My sense of this blog lately is that it has been out of focus, at least as a place where I function as a prophet.
And, while I've held that belief about the blog for some time, I was willing to excuse myself for faltering and, though I tried, I was, for the longest time, unable to achieve any degree of focus as a prophet.
I know many of you have been praying for Evie, and for me too. And, I'm so very thankful.
What a year!
HER AORTIC VALVE WAS REMOVED AND A BOVINE REPLACEMENT WAS INSERTED.
The reality of the surgery that was performed on her still eludes my comprehension. It probably always will.
It's hard to describe how great was the spiritual, emotion and physical toll the surgery and the ongoing recovery took on me. You probably can't imagine how it's impacted her.
Since the spring, when Evie's valve began to give out and today, I've been located fairly low on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And, try as I might, I have been ineffective in articulating prophetic insights and impulses.
And, I have tried.
I've deleted a bunch of posts that simply didn't turn out to be, in print, what they were in my heart. Others are sitting around as drafts which will probably never be published.
One has become a lengthy journal-like reflection on Lance's, "Seeking the Lost," eNews article in which I decided to explore, eventually only for myself, what it means to seek to bring, into the Kingdom, people who have not repented and who do not believe the gospel.
Do I seek the lost? Is what I do in the world in the Name of Jesus, and for the sake of the Kingdom, a seeking of the lost? It's unlikely that anyone but I will ever read those musings.
But, lately, I seem to have achieved a degree of clarity and focus that reminds me of the old days...
...a renewed sense of fury over the hypocrisy of CGGC Talk-ism and the profound sin of CGGC cynicism which results in leadership and the body ignoring each other in a dysfunctional/enabler relationship which has left us spinning our wheels, mindlessly carrying unspiritual traditions, which have been going unblessed from the first day we evolved/devolved them.
Interestingly, to me, while I have been exhausted, I have never been discouraged by the likelihood that my prophecies will be ignored.
The CGGC, as a body, seems petrified in its hard-heartedness.
It seems that we will never, again, connect talk with walk and that we will always choose cynicism over obedience to the "love one another" command of Jesus.
Yet, I know that there are, among us, men and women with ears who hear. And, I can still hope enough to pray that, from them, a remnant will surface.
My rejuvenation comes near the end of a calendar year which gives me occasion to note that 2018 has been same old, same old across the CGGC.
The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us, still.
We haven't changed. We have not turned from the sin that is producing our decline and decay.
We still must repent.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Servanthood is, by Definition, Incarnational, Leadership Ain't
In the CGGC, the people with whom we invest the greatest authority choose to attempt to use that authority to lead us.
That decision is their fatal mistake.
Near the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus noted, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me..."
Jesus used that authority to serve...always.
He, "being in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant ..." (Philippians 2)
The essence of the ministry of Jesus was to serve to the extreme.
The fact that He became human was itself an act of servanthood. His entire life on earth was service. He taught servanthood and He lived the life of a servant.
Jesus was always there, among the lost and broken, and, being with people, face to face, He lived as a servant.
------------------
The people of the CGGC hierarchy with whom I'm familiar, walk a different path than Jesus walked in two ways, and we suffer for it.
1. They seek to lead, not serve.
2. Their there isn't among us. Their there is in fancy offices, behind impressive desks, or in tucked away together in staff or committee or commission or conference meetings in headquarters buildings.
Fascinatingly, Jesus lived to serve and people fell over each to follow Him. Our self-proclaimed leaders in the CGGC aren't followed.
If the numerical decline and spiritual decay of the CGGC is to be reversed two, among many things, will have to change.
1. The people who think of themselves as our leaders will have to begin to think of themselves as the slave of all of us. And,
2. They will have to step out from behind their desks, walk outside of their offices, cancel many of their staff and committee, commission and conference meetings, and put themselves in the place where they can look us in the eye...
...and we can look back into theirs.
Servanthood is incarnational. Leadership ain't. Our leaders aren't.
We all must repent but, in this way, the first step will, probably, have to be theirs.
That decision is their fatal mistake.
Near the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus noted, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me..."
Jesus used that authority to serve...always.
He, "being in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant ..." (Philippians 2)
The essence of the ministry of Jesus was to serve to the extreme.
The fact that He became human was itself an act of servanthood. His entire life on earth was service. He taught servanthood and He lived the life of a servant.
Jesus was always there, among the lost and broken, and, being with people, face to face, He lived as a servant.
------------------
The people of the CGGC hierarchy with whom I'm familiar, walk a different path than Jesus walked in two ways, and we suffer for it.
1. They seek to lead, not serve.
2. Their there isn't among us. Their there is in fancy offices, behind impressive desks, or in tucked away together in staff or committee or commission or conference meetings in headquarters buildings.
Fascinatingly, Jesus lived to serve and people fell over each to follow Him. Our self-proclaimed leaders in the CGGC aren't followed.
If the numerical decline and spiritual decay of the CGGC is to be reversed two, among many things, will have to change.
1. The people who think of themselves as our leaders will have to begin to think of themselves as the slave of all of us. And,
2. They will have to step out from behind their desks, walk outside of their offices, cancel many of their staff and committee, commission and conference meetings, and put themselves in the place where they can look us in the eye...
...and we can look back into theirs.
Servanthood is incarnational. Leadership ain't. Our leaders aren't.
