Geezers are confusing to the under 25s. Millennials simply don't understand geezers.
And, geezers think of teens and 20somethings as self-centered and lazy. They don't like them and many of the geezers I work with moan and groan about their millennial co-workers on a daily basis.
-----------------
Memo to the ERC hierarchs: Millennials are never going to sit in the pews of churches you've made comfortable for your geezers...
...and, if the millennials tried to, your geezers'd kick and scream until the millennials understood that they are not welcome!
----------------
Read the PDF. The ERC Strategic Plan contains no strategy to reach people under the age of 40.
The ERC Strategic Plan is designed to buck up ministry to people over the age of 65.
If you approve the plan, where will the Conference be in a decade or two?
----------------
Theologically speaking, the 2017 ERC new New Strategic Plan is a mess.
Even if you buy into the theology, the plan is flawed.
It provides no path to the future.
We must repent.
I love my job for many reasons.
There are about 50 people in my department. About 20 of them are 16 - 21 years old and about 20 are older than 65.
And, I see, on a daily basis, that the two groups have extremely diverse worldviews and values systems.
It takes a strong leadership team, made up of people with diverse gifts, to get the two groups to work effectively together.
And, I'm talking about customer service in a grocery store, not ministry in a church.
Based on what I've learned from living in the world as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God,...
...today's hierarchical, institutional, pastor-as-parish-priest, boomer and builder obsessed church will never reach millennials and their families unless serious repentance and turning from tradition takes place within the church.
So, let me say this by way of introduction:
We must repent.
----------------
Even if you buy into the theology that lies at the foundation of the 2017 new New ERC Strategic Plan...
...which I, and others don't,...
...the plan has a deadly flaw.
The plan is vivid in its Middle Ages passion to reform local churches, and their pastors and the church's institutional and hierarchical leadership...
...but, while it uses the church's inability to reach millennials as a justification for the plan,...
...the 2017 ERC Strategic Plan contains no strategy to reach people under the age 40.
Face it: If the hierarchs were really concerned about actively reaching millennials they'd be adding to the expanded Conference staff positions something called, Director of Millennial Outreach or something like that.
Follow the money.
But, none of the hierarch's money is going toward expanding our ministry to younger people.
These guys clearly don't care about reaching millennials. We know that because they don't invest institutional energy or money in it.
----------------
If I'm reading the PDF correctly, there actually is no plan to reach younger people...
...and, incidentally, even people pretty high up the mountain tell me that I read the PDF better than they themselves do...
...there's, very simply, no vision on the highest peaks of the ERC mountain to reach millennials.
In truth, if such a vision existed, the Lord would empower it in apostles and prophets and evangelists...
...not shepherds.
What there is, in the new New Strategic Plan, is a...
...I think, deeply flawed belief...
...that, if the Conference fixes the problems with our churches designed to make happy consumers of the parents, grandparents and great grandparents of people under the age of 40 and their families,...
...we'll see people from aged 0 to 40 knocking down the doors of our churches to be able to squeeze their fannies on to one of the front pews.
That's a delusional fantasy.
----------------
Millennials and people of the boomer and builder generations, have vastly different worldviews and values systems and, even if they are bound by a life-altering belief in the gospel,...
...the idea that we'll attract millennials to sit in the front pews long abandoned by mom and dad and grandma and great grandma is ludicrous.
Geezers are confusing to the under 25s. Millennials simply don't understand geezers.
And, geezers think of teens and 20somethings as self-centered and lazy. They don't like them and many of the geezers I work with moan and groan about their millennial co-workers on a daily basis.
-----------------
Memo to the ERC hierarchs: Millennials are never going to sit in the pews of churches you've made comfortable for your geezers...
...and, if the millennials tried to, your geezers'd kick and scream until the millennials understood that they are not welcome!
----------------
Read the PDF. The ERC Strategic Plan contains no strategy to reach people under the age of 40.
The ERC Strategic Plan is designed to buck up ministry to people over the age of 65.
If you approve the plan, where will the Conference be in a decade or two?
----------------
Theologically speaking, the 2017 ERC new New Strategic Plan is a mess.
Even if you buy into the theology, the plan is flawed.
It provides no path to the future.
We must repent.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
What do ERC Leaders Want?
In the conversations I'm having about the upcoming ERC Conference sessions, no one is telling me that they love the new New Strategic Plan.
That probably surprises no one.
I've been clear and passionate about my opposition to it. It's unlikely that someone enthused about the plan would be talking to me.
The people talking to me about their chagrin over the plan each have their own take on why the plan is bad...
....and all of them make valid observations.
While they all, in my experience, have unique takes on the plan itself, I'm concerned about one of the approaches I'm getting about the January Conference meeting itself.
-----------------
You will recall the groups I've identified in the ERC:
1. The Hierarchs
2. The Apathetics
3. The Skeptics, and
4. The Cynics.
I'm surprised at who and how many are lining up as being part of the fourth group, the Cynics.
I'm getting more than I would like of people saying that the new New Strategic Plan is not going to work and, therefore, either,
"I'll say this to you, bill, but I won't say it at Conference,"
or even,
"(The plan) is really nothing more than rearranging the chairs on the Titanic, so I'm not going to Conference at all."
