CGGC Values?

The Mission Statement of the Independent Living community to which we're moving operates under the following Mission Statement:

"Founded on Christ's love and Mennonite values, we strive to enrich the lives of those we serve."

The Mission Statement is very prominently displayed on a large plaque in the facility's main lobby and, based on our interaction with these people so far, the mission is central to what they do in real life.

We couldn't avoid seeing the Mission Statement plaque as soon as we visited the home for the first time.

And, the moment I saw the Mission Statement, I asked myself what a similar statement would mean in a CGGC context where the words Churches of God, General Conference were substituted for Mennonite.

My answer? Nothing.

The CGGC has had published Core Values for about 30 years.

My guess is that you don't know what they are and, that being the case, you'd have to concede that they are talk, not walk, for us, i.e., our Core Values are central to nothing that we do.

Look them up.

For the most part, the values we talk are shepherd focused in that they have to do, almost exclusively, with ideals about CGGC flocks gathered for worship.

They certainly aren't adequate to direct the operation of an Independent Living community, or any real life endeavor.

I'd say, though, that they are accurate to the extent that they describe our parish priest/laity obsession, our satisfaction with talk disconnected from walk and our inability and unwillingness to live a faith that addresses all of real life.

Our Core Values, I believe, are perfectly adequate to drive our dysfunction as well as our decline and decay.

It's true that every system is perfectly designed to achieve the results it gets. And, our Core Values, such as they are, are perfectly designed to drive our dive into the doldrums.

One other note.

Winebrenner's 27 point description of the Faith and Practice of the Church of God from the 1840s got it right.

The points covering our practice describe the real life fruit of our actual values in those days and they were radical, matching our orthodox, yet radical, statements of what we believed.

They really and truly describe what actually did in the real world.

We must repent.

Jesus said this to the Church at Ephesus: "Repent and do the things you did at first."

We need to do that.