We all must repent but, in this way, the first step will, probably, have to be theirs.
Friday, December 28, 2018
Xmas with the Sloats
A very recent spin on family tradition is for the whole, small Sloat clan to assemble at our house on a day we agree on, but it's never been on December 25. Our place works because mom can get inside without negotiating steps.
And, as it turns out, it always been on a Sunday in the morning, though there's no definite reason it'd have to be a Sunday. Needless to say, none of us darkened the door of a church.
Matching who we are, it's a silly time.
We play silly games and eat brunch-like food.
Sadly, we've all agreed that this will be the last time we do this.
Evie called the home in the morning to let the nurses know we'd be taking mom away and bringing her back.
The nurse Evie talked to said, "Well, put coal in her stocking. She's been naughty today."
Evie didn't ask for specifics but we're certain that mom was anxious about the disruption in her routine.
It's clear that mom's Alzheimer's is advancing.
When she walked through our door, she looked around and said, "My, this is nice," as if she's never been here before.
She seemed a bit dazed and disoriented and declared that she was ready to leave long before the time we all expected to break up the gathering.
After my brother and his wife took her back to the home, they texted and said that they don't think she should ever be taken from the home again. We'd already been thinking that ourselves.
That's sad.
In some ways, her mind's still good. She reads voraciously, novels by authors I'd read: old John Grishams and Clive Cusslers, Michael Connelly...
But she's never really all there.
Her memory is very poor.
She has osteoporosis that has left her with a broken and a crushed vertebrae from earlier falls.
I'm expecting that some day she'll fall again and break a hip or some ribs and never really recover.
It was a year and two weeks ago that dad died. He went peacefully and sweetly.
Mom could hold on for years, who knows? But, I'm not counting on it.
Sunday was bittersweet.
And, as it turns out, it always been on a Sunday in the morning, though there's no definite reason it'd have to be a Sunday. Needless to say, none of us darkened the door of a church.
Matching who we are, it's a silly time.
We play silly games and eat brunch-like food.
Sadly, we've all agreed that this will be the last time we do this.
Evie called the home in the morning to let the nurses know we'd be taking mom away and bringing her back.
The nurse Evie talked to said, "Well, put coal in her stocking. She's been naughty today."
Evie didn't ask for specifics but we're certain that mom was anxious about the disruption in her routine.
It's clear that mom's Alzheimer's is advancing.
When she walked through our door, she looked around and said, "My, this is nice," as if she's never been here before.
She seemed a bit dazed and disoriented and declared that she was ready to leave long before the time we all expected to break up the gathering.
After my brother and his wife took her back to the home, they texted and said that they don't think she should ever be taken from the home again. We'd already been thinking that ourselves.
That's sad.
In some ways, her mind's still good. She reads voraciously, novels by authors I'd read: old John Grishams and Clive Cusslers, Michael Connelly...
But she's never really all there.
Her memory is very poor.
She has osteoporosis that has left her with a broken and a crushed vertebrae from earlier falls.
I'm expecting that some day she'll fall again and break a hip or some ribs and never really recover.
It was a year and two weeks ago that dad died. He went peacefully and sweetly.
Mom could hold on for years, who knows? But, I'm not counting on it.
Sunday was bittersweet.
One Last Promotion on the Job
When I left the ministry, I took a job as a part-time bagger at the Super Market where I still work. It was the first thing that came a long. I had no idea that I'd make a career out of bagging groceries.
Still, there was some money in the job and, as I began to realize, the position at the store gave me the opportunity to live the life I'd been preaching...and blogging...
...living as an ambassador of the Kingdom, yada, yada, yada.
The work I did at the store was appreciated by management and I really, really liked my coworkers.
Working in customer service gave me a chance to explore the life of servanthood. I think that my first months working in the store was a time of spiritual growth for me.
Then came job promotions. The first was offered to me quickly and out of the blue. I sought the second. The third was offered to me when a position opened up. I was chosen and offered the position before the opening became public knowledge.
Recently, I was told that I'm being elevated to another position. I wasn't asked or offered. It was assumed that in some reorganization, I'd fill a particular spot which I'd really worked my way into already.
And, I'm willing to accept it officially.
But, this is as far as I'm willing to go.
An old "Leadership" idea is known as the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle states that people in an organization rise to the level of "incompetence."
I don't think that, with this new position, I've reached my level of incompetence but I may be approaching it. But, I've advanced further than I expected to or desired.
I'm a geezer. And, I'm comfortable with what I will be doing for the most part.
And, most importantly, the new position will allow me to continue to do my ambassadorial work. My work as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God is my real job at the store and it always will be.
I've not forgotten that and it's unlikely that I will.
Interestingly, it's likely that my Kingdom vision about what I do has distinguished me and brought about my advancement. It makes me a better employee than I am a person.
There's not another job that could possibly want to do in the company.
I don't expect more offers for advancement, but I didn't see the last two coming.
But, this is it for me.
Still, there was some money in the job and, as I began to realize, the position at the store gave me the opportunity to live the life I'd been preaching...and blogging...
...living as an ambassador of the Kingdom, yada, yada, yada.
The work I did at the store was appreciated by management and I really, really liked my coworkers.
Working in customer service gave me a chance to explore the life of servanthood. I think that my first months working in the store was a time of spiritual growth for me.