And, I have to say that I'm wondering very seriously...
...if the creators of the new New Strategic Plan want the people who see flaws in the plan to stay away from the meeting.
The hierarchs do seem to be, well, hell-bent on getting the plan approved.
And, if enough of the Cynics do stay away, chances are very good that the ARTICLE VII amendment will be approved...
...but if that many Cynics do stay away, they'll be casting a vote that will have consequences long after the Conference session is over.
They'll be saying, "There ain't no way I'm going along with this sham!"
Can you say: Words on paper?
Shepherd leadership has always had the problem of being extremely short-sighted.
Why are spiritual vitality and participation numbers in free fall in the CGGC/ERC?
Many reasons...but one is that it is apostles and prophets who have a vision for, and sight of, the future...
...and shepherds merely plug holes in the dike.
I suspect that the shepherd hierarchs of the ERC believe, really believe, that, if they get enough people to vote for the ARTICLE VII amendment, something important will have happened.
And, that's precisely the mistake they made with the 2015, old new Strategic Plan...
...which, as we all know,...
...was a joke.
Going back to the question in the title: I think they want the plan to be approved...
...but, that's the wrong thing to want.
That probably surprises no one.
I've been clear and passionate about my opposition to it. It's unlikely that someone enthused about the plan would be talking to me.
The people talking to me about their chagrin over the plan each have their own take on why the plan is bad...
....and all of them make valid observations.
While they all, in my experience, have unique takes on the plan itself, I'm concerned about one of the approaches I'm getting about the January Conference meeting itself.
-----------------
You will recall the groups I've identified in the ERC:
1. The Hierarchs
2. The Apathetics
3. The Skeptics, and
4. The Cynics.
I'm surprised at who and how many are lining up as being part of the fourth group, the Cynics.
I'm getting more than I would like of people saying that the new New Strategic Plan is not going to work and, therefore, either,
"I'll say this to you, bill, but I won't say it at Conference,"
or even,
"(The plan) is really nothing more than rearranging the chairs on the Titanic, so I'm not going to Conference at all."
And, I have to say that I'm wondering very seriously...
...if the creators of the new New Strategic Plan want the people who see flaws in the plan to stay away from the meeting.
The hierarchs do seem to be, well, hell-bent on getting the plan approved.
And, if enough of the Cynics do stay away, chances are very good that the ARTICLE VII amendment will be approved...
...but if that many Cynics do stay away, they'll be casting a vote that will have consequences long after the Conference session is over.
They'll be saying, "There ain't no way I'm going along with this sham!"
Can you say: Words on paper?
Shepherd leadership has always had the problem of being extremely short-sighted.
Why are spiritual vitality and participation numbers in free fall in the CGGC/ERC?
Many reasons...but one is that it is apostles and prophets who have a vision for, and sight of, the future...
...and shepherds merely plug holes in the dike.
I suspect that the shepherd hierarchs of the ERC believe, really believe, that, if they get enough people to vote for the ARTICLE VII amendment, something important will have happened.
And, that's precisely the mistake they made with the 2015, old new Strategic Plan...
...which, as we all know,...
...was a joke.
Going back to the question in the title: I think they want the plan to be approved...
...but, that's the wrong thing to want.
Putting the New Strategic Plan into Perspective
The Gospels, and in truth, the Book of Acts and all of the New Testament described a Christian ministry focused on key people functioning as servants, going into the world to make disciples and, ultimately gathering disciples together so that disciples, who were all considered to be priests, could and would spur one another on to love and good works.
In the Middle Ages, ministry centered on churches where parish priests provided religious rites to be consumed by a passive laity under the authority of an increasingly large and powerful institutional hierarchy and defined good works as involvement in the church.
The proposed ERC Strategic Plan sports a focus on healthy, life-giving churches and healthy life-giving pastors led by an larger-than-ever, healthy, life-giving Conference leadership hierarchy.
Be honest and be serious:
Which model of ministry does the new ERC Strategic Plan resemble?
CGGC talk says that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice and that we establish churches on the New Testament plan.
Is the new Strategic Plan making us people of the New Testament or of the Middle Ages?
In the Middle Ages, ministry centered on churches where parish priests provided religious rites to be consumed by a passive laity under the authority of an increasingly large and powerful institutional hierarchy and defined good works as involvement in the church.
The proposed ERC Strategic Plan sports a focus on healthy, life-giving churches and healthy life-giving pastors led by an larger-than-ever, healthy, life-giving Conference leadership hierarchy.
Be honest and be serious:
Which model of ministry does the new ERC Strategic Plan resemble?
CGGC talk says that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice and that we establish churches on the New Testament plan.
Is the new Strategic Plan making us people of the New Testament or of the Middle Ages?
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Has the ERC Shepherd Mafia stacked the Deck enough???
The best way I will have to speak into the conversation that leads to the ERC Conference in session decision to, or not to, implement the new New Strategic Plan at the January 13 Conference session...
...through the vote on the change to ARTICLE VII...
...is through posts I enter on this piddly, little blog.
