Awesome Video in Which Justin Meier and Reggie McNeal Parrot what bill Sloat has been Saying and Doing

What a stunner!

There are three points where one, the other or both could be reading from this blog.

1. They talk about what we (in the American church) do--and specifically much of Church Planting--as being a form of idolatry.  (However, they don't use my term ecclesiolatry.)
2. Reggie says, "We need Repentance Conferences."
3. In looking into the future for the body of Christ, Reggie describes what he calls "network churches."  He mentions two types.  His second type is a high definition picture of what we have already "planted" and what we are already doing at Faith.  (Jump in.  The water's great.)

A prophet in his own country, eh?

You have to watch this!

You have to DO this:

https://hearthecall.wistia.com/medias/ur72owf9lh

The New CGGC Trinity: The Father, the Son and the INSTITUTION

Note:  Readership of this blog has almost exactly doubled since I blogged, Why I Don't Observe LENT.  I have no idea why this is so.

Nevertheless, if you are a new reader, welcome.  Your participation on the blog itself or, as so many seem to prefer, privately through email is a blessing to me.

bill

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Friends,

It is a false value held by the CGGC and other groups concerned with following Jesus--and who are dominated by shepherds--to care about creating and maintaining mellow relationships among people at the expense of wholehearted passion for and adherence to truth.

However, truth is the essence of Jesus-following. Jesus said, "I am...the truth..."  And, He often warned of falsehood. 

The New Testament warns of false Christs and false apostles, false  prophets and false teachers.  It proclaims that salvation is only for those who hold firmly to the true gospel.  It also states that those who believe something other than that gospel believe in vain.  (1 Corinthians 15)

I now suspect, based on the fruit it is producing, that the leadership of the CGGC, at least on the General Conference level, has abandoned the genuine New Testament gospel to so great an extent that it is guilty of heresy.

My head is still spinning and my heart is still pounding over Ed Rosenberry's eNews statements:

At the luncheon on Tuesday when the panel was asked as leaders how to implement change in a pre-existing institution like the Church, the University, or business...

and,

...it was quite interesting to learn that the leadership challenges in banking are not that much different than those in the Church.

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I have attempted to explain away these statements to myself in a way that permits me to see, in Ed, belief in orthodox Christian truth that is consistent with the Gospel proclaimed and lived out in the Word of God.

I have tried.  But, with great sorrow, I have failed.

Instead, I have concluded that no one who believes that the Father is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God and that they are One could possibly make the statements that Ed has made.

People who believe in the Trinity and whose lives produce fruit of that belief embrace the reality that, since Pentecost, God inhabits His people and that the church is a living body; it is an organism, not an organization; it is certainly not an INSTITUTION and it can not be compared, as Ed compares it, to a university or a business, particular a bank.

People who embrace the Trinity believe that the community of saints/disciples/followers of the Way make up a unique community in the world and that this community is united and empowered by the presence of God Himself.

People who confess what the Word teaches about God and God's people do not believe--and they can not say--anything that even remotely resembles what Ed says about the church as institution or the similarity between leading the church and leading a bank or other business or a university.

I am appalled and I fear for the soul of anyone who can say what Ed has said AND for the souls of all the people who can accept these sentiments without qualms.

I see a new Trinity in the fruit of what Ed Rosenberry, and of those on his staff who (publicly, at least) walk in lock step with him:  A false Trinity not of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but one of the Father, the Son and the institutional church.

Read their writings.  There is much about the church as an institution.  There is, however, no Holy Spirit in the things they say or write.  In fact, they never speak or write about Him.

God help them.  God help us.

We must repent and we must address the issues of what we believe about our Christ and His Body.

"Rhetoricalism:" The Root of Many CGGC Sins

One of my favorite preachers is the ERC's E. D., Kevin Richardson.  Kevin's preaching, at least his preaching that I hear, is missional and radical--even apostolic.  Sadly, I normally have the opportunity to hear Kevin preach only once each year--as a part of ERC Conference sessions.

Every year I've heard Kevin speak, the same two-part phenomenon has taken place: 

1. Kevin describes, from the Word, radical truths about the way a disciple of Jesus Christ should live--and His Body should function.  (Each of these truths, incidentally, have, at the time, aligned with my own struggle for obedience.)
2. Everyone I know who hears him preach these vibrant messages seems to agree with Kevin and to be inspired to think as he thinks.  Yet, from year to year, no one I encounter produces fruit of being changed from living tradition-bound ways due to Kevin's radical preaching.

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I am a past participant in the CGGC's Missional Leadership Initiative, which operates on a two year cycle and is resourced by the missional guru, Reggie McNeal.

During the last part of the very last session my MLI group met with McNeal, Reggie cautioned us: "Don't let your commitment to mission be merely rhetorical."

He implied that it is possible for evangelicals, especially, to allow themselves to be convinced that by believing in being missional that they are actually being missional.  It is possible for people to go one step further and to argue and to debate for a missional theology and yet, without reservation, continue to behave in a non-missional way.

I have no idea why Reggie chose to say that to a CGGC MLI group. 

I don't know if he had picked up on the fact that it is characteristic of the CGGC for its pastors and 'lay' leaders to fall prey to the temptation to think that to believe something--and even to argue in favor of it--is the equivalent of living out that belief.  Perhaps Reggie says that to everyone in every, as he would call it, tribe.  But, the fact is that, in the CGGC, rhetoricalism reigns.  We really do bear fruit of holding the conviction that to think a thought is to live it out.

