The ERC Core Values are Absent from the new New Strategic Plan

So, I went to my book case yesterday to the Church of God section to find those Forney CHRISTIAN ORDINANCES books that I'm offering and I discovered that I have kept the beautifully designed promotional piece prepared for the first ERC Strategic Plan.

I looked it over and discovered, prominently displayed, the assertion that the mission of the ERC grew out of "the core values that surfaced from answers to questions proposed to determine who we are and where we are going."

In the material I've seen being used to describe and promote the 2017 new New Strategic Plan, I've seen and heard nothing about those Core Value.

Clearly, those values no longer exist at our real-life core.

Do you remember the days when the people of the ERC openly embraced and talked about our Core Value?

I actually do.

And, do you remember what the first and most prominent Core Value was? It was,

The authority of the Bible as God's Word.

In the very impressive folder that promoted the old Strategic Plan, Scripture is prominent.

The cover page contains only a quotation from Jesus.

The first section of text is, simply, John 15:5, 8.

Then, while the document is heavy in explanation of the Strategic Plan, God's Word seasons the text.

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FYI, in the PDF of the 2017 new New Strategic Plan, there is no reference to the authority of the Bible as God's Word. For that matter, there's no mention of our Core Values.

In the PDF of the new New Strategic Plan, biblical authority is never cited as the reason the hierarchs want the Conference to do what they want us to do.

What, for instance, does the Word say is a healthy, life-giving church, or pastor, or regional leader?

Who, according to the new New Strategic Plan, knows?

To be fair, while the new New Strategic Plan promotion doesn't cite the authority of the Word to justify even one element of the plan, it does conclude with a quote of Proverbs 3:5-6. Those verses, however, are used to motivate, not to suggest the the plan is rooted in God's truth or the teaching or the life of Jesus.

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What concerns me, based on the content and promotion of the new New Strategic Plan, is that it documents the decline of the role of God's truth in the ERC.

There is no biblical authority cited for any element of the plan.

There is no reference to the Core Values of the Conference, which acknowledges that the authority of the Bible is our first and most prominent value.

And, most disturbingly, there is what seems to me to be the rise of what Bonhoeffer dubbed cheap grace in the plan.

I've criticized the CGGC for its nearly 30 year old tepid definition of what a disciple is but I'm still puking over the new definition of what a disciple is provided in the recent Chuck Frank video promoting the new New Strategic Plan.

Brothers and sisters, we are going to in the wrong direction.

We are theologically bankrupt and corrupt.

The first thing we need to do is return to our first and most prominent value, which we were still in touch with when we tried our first Strategic Plan:

The authority of the Bible as God's Word!!!!!