Then came job promotions. The first was offered to me quickly and out of the blue. I sought the second. The third was offered to me when a position opened up. I was chosen and offered the position before the opening became public knowledge.
Recently, I was told that I'm being elevated to another position. I wasn't asked or offered. It was assumed that in some reorganization, I'd fill a particular spot which I'd really worked my way into already.
And, I'm willing to accept it officially.
But, this is as far as I'm willing to go.
An old "Leadership" idea is known as the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle states that people in an organization rise to the level of "incompetence."
I don't think that, with this new position, I've reached my level of incompetence but I may be approaching it. But, I've advanced further than I expected to or desired.
I'm a geezer. And, I'm comfortable with what I will be doing for the most part.
And, most importantly, the new position will allow me to continue to do my ambassadorial work. My work as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God is my real job at the store and it always will be.
I've not forgotten that and it's unlikely that I will.
Interestingly, it's likely that my Kingdom vision about what I do has distinguished me and brought about my advancement. It makes me a better employee than I am a person.
There's not another job that could possibly want to do in the company.
I don't expect more offers for advancement, but I didn't see the last two coming.
But, this is it for me.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Losing the Millennial Generation
In preparing to write the post that appears below this one on the blog, I did a moment of research to determine the dividing lines between what we think of as generations. What, I wondered, is considered to be the age range of the people known as millennials?
According to what I found, Millennials are considered to be people born between 1981 and 1996. So, in 2018, the youngest Millennials are 22 years old.
As I saw those numbers, it struck me that the organized American church, for all of its failing and flailing, and all of its focus on Youth Ministry, has now lost another generation.
People between the ages of 22 and 37 are less interested and less involved in the church...
...and less committed to following Jesus, which is the only thing that is important, than the generations older than they.
American Millennials are a lost cause for Jesus.
The losing streak of parish priest dominated, institutionalized, Christianity continues.
When will they ever learn?
We must repent. Oh, we must repent!
According to what I found, Millennials are considered to be people born between 1981 and 1996. So, in 2018, the youngest Millennials are 22 years old.
As I saw those numbers, it struck me that the organized American church, for all of its failing and flailing, and all of its focus on Youth Ministry, has now lost another generation.
People between the ages of 22 and 37 are less interested and less involved in the church...
...and less committed to following Jesus, which is the only thing that is important, than the generations older than they.
American Millennials are a lost cause for Jesus.
The losing streak of parish priest dominated, institutionalized, Christianity continues.
When will they ever learn?
We must repent. Oh, we must repent!
Talking Jesus with Two People of the Post-millennial Generation
I'm a geezer, a member of the Boomer generation, who works as a manager of the Front End of a Super Market.
I actually usually enjoy the work but the job is really the way I've found to live in the world as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. That way of being an ambassador suits me.
There are about 50 people in my area of the store. My job creates the opportunity for me to work with people of the Silent/Builder generation, (I actually have co-workers as old as age 84.), I have a fair number of Boomer coworkers, some Gen Xers, some Millennials but, as time marches on, the largest portion of the part-timers at the store are now of the Post-millennial generation (people born after 1996).
Yesterday was the day after Christmas and the early part of the day at the store was slow. There were two, uh, kids working. Both are college students who worked at the store as high schoolers. They are permitted to work at the store during summer and holiday breaks while they are in college.
Both of them have become close to me in the 3-ish years we've known each other and, yesterday, I was talking to one of them about my past life...about the fact that I was a "minister." (I never use the word pastor because I hate what it connotes.)
The guy asked me why I left the ministry.
This is the moment I wait for.
It's a gently lobbed soft ball and when it comes my way, I can't wait to swing for the fences. And, I've rarely had a pitch so easy to hit in all of the years of my ambassadorship.
I always start with Jesus.
I said:
I believe in Jesus more than I ever have and I follow His teachings with all of my heart. But, I got to the point that I just didn't believe in organized religion anymore. And, I just couldn't be a part of it any longer.
I explained that Evie understands and agrees. And, that we still meet with a group of people in our home and that we follow Jesus but that we just can't stand organized religion.
What I said was like grabbing the handle of a faucet and opening it all the way.
My young friend obviously has a background as a church kid and is deciding for himself, now that he's creating an identity independent of his parents, that organized religion is a bad thing for him.
It seems that our chat happened at the time that he's working his way to a definite decision about, well, church.
So, there, as he stood at his cash register, he declared his views on the failings of organized religion.
Two comments about what happened next:
1. His greatest objection to the church, is that it doesn't help him live. He's a bright guy, a good guy, and intensely interested in living the right way. And, he told me that he's realized that he can figure out how to live better on his own than with the help of the church.
Translating: His issue is righteousness. And, he's concluded that the church is, at the very best, irrelevant for him as he chooses his path of righteousness.
In my dealings with Millennials and Post-millennials, it's clear to me that, like today's Boomer and Builder geezers, they want to know what is right...and they want to do it.
For this guy, and I suspect many others of his age, the church plays no role in helping him to understand what is right...
...and to do what is right.
And, so, as of this moment, at what? age 18?, 19? he's decided that he can figure out what is right better without organized religion than with it.
And, for the moment, he's very done with church.
2. The other Post-Millennial pesent happened to be running the cash register one over from where we were standing. She asked if she could join in the conversation.
She did.