Based on still unsubstantiated rumors, confirmed for me by people I know well and trust...
...(but whom I would never mention by name--for their protection from the Mafia)...
...the ERC hierarchs' challenge of my credentials in 2016 was successful...
...and, so, my voice, as a member of the Conference has been silenced...
...as have the voices of many other people who, over the years, connected the decay of the ERC to the way ERC leadership has been leading.
Most, of course, were not silenced as publicly and dramatically as was I.
----------------
So, the question is: Has the ERC Shepherd Mafia whacked enough people or, in other ways driven them from the Conference, so that they can have their way with the us, well you, one more time and get ARTICLE VII of the ERC Constitution amended?
----------------
The trick for the Shepherd Mafia is that they'll need two thirds of the vote to get that done.
This is, excuse the play on words, a strategic error the hierarchs usually don't make.
Their normal M. O. is to do things under the cover of darkness enough to be able to lay out their schemes to the Conference when they are all but a done deal. And, when the typical ERC delegate has felt, essentially, powerless to do anything but mumble, "Aye," when the vote is taken.
This is how they passed the 2015 old new Strategic Plan...
...which I said at the time would be a disaster and, has turned out to be one of the most putred stink bombs ever dropped on the ERC by its hierarchs.
A two thirds vote?
I don't know.
What I do know is that few people are enthusiastic about the new New Strategic Plan. And, many have questions they don't feel have been given good answers.
Some are dubious at best and cynical at worst because they know, or at least believe, that the same minds that concocted the old new Strategic Plan in 2015 are the geniuses who're trying to foist the 2017 new New Strategic Plan on...uh, you.
I know that some ERCers are concerned that there is no Scripture being used to support the new New Strategic Plan.
----------------
And, something else I heard from people who don't even find fault with the new New Strategic Plan, is their suspicion that the hierarchs have panicked and are pushing the plan through before the rest of the body can pass judgment on the plan in an intelligent way.
I've heard it hinted that the Conference should be meeting only so that the hierarchs can give information and answer questions without trying to force the body to make a decision on the crucial ARTICLE VII amendment.
My best guess, at this point, is that, if the rushed foisting of ARTICLE VII is voted down, it will be because too many people are feeling pressured and believing that there no reason to move as quickly as the hierarchs want to push them?
----------------
To answer the question in title of this post, yes. I think the Shepherd Mafia has stacked the deck enough...
...but, in the end, it may be the sense that they are panicking and becoming pushy that kills the foisting of the new ARTICLE VII on the Conference.
...through the vote on the change to ARTICLE VII...
...is through posts I enter on this piddly, little blog.
Based on still unsubstantiated rumors, confirmed for me by people I know well and trust...
...(but whom I would never mention by name--for their protection from the Mafia)...
...the ERC hierarchs' challenge of my credentials in 2016 was successful...
...and, so, my voice, as a member of the Conference has been silenced...
...as have the voices of many other people who, over the years, connected the decay of the ERC to the way ERC leadership has been leading.
Most, of course, were not silenced as publicly and dramatically as was I.
----------------
So, the question is: Has the ERC Shepherd Mafia whacked enough people or, in other ways driven them from the Conference, so that they can have their way with the us, well you, one more time and get ARTICLE VII of the ERC Constitution amended?
----------------
The trick for the Shepherd Mafia is that they'll need two thirds of the vote to get that done.
This is, excuse the play on words, a strategic error the hierarchs usually don't make.
Their normal M. O. is to do things under the cover of darkness enough to be able to lay out their schemes to the Conference when they are all but a done deal. And, when the typical ERC delegate has felt, essentially, powerless to do anything but mumble, "Aye," when the vote is taken.
This is how they passed the 2015 old new Strategic Plan...
...which I said at the time would be a disaster and, has turned out to be one of the most putred stink bombs ever dropped on the ERC by its hierarchs.
A two thirds vote?
I don't know.
What I do know is that few people are enthusiastic about the new New Strategic Plan. And, many have questions they don't feel have been given good answers.
Some are dubious at best and cynical at worst because they know, or at least believe, that the same minds that concocted the old new Strategic Plan in 2015 are the geniuses who're trying to foist the 2017 new New Strategic Plan on...uh, you.
I know that some ERCers are concerned that there is no Scripture being used to support the new New Strategic Plan.
----------------
And, something else I heard from people who don't even find fault with the new New Strategic Plan, is their suspicion that the hierarchs have panicked and are pushing the plan through before the rest of the body can pass judgment on the plan in an intelligent way.
I've heard it hinted that the Conference should be meeting only so that the hierarchs can give information and answer questions without trying to force the body to make a decision on the crucial ARTICLE VII amendment.
My best guess, at this point, is that, if the rushed foisting of ARTICLE VII is voted down, it will be because too many people are feeling pressured and believing that there no reason to move as quickly as the hierarchs want to push them?
----------------
To answer the question in title of this post, yes. I think the Shepherd Mafia has stacked the deck enough...
...but, in the end, it may be the sense that they are panicking and becoming pushy that kills the foisting of the new ARTICLE VII on the Conference.
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