I don't read Facebook often. I post on it and use it to update family and friends about our lives and to see what's going on among my cousins and aunts and uncles and distant friends. But, I rarely read it.
I was surprised, a few mornings ago, to haul myself out of bed to find Evie, my living and breathing example of grace, humility and compassion, looking agitated. She skipped wishing me a good morning to blurt, "On Facebook, George Jensen visited (as Evie described it) 'a house church not meeting in a house' and he's all excited."
So, I looked it up and found George's, well, nearly orgasmic, description of a Reformed Presbyterian gathering he attended the night before.
And, I could see why Evie was perturbed.
----------------
Many of the things about the Presbyterian gathering that amazed and pleased George took place during every typical Faith gathering during our days in the ERC.
A few days later, George entered a Facebook post, inspired by his experience in the Reformed Presbyterian gathering, asking if the planting of a Churches of God, as George termed it, "originalist," congregation could be successful.
George's description of what an originalist Churches of God congregation would do is, to me, a bit peculiar but here's the thing:
At Faith, we were openly, blatantly, intentionally and proudly a Church of God "originalist" congregation...
...AND GEORGE IS THE GUY WHO WAS THE MOUTHPIECE FOR THE GROUP THAT INITIATED THE MOVE TO EXPEL FAITH FROM THE CONFERENCE.
----------------
One reason that I am convinced that I am an APEST prophet is that, like the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, I am pathetically idealistic and naive about, and unconcerned with, I hate to use this term, politics, among the people of the church.
It's from that idealism and naivete, I say that I don't understand.
But, I have a thought.
The word these days coming from the Conference is that it welcomes, and even encourages, a diversity of types of ministries functioning under its umbrella.
Here at Faith we screamed, repeatedly, at the top of our collective lung, that we were doing what we did submitting to the CGGC Statements of Faith and Mission and Vision...all of which are originalist in focus, even employing our founders' "New Testament plan" language.
And, by the way, no one disputed that we were pursuing our body's beliefs or mission or vision.
----------------
And George, and his gang, did an extraordinary...as far as I know...unprecedented thing...an act, as far as I know, never even contemplated in the CGGC before...a revolutionary act:
In the case of Faith, they expelled, from the ministry of the Conference, a congregation fiercely loyal to the teachings and espoused practices of the Conference and denomination, and which was, incidentally, fiercely originalist and devoted to the vision and first ways of the founders of our movement.
----------------
As I say, I don't claim to understand but my thought is that...
...as the people who participated in George's Facebook thread indicated...
...the leaders of the Conference would happily welcome an originalist Churches of God church.
But, it seems to me, that such a church would have, first of all, to have been cowed...domesticated.
It would have to kowtow to the authority of the Conference hierarchy BEFORE and BEYOND the authority of the Bible as its only rule of faith and practice.
It would have to be subservient to the rule of the ERC institutional hierarchy.
It could never operate in the Conference community prophetically.
----------------
The Conference hierarchy is fiercely loyal to its paradigm. It fights, to the ecclesiological death, any who challenge its church, pastor, hierarch-focused paradigm...
...a paradigm that has failed and is failing.
And, any church, of any type that blends in with that paradigm will always be welcome in the ERC.
Everyone and every church that has a prophetic way of functioning in the body be damned.
----------------
So, yeah, George, an originalist congregation might be successful. But, from our experience here, if its loyal to the radical, original Church of God vision, it will never be welcomed.
We must repent.
No comments:
Post a Comment