And, described herself as a girl who went to Sunday School. Her grandmother was even a Sunday School teacher.
But, she said that it seemed to her that all she learned from the Bible in church was, to use her word, "trivia."
At that moment customers arrived and the conversation ended...for the moment, at least. But, she was winding up, I'm certain, to agree.
The organized church never got around to helping her know how to live the right way...to live righteously.
As life moved on for us yesterday, I said that Jesus is important to the way that I live and that I hope they can reconnect with Him, even if it is apart from organized religion.
It's likely that I'll have off and on contact with these two for another two or three years before they move on to full adulthood and their careers. There will be opportunities for the conversation to continue.
At moments like this, I love my job!
I actually usually enjoy the work but the job is really the way I've found to live in the world as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. That way of being an ambassador suits me.
There are about 50 people in my area of the store. My job creates the opportunity for me to work with people of the Silent/Builder generation, (I actually have co-workers as old as age 84.), I have a fair number of Boomer coworkers, some Gen Xers, some Millennials but, as time marches on, the largest portion of the part-timers at the store are now of the Post-millennial generation (people born after 1996).
Yesterday was the day after Christmas and the early part of the day at the store was slow. There were two, uh, kids working. Both are college students who worked at the store as high schoolers. They are permitted to work at the store during summer and holiday breaks while they are in college.
Both of them have become close to me in the 3-ish years we've known each other and, yesterday, I was talking to one of them about my past life...about the fact that I was a "minister." (I never use the word pastor because I hate what it connotes.)
The guy asked me why I left the ministry.
This is the moment I wait for.
It's a gently lobbed soft ball and when it comes my way, I can't wait to swing for the fences. And, I've rarely had a pitch so easy to hit in all of the years of my ambassadorship.
I always start with Jesus.
I said:
I believe in Jesus more than I ever have and I follow His teachings with all of my heart. But, I got to the point that I just didn't believe in organized religion anymore. And, I just couldn't be a part of it any longer.
I explained that Evie understands and agrees. And, that we still meet with a group of people in our home and that we follow Jesus but that we just can't stand organized religion.
What I said was like grabbing the handle of a faucet and opening it all the way.
My young friend obviously has a background as a church kid and is deciding for himself, now that he's creating an identity independent of his parents, that organized religion is a bad thing for him.
It seems that our chat happened at the time that he's working his way to a definite decision about, well, church.
So, there, as he stood at his cash register, he declared his views on the failings of organized religion.
Two comments about what happened next:
1. His greatest objection to the church, is that it doesn't help him live. He's a bright guy, a good guy, and intensely interested in living the right way. And, he told me that he's realized that he can figure out how to live better on his own than with the help of the church.
Translating: His issue is righteousness. And, he's concluded that the church is, at the very best, irrelevant for him as he chooses his path of righteousness.
In my dealings with Millennials and Post-millennials, it's clear to me that, like today's Boomer and Builder geezers, they want to know what is right...and they want to do it.
For this guy, and I suspect many others of his age, the church plays no role in helping him to understand what is right...
...and to do what is right.
And, so, as of this moment, at what? age 18?, 19? he's decided that he can figure out what is right better without organized religion than with it.
And, for the moment, he's very done with church.
2. The other Post-Millennial pesent happened to be running the cash register one over from where we were standing. She asked if she could join in the conversation.
She did.
And, described herself as a girl who went to Sunday School. Her grandmother was even a Sunday School teacher.
But, she said that it seemed to her that all she learned from the Bible in church was, to use her word, "trivia."
At that moment customers arrived and the conversation ended...for the moment, at least. But, she was winding up, I'm certain, to agree.
The organized church never got around to helping her know how to live the right way...to live righteously.
As life moved on for us yesterday, I said that Jesus is important to the way that I live and that I hope they can reconnect with Him, even if it is apart from organized religion.
It's likely that I'll have off and on contact with these two for another two or three years before they move on to full adulthood and their careers. There will be opportunities for the conversation to continue.
At moments like this, I love my job!
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Doing, uh, Christmas 2018
In the past, I've explained the many reasons I'm not a big fan of Christmas.
For example:
Early disciples understood the significance of the incarnation, as is clear from the, apparent, early hymn quoted by Paul in Philippians 2 but, other than noting it in early chapters of Matthew and Luke, showing that the Christ entered the world in fulfillment of prophecy, early believers didn't celebrate the nativity. There were no Christmas Eve services in the Book of Acts.
Reform and revival movements have never made a big deal of Christmas. They were characterized by hunger and thirst for righteousness, as they understood Jesus' definition of it.
I'm concerned that today's celebrations of the nativity, in the ubiquitous Advent and Christmas Eve services, are sentimental and schmaltzy and don't provoke, as Hebrews 10 implores, disciples to "love and good works," i.e., they don't produce, as John the Baptist commanded the Scribes and Pharisees of his own day, "fruit in keeping with righteousness."
And, the whole Christmas shtick creates a Jesus who may be cuddled and sentimentalized, but not followed as Lord.
We also do the fun part of the season as others do, but we keep Jesus out of that part of it.
For me, at least, that holiday is Xmas. I'm pretty big into Xmas.
But, we do, along side of the frivolity, evoke the power that the incarnation has over our lives. But, I don't call that Christmas.
Along with my brother and his wife, we adopted several needy, down-on-their-luck, families from trustworthy local organizations as we've done in recent years.
