Back in the day, when I was a member of the ERC Commission on Church Renewal, the Commission visited a rather typical declining ERC congregation that was made up of mostly elderly people and was located in a very small town.
The congregation had reached the point that it could no longer afford to pay the pastor's salary. Yet the guy who was the pastor was optimistic about the future.
When we met, his eyes sparkled with confidence as he told us that he had been working on a series of sermons from (I think it was) 1 Timothy and he was certain that after he preached those truths the fortunes of the church would reverse themselves.
He was certain. We on the Commission were skeptical.
It was at that time that I was being shown APEST by the Holy Spirit. With that biblical framework in my mind, I saw that the pastor was gifted to be a teacher, perhaps with even a little suppressed prophet bubbling up within him. Because of who he was in the Spirit, the pastor could see the path to an obedient future exclusively through the presentation of truth.
And, certainly, knowledge of truth is necessary to obedience. But knowledge of truth in and of itself doesn't make people disciples.
In the end, the pastor preached his series, nothing changed, decline continued and, ultimately, his ministry crumbled. As I understand it, that pastor no longer has a ministry in the CGGC.
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I thought of that meeting, and its aftermath, recently when I was reflecting on the revised ERC Strategic Plan because, as a group, the people who make up ERC leadership, and who were consulted in the creation of the Plan, are all so similar in their spiritual giftings that they act from one spiritual gift and they do it with the same narrow, limited focus as the pastor who was certain that his church would be transformed merely because he preached a certain set of truths.
ERC leaders are either shepherds or they go along to get along with shepherd driven values. The ERC truly has a shepherd-dominated leadership culture.
Because of that, leaders see the advance of the Kingdom coming about through the perfection of the church as an institution which regulates, manages and administers the way human relationships function primary through the oversight of budgets and the function of Commissions, Councils and Committees and their staff members.
Are these people bad guys? Do they seek failure? Of course not.
On the other hand, is what the ERC powers that be have come with a "Simply Jesus" vision, as the theme of recent Conference sessions claim? Is there anything at all of the spirit of the Gospels in the Strategic Plan? Is there any "Simply Jesus" walk attending the official talk?
Understand:
There was nothing at all institutional in what Jesus lived or taught.
Nothing in the ministry of Jesus permits institutional religion. Jesus didn't authorize the creation of Commissions and Committees led by Chairmen and Directors. In fact, to the limited degree that the Jews of His day had institutionalized their religion, Jesus denounced them.
There are two ways I'm thinking about the new Strategic Plan:
One surrounds the question of what Jesus would teach if He had a Sermon on the Mount for our day. Would He teach the tweaking of budgets and restructuring of Commissions, the addition of yet another staff member and the partial defunding of the General Conference, all of which are entirely absent from what He did and taught? Certainly not.
He would define righteousness and command that righteousness be lived out.
The second way I think about this is to return to the vision Reggie McNeal described in his book, The Present Future, once so faddishly popular among forward thinkers in the CGGC. Reggie denounced planning itself entirely and envisioned planning being replaced by preparing, essentially, to join God in the work He is doing.
But, when shepherds, who are not living in mutual submission with teachers, evangelists and prophets, and apostles are in charge, they plan. Planning is what they know--ALL they know. And when they won't acknowledge that apostles and prophets are the foundation of the spiritually gifted, this Strategic Plan is the sort of thing they come up with.
The new plan calls ERCers to serve an institution not to obey Jesus and to submit to the authority of an institution, not to the leading of the Holy Spirit. In this plan, the ERC, as institution, is elevated to new heights. Under it, more than ever before, key people would spend time in meetings, not in the world walking in the Spirit and living mercifully in the service Jesus who lives in the flesh of the "least of these."
Honestly, the word INSTITUTIONOLATRY comes to my mind.
Every way I look at the revised plan, I see continued spiritual decline and, if the Lord who dictated those letters at the beginning of the Book of Revelation is still Lord, perhaps even judgment.
Our shepherd dominated leadership culture must step aside. Others besides me must demand the deconstruction of the ERC institution.
We must repent.
Please understand this: My take on the ERC Strategic Plan is representative of my ongoing call for repentance on the big picture level, on the level of the values upon which our ministry is based.
ReplyDeleteWe did not need our leadership to be working on a new Strategic Plan during the past year.
I am deeply disturbed by the theology I see producing fruit in the plan itself but, much more than that, I am disturbed by the existence of a plan at all.
We need to take seriously our talk that the Bible rules our faith and practice because, according to our talk, the Word is all we need.