Back in the day we were on the staffs of the General Conference and the seminary--at the height of the 35,000 by 2000 Campaign
--there was a joke sometimes told among Mountaintoppers at the expense of CGGC people unwilling to jump on board with the new, but now failed, vision. It would be proceeded by other versions of the light bulb joke then climaxed with:
And, how many Church of God people does it take to change a light bulb?
The answer was to put an expression of fear and exasperation on your face and scream, "CHANGE???!!!?!??!!!!!"
Of course, we now know that the people who saw folly in what proved to be yet another failed fad that would soon fizzle were not the fools. They possessed the wisdom to see the fad for what it was and to understand that another fad would be coming around the corner in barely more than the blink of an institutional eye.
This was a playing out of the characteristics of the CGGC brand, FADDISM and CYNICISM. It was the cynics who had it right, which is sad.
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That sad story from the recent past is part of the evidence that the driving truth of the decline of the CGGC is that it is CGGC leadership that is resistant to change.
They think of themselves as people on the cutting edge who would succeed except for the tradition-bound people in the churches who won't ever move forward.
But the truth is that it is leadership that fears change as much as anyone. More, actually.
The thing they will not change is the old wineskin of hierarchical, institutional, shepherd domination which the church began to try out eight decades ago.
They will--and do-- embrace a fad a year, which amounts to nothing more than a new program or strategy that assumes the old structure remains intact and that keeps them in their comfy offices in headquarters buildings and, of course, with the salaries that come with their titles.
They, more than anyone, cower in the face of change...of wineskin change.
WE HAVE NO HOPE UNTIL WE USE A NEW WINESKIN.
We must repent.
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