----------------
And, last night, Christmas Eve, due almost entirely, to efforts and planning of Evie, we hosted a family of, technically, homeless people.
They are related to us. The parents are an unmarried couple with three kids, ages 9, 7 and 6.
He's employed but they've made a long string of foolish and irresponsible decisions with their money and have had other problems. As a result, their credit rating is terrible. They've been evicted from several apartments and, now, no one will rent to them.
They've ended up, I've learned because I now live among people like this, where people like this do. Not on the street yet, but living in a cheap hotel room, paying weekly. As such, the school district classifies the kids as homeless and provides them with special services.
Evie's a very good cook and she did herself proud. It was a very nice, yet simple, Christmassy dinner. The 7 year old said, "This is the best meal I've ever had." And, it was good but she's accustomed to McDonald's and what her mom can heat up in the nuker in their hotel room.
The 7 year old and the 9 year old vaguely remember us from the past. If fact, when there were just two kids, the family lived with us for a while.
The 7 year old asked Evie if she could come here for a sleepover. Needless to say, that's now in the works.
The family's too broke for the parents to buy gifts for the kids this year, so Evie bought gifts for the parents to give them.
We also gave each of the kids one gift from us.
After dinner, dad and the three kids took our dog, Laddie, for a walk and the mom hid the gifts in the trunk of their car.
It was a nice evening.
The kids are surprisingly polite and well-behaved. And, for all of their other troubles, the parents keep them well-dressed and nicely groomed.
The whole event strikes me as fruit that has developed organically from what Evie and I have come to believe in.
We connected with people, especially the kids, who are worthy of acts of mercy. We did it incarnationally. Face to face.
While you, very likely, were at a Christmas Eve service, celebrating the nativity, we were practicing the incarnation.
As a matter of principle and conscience, I couldn't go to a Christmas Eve service right now. Perhaps next year, if Evie and I have a next year.
This was Evie's idea and her planning and her doing.
And, it fit.
As Charles Wesley wrote in the second stanza of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, "Mild, he lays his glory by."
A nice way, for us in 2018, to celebrate His incarnation.
For example:
Early disciples understood the significance of the incarnation, as is clear from the, apparent, early hymn quoted by Paul in Philippians 2 but, other than noting it in early chapters of Matthew and Luke, showing that the Christ entered the world in fulfillment of prophecy, early believers didn't celebrate the nativity. There were no Christmas Eve services in the Book of Acts.
Reform and revival movements have never made a big deal of Christmas. They were characterized by hunger and thirst for righteousness, as they understood Jesus' definition of it.
I'm concerned that today's celebrations of the nativity, in the ubiquitous Advent and Christmas Eve services, are sentimental and schmaltzy and don't provoke, as Hebrews 10 implores, disciples to "love and good works," i.e., they don't produce, as John the Baptist commanded the Scribes and Pharisees of his own day, "fruit in keeping with righteousness."
And, the whole Christmas shtick creates a Jesus who may be cuddled and sentimentalized, but not followed as Lord.
We also do the fun part of the season as others do, but we keep Jesus out of that part of it.
For me, at least, that holiday is Xmas. I'm pretty big into Xmas.
But, we do, along side of the frivolity, evoke the power that the incarnation has over our lives. But, I don't call that Christmas.
Along with my brother and his wife, we adopted several needy, down-on-their-luck, families from trustworthy local organizations as we've done in recent years.
----------------
And, last night, Christmas Eve, due almost entirely, to efforts and planning of Evie, we hosted a family of, technically, homeless people.
They are related to us. The parents are an unmarried couple with three kids, ages 9, 7 and 6.
He's employed but they've made a long string of foolish and irresponsible decisions with their money and have had other problems. As a result, their credit rating is terrible. They've been evicted from several apartments and, now, no one will rent to them.
They've ended up, I've learned because I now live among people like this, where people like this do. Not on the street yet, but living in a cheap hotel room, paying weekly. As such, the school district classifies the kids as homeless and provides them with special services.
Evie's a very good cook and she did herself proud. It was a very nice, yet simple, Christmassy dinner. The 7 year old said, "This is the best meal I've ever had." And, it was good but she's accustomed to McDonald's and what her mom can heat up in the nuker in their hotel room.
The 7 year old and the 9 year old vaguely remember us from the past. If fact, when there were just two kids, the family lived with us for a while.
The 7 year old asked Evie if she could come here for a sleepover. Needless to say, that's now in the works.
The family's too broke for the parents to buy gifts for the kids this year, so Evie bought gifts for the parents to give them.
We also gave each of the kids one gift from us.
After dinner, dad and the three kids took our dog, Laddie, for a walk and the mom hid the gifts in the trunk of their car.
It was a nice evening.
The kids are surprisingly polite and well-behaved. And, for all of their other troubles, the parents keep them well-dressed and nicely groomed.
The whole event strikes me as fruit that has developed organically from what Evie and I have come to believe in.
We connected with people, especially the kids, who are worthy of acts of mercy. We did it incarnationally. Face to face.
While you, very likely, were at a Christmas Eve service, celebrating the nativity, we were practicing the incarnation.
As a matter of principle and conscience, I couldn't go to a Christmas Eve service right now. Perhaps next year, if Evie and I have a next year.
