The ERC office sent out an email yesterday listing the churches in the region that had not yet sent in a "statistical report" to the main office in Findlay.
(Take a moment to reflect on the fact that there is nothing of the New Testament and certainly nothing Jesus taught or did that justifies anything to do with that whole statistic reporting process.)
I counted.
Understanding that church names are so convoluted these days that I might have misread some church names, I counted 74.
Seventy four!
What do you suppose it says about us as a body that so many don't participate in the reporting process?
I confess that I don't know what it says but I will mention two things I do know:
1. Whatever it does say is not good. There is something very seriously wrong with the CGGC from top to bottom and from side to side and this nonparticipation is merely one way to scorecard that big picture reality. Yet, in Findlay (and in Harrisburg too?) the mountaintoppers go on numbly as if all is well. Wait until the "2015 Yay God" tour of Conference Sessions kicks off if you doubt me.
2. The reason that we have not submitted ours to this point is that what the "Scorecard" seeks to measure is almost entirely irrelevant to what we believe and do to the point that responding accurately is essentially impossible and that if/when we do respond, our report will certainly not accurately reflect what we do and who we are.
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Lance,
My heart goes out to you. Why you would even want the job mystifies me.
I do think that the fact that so few congregations participate in the reporting process is an important big picture truth about, in this case, the ERC. I suspect, though, the percentage of nonparticipating churches is similar in other regions.
ReplyDeleteI recall that when Ed announced that he is stepping of the mountain top, one achievement he lauded was the creation of this very "Scorecard" which approximately half of the ERC neglects to use.
This stuns me and strikes me as capturing a core characteristic of the DNA of the CGGC.
One of my characteristics of the CGGC brand is "Cynicism." I see the mountaintoppers as being cynical about, for instance, churches that would ignore a Scorecard they are proud of. As far as I can tell, the mountaintoppers are genuinely proud of the Scorecard, so much so that the fact that it has been this poorly accepted by their brothers and sisters in the body doesn't touch them at all.
It seems to me that they are out of touch with the body and happy to be so.
Since we are so institutional, I suggest we hire a consultant to survey the nonparticipators to learn big picture truths about the body that the guys on the mountain top seem happy not to know.