The Latest CGGC Fad

Using the word, "aspirational."

I'm going to take the next 11 words to be purely prophetic:

The CGGC will neither repent nor thrive while we are aspirational.

I first picked up on the emerging fad to talk about what we are aspirational about...what we aspire to...what we wish to be true about us in reports I received from General Conference sessions.

And, I developed a serious case of Aspirational Poisoning reading Lance's August 9, 2019 eNews.

"Aspirational" clearly is the CGGC word of the moment, at least in the headquarters building in Findlay...in the corner office, anyway.

Lance's article introduces the new CGGC Core Values which, Lance notes, "...can't be purely aspirational."

Two thoughts:

1. In Church of God movement days, we didn't spend time considering what we wished to be true about us. We cared about what is...in the now.

Winebrenner's three descriptions of the activity of the Church of God, in his address to the Eldership on the day it formed in October 1830, i.e.,

-the conversion of sinners,
-the establishment of churches on the New Testament plan,
-supplying the destitute with the preaching of the gospel,...

...are precisely that. Descriptions.

They were not wishes. They explained what those people were already doing, not what they dreamed or hope, in some distant time, to do.

Winebrenner's 27 point description of the faith and practice of the Church of God, first published in 1844, is also, to make the biggest word possible out of it, descriptional. It wasn't aspirational.

These are 27 descriptors of what the people of our thriving movement actually thought and did.

In our first days, we were concerned with the present reality. Our thinking was not connected to some leader's dream world.

2. Repentance from fallen and sinful ways, and from corrupt thinking, comes from focusing on what is fallen and sinful and corrupt and, by the grace and power of the Spirit, seeing it from God's perspective...

...and experiencing the godly sorrow that, Paul says, produces a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.

Being aspirational is to consume an opiate.

It numbs the very pain that the Spirit wants God's people to experience, pain that has the purpose of leading His people away from sin into a connection to Him rooted in love. And, it is Jesus who said, "if you love me you will keep my commands."

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Lance suggested that our values can't be purely aspirational.

The truth, rooted in the teaching of the Word, and demonstrated in the history of the people of the Kingdom, is that we should not aspire. We should deal with the truth about ourselves, no matter what that truth is. Especially when that truth is ugly.

We must outlaw the drug Aspiration.

The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us. Check out the CGGC stats. We are declining numerically. The numbers point to increasing spiritual decay.

Yet, our Lord is pure grace and mercy and blessing.

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What would our Core Values be if they were honestly described?

What might happen if we focused on those ugly truths and not on what we dream might be true?

Might we find the godly sorrow that produces a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret?

We must repent.

But, repentance is the fruit of other things. Aspiration is not in the formula.