It appears that I might have been able to log on to the CONTAGIOUS blog.
If I did, I placed a comment on Lance's latest eNews article, which was on APEST.
In that article, Lance referenced opposition to General Conference staff's promotion of APEST, including Lance's revelations that:
1. A congregation has left the CGGC over the teaching of APEST, and,
2. Lance has been told numerous times by "other leaders" that APEST is only a "fad" and that it's a "secondary issue in Scripture."
My comment suggested that:
1. The New Testament "oozes" APEST from Jesus's calling of the first apostles through Acts and the Epistles to the Book of Revelation in which John says Jesus made us to be "a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father." The second half of Ephesians 2 simply summarizes a central Kingdom truth.
2. APEST is part of a theological movement tracing back at least as far as the 1520s. It's the movement the founders of the Church of God embraced when, on the day it formed in 1830, John Winebrenner called for "another great reformation." It's a movement that has always been on the cutting edge of change, revival and, sadly, controversy.
APEST is not a fad. It's here to stay. In the worldwide community of followers of Jesus, APEST is absolutely anything but a fad. In fact, APEST is connected to a way of following Jesus that has deep roots in Christian history.
Whether or not APEST is a CGGC fad remains to be seen. Yet,...
Anyone who sees APEST as a fad in the global community of Jesus followers needs a refresher course in "church" history.
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Yet, to be fair, it strikes me that Lance and Brandon haven't made these core truths about their teaching clear.
Brandon's series has extracted Ephesians 4:11 from the rest of the New Testament and its constant APEST drumbeat...
...to teach one application of that single verse to church, and not Kingdom, ministry.
We'd probably have been better served had General Conference staff begun at a more basic level.
I am a student of history. For me, the Kingdom history of this teaching is at least as powerfully persuasive as the biblical roots of it.
In reading the APEST literature with which I'm familiar, I haven't seen anyone place the APEST teaching in the context of the history of what the Holy Spirit has been doing in the world for the past five centuries, at least.
Perhaps, Lance and Brandon haven't even thought about that themselves.
It seems to me, though, that, if we're going really to live APEST, we need to start over and go back to the beginning...to the basics.
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I don't know anything about the relationship between Winebrenner Theological Seminary and the CGGC these days, though I'm a strong supporter of Winebrenner's President, Brent Sleasman.
But, it seems to me that the CGGC body needs to be presented with a biblical and historical introduction to APEST at the depth of a seminary course.
I'm saddened by the reality that leaders of the CGGC could even be thinking that APEST is a fad and that it's a secondary issue in Scripture.
It's a commentary on how far we've fallen that a body with our history...and Mission Statement...could have, as Lance describes them, leaders, who think of APEST as a fad and as a secondary issue in Scripture.
From what I know, both suggestions are entirely disconnected from truth...
...but, then, how would people be expected to know that?
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Part of "leading" change involves defining the reality that forms the context in which change takes place.
From what I know, that's not been done in the CGGC.
I'm chagrined by the resistance that CGGC staffers have encountered. Yet, I'm concerned that, based on what Lance said in his recent eNews, the opposition is dangerously and profoundly ill-informed.
But, then, I can't blame the people in opposition who haven't been exposed to the facts.
I think it's fair to say that, for many CGGCers, a call to put APEST into action has been dumped on them, without warning, out of a clear blue sky.
We must rethink the way APEST is presented. We must repent.
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