This was Evie's idea and her planning and her doing.
And, it fit.
As Charles Wesley wrote in the second stanza of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, "Mild, he lays his glory by."
A nice way, for us in 2018, to celebrate His incarnation.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Performing a Wedding as an Ambassador of the Kingdom of God...and as a CGGC Pastor
As you know, if you're a regular reader here, I'm employed in a setting that brings me into close contact with a lot of people who are high school and college age.
And, I see myself as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.
By intention, I'm known for my life of faith such as it is, for better or worse.
And, it was known, when I began this ministry, that I had been a pastor prior to taking this position.
Over the years, there've been lighthearted conversations about me performing the marriage ceremony for some of the young'nes.
Recently, one of the guys has been asking more seriously and, at first, I tried to deflect him...
...and, then, it occurred to me that I have an ordination certificate from the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God, General Conference. While I agreed to surrender it if the Conference requested it, rumors and gossip notwithstanding, I've received no such request.
So, why not?!?!?!!!!
Frankly, the part of being a parish priest that I enjoy least is performing marriage ceremonies...but, for someone whom I've known for years and have come to think of as a friend?
Maybe I will.
And, I see myself as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.
By intention, I'm known for my life of faith such as it is, for better or worse.
And, it was known, when I began this ministry, that I had been a pastor prior to taking this position.
Over the years, there've been lighthearted conversations about me performing the marriage ceremony for some of the young'nes.
Recently, one of the guys has been asking more seriously and, at first, I tried to deflect him...
...and, then, it occurred to me that I have an ordination certificate from the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God, General Conference. While I agreed to surrender it if the Conference requested it, rumors and gossip notwithstanding, I've received no such request.
So, why not?!?!?!!!!
Frankly, the part of being a parish priest that I enjoy least is performing marriage ceremonies...but, for someone whom I've known for years and have come to think of as a friend?
Maybe I will.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Who's Missing from the CONTAGIOUS Conversation?
The other day it struck me how deafening is the roar of silence across the CGGC.
Who's Missing from the CGGC Conversation?
Nearly everyone.
And, among those whom we designate as leaders? On the repentance blog?
Absolutely everyone!
If you've even glanced at the new, heavily, in CGGC terms, promoted new CONTAGIOUS blog,...
...have you noticed?
No one with a CGGC or regional leadership title has come down with the contagion. The silence among people in CGGC leadership is thunderous.
Lance sticks his eNewses in a separate category of the blog.
Michael Martin puts what is, essentially, missional CGGC press releases in the Hands and Feet category...which is actually interesting, to me at least.
But, no one...not Lance nor any Regional Director or staff person nor any important General Conference or any important Regional Commission Chair...
...has contributed to the call for, and conversation about...
...repentance.
That is fact.
------------------
What does the fact reveal about the CGGC as 2018 turns into 2019?
I'd love comments that suggest what the fact signifies.
And, I suspect that I'll get some off-the-blog...and, that's fine.
Here are some of my thoughts which fit the facts. Maybe I'm off base:
1. The name of the blog, CONTAGIOUS, is becoming a testimony against us. Against leadership and against the CGGC community. Whatever it is that is contagious in the CGGC world is not a good thing to have.
2. The lack of participation in the blog testifies to the extent of ungodly, unloving cynicism across the CGGC.
3. General Conference leadership is, what?, isolated?, insulated? from the rest of the body.
4. The story of the blog is that there is no community, there is no cooperation, no collaboration among General Conference and Regional leaders.
5. The lack of participation in the blog says to me that there is little to no followership among the people of the CGGC.
Please feel free to correct me where you think I'm off base. Feel free to add to the conversation.
Who's Missing from the CGGC Conversation?
Nearly everyone.
And, among those whom we designate as leaders? On the repentance blog?
Absolutely everyone!
If you've even glanced at the new, heavily, in CGGC terms, promoted new CONTAGIOUS blog,...
...have you noticed?
No one with a CGGC or regional leadership title has come down with the contagion. The silence among people in CGGC leadership is thunderous.
Lance sticks his eNewses in a separate category of the blog.
Michael Martin puts what is, essentially, missional CGGC press releases in the Hands and Feet category...which is actually interesting, to me at least.
But, no one...not Lance nor any Regional Director or staff person nor any important General Conference or any important Regional Commission Chair...
...has contributed to the call for, and conversation about...
...repentance.
That is fact.
------------------
What does the fact reveal about the CGGC as 2018 turns into 2019?
I'd love comments that suggest what the fact signifies.
And, I suspect that I'll get some off-the-blog...and, that's fine.
Here are some of my thoughts which fit the facts. Maybe I'm off base:
1. The name of the blog, CONTAGIOUS, is becoming a testimony against us. Against leadership and against the CGGC community. Whatever it is that is contagious in the CGGC world is not a good thing to have.
2. The lack of participation in the blog testifies to the extent of ungodly, unloving cynicism across the CGGC.
3. General Conference leadership is, what?, isolated?, insulated? from the rest of the body.
4. The story of the blog is that there is no community, there is no cooperation, no collaboration among General Conference and Regional leaders.
5. The lack of participation in the blog says to me that there is little to no followership among the people of the CGGC.
Please feel free to correct me where you think I'm off base. Feel free to add to the conversation.
Dad Died a Year Ago
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my dad's death.