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This explains what happens when Kevin preaches his powerful, pointed sermons to ERC Conference delegates.  In the CGGC ERC, at least, many people seem to be convinced that to hear a powerful sermon on radical discipleship, to agree with it--and perhaps even to steal that sermon--is to live in obedience to Jesus.

However, the Word of God contains the exact opposite teaching: 

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."  (Mt 7:24-27)

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."  (John 14:15)

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (James 1:22)

The practice of rhetoricalism is the root of many of my characteristics of the CGGC brand.  Among them:

Traditionalism (set beside our radically outward-focused statements of faith and mission and vision.)

Faddism, which allows us to jump willynilly from one grand new strategy or program to another, even if the new one contradicts the previous one and/or what we say we believe or to embrace as our mission.

A Middle Ages View of Leadership under the authority of the new WE BELIEVE and MISSION STATEMENT which proclaim that the Bible is our "only" "rule." 

Cynicism: The natural result, in the CGGC body, of the frequent, abrupt and often contradictory, changes in direction conceived of by leadership.

To Talk is to Walk-ism, the characteristic most closely derived from rhetoricalism.  The one which takes the thinking that is the root of rhetoricalism and gives audible and written words to it.

Cheap Grace, which Bonhoeffer demonstrated is not grace at all but which has been the way of the CGGC for decades and which the CGGC avoids in thought, yet practices in action.

False, Flock-Based Righteousness which has no place in the Gospel Jesus lived and preached

and

Incoherence, my poorly chosen used to describe the fact that there is considerable contradiction among the things the CGGC says and does.  

By any standard, the CGGC is in a long cycle of decline.  Clearly, a root cause for that decline is this dangerous reality decried in the Word from Genesis to Revelation: We have allowed ourselves to think that thinking is living.  On the Day, it will not be.

We must repent.

Cannibalism of the Clergy in the CGGC

Fellow CGGCers,

 

Below is an email (edited to preserve the identities of individuals) I recently received from a fellow member of the CGGC clergy.  This person wrote to me in response to an email in which I asked several people in the CGGC clergy what they understand the CGGC's ONe Mission to be. 

 

I believe every word of this email because, over my years in the CGGC, I've known of this sort of thing to happen many times. 

 

As Paul Simon wrote, "It's the same old story, everywhere I go."  In fact, when I was member of the ERC Commission on Church Renewal, that Commission engineered several very similar stories. (See my anecdote following the email.)

I'm blogging this because I have been contemplating blogging on this issue for some time.  Here is a case in point.

 

I'm disgusted by the cannibalism that is an ordinary part of our DNA.  What you will read below could happen in any region of the CGGC USA.

Here's I challenge I offer to everyone who reads the email that follows:  Identify for me a region in the CGGC USA that this story could not take place and explain why.

 

The CGGC is sick...from top to bottom and from side to side...and it has been for years.

 

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Hi Bill,

Sorry for the delay in responding. I really have no idea what the cggc mission is, and don't really have anything to do with anyone in the cggc anymore.

 

My regional director has refused to speak to me [for several months], our region's church/pastor [commission] will have nothing to do with me - and no one will tell me why.

 

It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever experienced. [A General Conference staff person long known to this person] offers to 'listen' to me now and then, and I've met with [another member of GC staff] a couple of times, but other than that... nothing.  So... I really have nothing good to say about the cggc.
 

We are trying to get involved in a non-denominational church - and that has not been easy either. Plus I've been working long hours at my new job. I am a ____________________ for __________. I don't know if I'll do it forever, but I don't foresee ever being in ministry again. I especially don't see being involved in the cggc again. I doubt that I could even if I wanted to.

 

What's most frustrating is that I have no idea why.

 

I'm just dumbfounded that a regional director can just REFUSE to speak to a pastor in their region.

 

I've tried apologizing, I've reached out twice trying to reconcile.

 

I've talked to Findlay people and our regional president... and nothing happens.

 

When you coined the term "Shepherd Mafia"... you nailed it.

So, I'm sorry I'm not much help with this; and sorry for the rant . . ..
 

peace & blessings,

 

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As I mentioned, I participated in several similar stories as a member of the ERC's Commission on Church Renewal. 

One of the most embarrassing and painful for me was a case in which an ERC pastor contacted the Commission and asked for assistance.  He was concerned by what he regarded to be increasing tension between the Church Council and himself.  He asked the Commission to mediate.

The Commission set up the meeting he requested and the meeting was well attended by all parties involved.  The Commission offered an open forum for the free exchange of any and all concerns, explaining to the Council that their pastor was concerned and want to resolve any problems between it and him.

We on the Commission were delighted to hear that no one had any serious issues with the pastor and that, in fact, members of the Council expressed their appreciation for their pastor's ministry.

Instead of engaging in conflict resolution, the Commission concluded the evening by leading a time of celebration.  And, afterward it held a brief private meeting with the pastor to give him a head's up on some very minor issues of concern we picked up on from the members of the Church Council.

We were overjoyed...until the next month when we received word that that pastor and his wife had gone away for a week of vacation and that, while they were away, the Council scheduled a special meeting and fired him.

What discipline do you suppose was exercised against the Church Council, by the Commission, its staff person and by the Region's Executive Director?  What direct support do you suppose was offered to the pastor in this conflict by any group or person in the Conference?

Nada.

That pastor never had a meaningful ministry in the ERC again and the Conference quickly sent another pastor to serve the church.

This story is not the only similar sort of story I can tell from my decades in the CGGC.

The CGGC's people will never repent of unrighteousness until righteousness is demanded of all of its leaders and people.

We are spiritually sick.

We must repent.