These are dynamic times in the ERC.
It is now, as Jane Austen once wrote, "a truth universally acknowledged" that the degree of decline and directionlessness of the ERC is a serious problem.
Probably the last people to realize this are the highest ranking people in the hierarchy. But, these days, even they are facing, at least some of, the facts.
I'm hearing chatter from a diverse network of people, all of whom love the ERC and are concerned about its future. Many of whom have strong opinions and some of whom have direct, first-hand knowledge of important happens. And, some of whom have asked me to keep what we discuss under my hat...a request I, most certainly, will honor.
It's a fact that news that comes from the ERC mountaintop to the unwershed mere unconnected pastors and members and attenders of ERC churches is controlled and, often, propagandized to a degree that might have made Mao and Stalin jealous.
So, here's some of what I know and am able to pass on:
By his own word, Kevin Richardson will no longer be ERC E. D.. He will vacate that office in a "few weeks."
As recently as about a month ago, he was going to stay in place until a new Executive Director was identified.
However, as a result of the ERC Ad Council meeting on November 1, his tenure was cut short.
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There have been serious problems with the hierarchs' plan to have the ERC Ad Council foist the new New Strategic Plan on the Conference without the approval of the Conference in session.
ERC movers and shakers have been unable to figure out how to form one of the new Commissions envisioned in the new New Strategic Plan...so, at the moment, the plan would be unfoistable by the hoped-for implementation date of January 1, 2018.
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There seems to be some degree of uncertainty, even among the eagles who soar above the highest peaks of the ERC mountain range, as to whether on not the hierarchs are actually able to foist the new New Strategic Plan on the Conference through the Ad Council.
You know my take on that, and others, I believe, share it...
...that the Commission structure is written into the ERC Constitution directly and that, therefore, only the Conference in session can amend the Constitution.
Others see authority, in the Constitution, within the Ad Council to appoint Commissions. They, apparently, take that authority to allow the Ad Council to rewrite the Constitution, at least in this case.
My opinion on this is that the mountaintoppers have become accustomed to operating without accountability and, in the past would have done their foist job using the Ad Council and would have gotten away with asking the Conference in session to amend the Constitution as a matter of "just a little bit of paper work" to, you know, uh, "make it official." But, for the moment at least, times have changed. There is an important, and I'm guessing, growing, but disorganized, group of skeptics in the Conference. And, people are now actually paying attention to the potential abuses of power that happen on the mountaintop.
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What I know, from multiple sources, and am able to say is that the whole new New Strategic Plan is not in a position to be implemented on January 1, even if some would still like to be old school and foist it on the Conference.
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My overall sense is that, on the mountaintop, there is still a high degree of confidence in the new New Strategic Plan, in spite of the fact that even the hierarchs acknowledge that it can't be fully implemented as of the moment.
It is also my overall sense that, below the mountaintop, even just few peaks down, there is both skepticism and lack of confidence in the plan.
It's also my sense that the groups I'm calling the Cynics and the Apathetics remain uninvolved. You can note the pathetically low attendance was at the Town Hall meetings was as strong evidence of that.
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My prediction is that the approval of the new New Strategic Plan will become an issue for the Conference in session to resolve. A few thoughts about that:
There are actually some in the Conference who are NOT hierarchs and mountaintoppers who don't want the Conference to decide this issue...
...who would prefer to have the Ad Council decree that there is a new Strategic Plan and what the content of the plan will be.
And, at the moment, even if approval of the plan is taken to the Conference, the dynamics of the Conference have not been repented of by either the Good Old Boys nor by the Cynics nor the Apathetics...
...and that the new New Strategic Plan will be approved by the Conference in session...
...and, in the end, become, again, merely words on paper.
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Before anything else, we must repent.
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