It was a day of mixed emotions for me but, for me, personally, as far as dad is concerned, it was a time to be glad he's been freed from the haze of dementia.
His dementia journey was unusual. He became more pleasant and thankful with each passing day.
Yesterday, for me, was, more than anything, a time to remember the good about him.
As far as mom's concerned, I wasn't able to see her face to face. I called her but she wasn't in her room.
She didn't call me back.
Later in the day, she had someone, a nurses aide presumably, call Evie. But, mom didn't know why she wanted to call.
And, she certainly wasn't aware that it was the anniversary of dad's death.
Her own dementia has advanced far enough to shield her from that sadness.
So far, her dementia has also made her more pleasant and thankful. And, that's a blessing. But, it's a burden for all of us to go through again, so soon after losing dad.
It was a day of mixed emotions for me but, for me, personally, as far as dad is concerned, it was a time to be glad he's been freed from the haze of dementia.
His dementia journey was unusual. He became more pleasant and thankful with each passing day.
Yesterday, for me, was, more than anything, a time to remember the good about him.
As far as mom's concerned, I wasn't able to see her face to face. I called her but she wasn't in her room.
She didn't call me back.
Later in the day, she had someone, a nurses aide presumably, call Evie. But, mom didn't know why she wanted to call.
And, she certainly wasn't aware that it was the anniversary of dad's death.
Her own dementia has advanced far enough to shield her from that sadness.
So far, her dementia has also made her more pleasant and thankful. And, that's a blessing. But, it's a burden for all of us to go through again, so soon after losing dad.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
My Anti-Institutional Church Testimony
Despite what you might, legitimately, take away from the reading of this blog, I don't live my life constantly haranguing against the institutional church.
But, I do think that the most powerful version of my testimony is my explanation of my journey from tradition-bound, consumption-focused churchianity into my current pursuit of the righteousness preached in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, by Jesus and the early disciples.
Honestly, my story glazes over the eyes of most church loving people, even many of those people who live for Jesus in spite of their deep live for the institution.
But, for people...and our world is filled with them...who were hurt by the church or who have concluded that church is about things other than Jesus, my story, along with my passionate convictions, not only makes sense but seem to fascinate and, I think, even give hope and spiritual clarity to people who'd love Jesus if they could find a way to do it that didn't feel icky or just wrong.
--------------------
I've been thinking of myself as an APEST prophet for a long time. But, in a sense, I'm an apostle of a simple, Jesus-only, no extraneous, institutional bells and whistles gospel.
I will say that the size of the mission field for the preaching of this gospel is HUGE.
There are many people around who like Jesus but hate the institution that blasts his name through the ether.
------------------
And, it frustrates me and it crushes my heart that the, well, denomination I love insists on foisting church on people, ignoring the huge mission field it helped create by forcing people to take institutionalized Christianity or leave Jesus.
We must repent.
But, I do think that the most powerful version of my testimony is my explanation of my journey from tradition-bound, consumption-focused churchianity into my current pursuit of the righteousness preached in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, by Jesus and the early disciples.
Honestly, my story glazes over the eyes of most church loving people, even many of those people who live for Jesus in spite of their deep live for the institution.
But, for people...and our world is filled with them...who were hurt by the church or who have concluded that church is about things other than Jesus, my story, along with my passionate convictions, not only makes sense but seem to fascinate and, I think, even give hope and spiritual clarity to people who'd love Jesus if they could find a way to do it that didn't feel icky or just wrong.
--------------------
I've been thinking of myself as an APEST prophet for a long time. But, in a sense, I'm an apostle of a simple, Jesus-only, no extraneous, institutional bells and whistles gospel.
I will say that the size of the mission field for the preaching of this gospel is HUGE.
There are many people around who like Jesus but hate the institution that blasts his name through the ether.
------------------
And, it frustrates me and it crushes my heart that the, well, denomination I love insists on foisting church on people, ignoring the huge mission field it helped create by forcing people to take institutionalized Christianity or leave Jesus.
We must repent.
Thursday, November 29, 2018
We are Broken in Being Broken
I'm a faithful reader of the CGGC's new CONTAGIOUS... blog. I check for additions to it on at least a daily basis.
The blog contains three categories. To date, the one most commonly contributed to is the first one launched: Repentance.
As I understand it, there are rather tight restrictions on how a properly constructed post is to be written for the Repentance blog. One of the guidelines is that the title must begin, "We...," the pronoun must be "we," not you. "...Are Broken in..."
And, if you look to the early posts, the titles all conform to the required model.
The first few posts were entered by people specifically handpicked to be contributors to the blog.
Since then, I'm guessing, others have joined in, and adherence to the prescribed formula has loosened.
When I first caught wind of the plan to create the blog, I wondered what I'd write, if I'd write anything, if I had been invited to participate.
And, I immediately knew.
My post would have been entitled, as this one here is, We are Broken in Being Broken.
It is clear from the Word that repentance doesn't come from thin air.
Jesus begins the so-called Sermon on the Mount announcing that the blessed are people who are poor in spirit and who mourn, are meek and who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
As I quote here repeatedly, Paul told the Corinthians that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation. He instructed the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
And, in the CGGC...in most of Western Christianity, for that matter...its at this very early stage of spiritual transformation that we are completely broken.
I pick up, from our leaders, from time to time, concern about our spiritual state as a body. But, as much as I try not to be cynical about the state of the church...
...and I think I'm not cynical...
I don't pick up the sense that our leaders are driven by a need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling nor do I discern poverty of spirit or spiritual mourning or meekness or spiritual hunger and thirst. I don't read them working toward getting our people to wallow in godly grief in the hope that our grief with be blessed by the repentance that leads to salvation.
(By the way, in reading early Church of God history, those spiritual qualities were at the core of all we did when we were a thriving and blessed movement. Those are the spiritual goals that drove us and provided focus for our ministry.)
What I do pick up on from our leaders today, when they are concerned, is a concern not about our lukewarmth and unrighteousness before a holy God but worldly, institutional, concern that if we don't turn things around, our institutions will crumble and die out in the next generation or so.
We need to rediscover the teachings of Jesus, beginning with Matthew 5:3-10.
And, while we're still church, not Kingdom-focused, let's focus on what Jesus said to those seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3.
We need to embrace the spiritual transformation of Paul who, for the sake of Christ, considered his own righteousness to be "garbage." And, who really did instruct those dear to him to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 3 and 2).
Father, through the presence and power of Your Spirit, break our hearts. Crush every bit of hardness in our hearts. Turn us into people so shattered by our awareness of our own brokenness before You that we allow You to rebuild us perfectly in Your image. Create new hearts in us so that, from true godly grief, we may discover the repentance that leads to salvation.
We ask this so that our lives may please and glorify you and that we may shine as lights in our world.
The blog contains three categories. To date, the one most commonly contributed to is the first one launched: Repentance.
As I understand it, there are rather tight restrictions on how a properly constructed post is to be written for the Repentance blog. One of the guidelines is that the title must begin, "We...," the pronoun must be "we," not you. "...Are Broken in..."
And, if you look to the early posts, the titles all conform to the required model.
The first few posts were entered by people specifically handpicked to be contributors to the blog.
Since then, I'm guessing, others have joined in, and adherence to the prescribed formula has loosened.
When I first caught wind of the plan to create the blog, I wondered what I'd write, if I'd write anything, if I had been invited to participate.
And, I immediately knew.
My post would have been entitled, as this one here is, We are Broken in Being Broken.
It is clear from the Word that repentance doesn't come from thin air.
Jesus begins the so-called Sermon on the Mount announcing that the blessed are people who are poor in spirit and who mourn, are meek and who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
As I quote here repeatedly, Paul told the Corinthians that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation. He instructed the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
And, in the CGGC...in most of Western Christianity, for that matter...its at this very early stage of spiritual transformation that we are completely broken.
I pick up, from our leaders, from time to time, concern about our spiritual state as a body. But, as much as I try not to be cynical about the state of the church...
...and I think I'm not cynical...
I don't pick up the sense that our leaders are driven by a need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling nor do I discern poverty of spirit or spiritual mourning or meekness or spiritual hunger and thirst. I don't read them working toward getting our people to wallow in godly grief in the hope that our grief with be blessed by the repentance that leads to salvation.
(By the way, in reading early Church of God history, those spiritual qualities were at the core of all we did when we were a thriving and blessed movement. Those are the spiritual goals that drove us and provided focus for our ministry.)
What I do pick up on from our leaders today, when they are concerned, is a concern not about our lukewarmth and unrighteousness before a holy God but worldly, institutional, concern that if we don't turn things around, our institutions will crumble and die out in the next generation or so.
We need to rediscover the teachings of Jesus, beginning with Matthew 5:3-10.
And, while we're still church, not Kingdom-focused, let's focus on what Jesus said to those seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3.
We need to embrace the spiritual transformation of Paul who, for the sake of Christ, considered his own righteousness to be "garbage." And, who really did instruct those dear to him to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 3 and 2).
Father, through the presence and power of Your Spirit, break our hearts. Crush every bit of hardness in our hearts. Turn us into people so shattered by our awareness of our own brokenness before You that we allow You to rebuild us perfectly in Your image. Create new hearts in us so that, from true godly grief, we may discover the repentance that leads to salvation.
We ask this so that our lives may please and glorify you and that we may shine as lights in our world.
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Update on Evie
Evie's heartbeat is nearly regular, due to medications she's being given. Apparently, there will be a lot of tinkering with medication levels before everything is settled.
And, there's a surgery that may work for her but that won't happen for quite a while.
All things considered, she's living a fairly normal life these days.
Thanks for your prayers.
And, there's a surgery that may work for her but that won't happen for quite a while.
All things considered, she's living a fairly normal life these days.
Thanks for your prayers.
An Observation about Red Letter Living
My intention is to live my life, as literally as I am able, in obedience to the red letters of the Bible, that is, to the words of Jesus.
My perception is that that makes me different from most church people here in America. In my opinion, most church people live, to one degree or another, to be good church people, not to obey Jesus directly. What that means depends on the church a person identifies with.
I don't say that I live the red letter life well, only that that is my focus, my goal, my intention.
When I talk about being a follower of Jesus among the people of the world, I talk about it in those terms. And, no one accuses me...to my face, at least, of hypocrisy.
People who know me well know, of course, know my shortcomings and some of them are rather quick to challenge me on my faults others will question me, if not challenge me.
Here's my observation. It occurred to some time ago:
People who know me superficially, and pick up on the red letter thing, often give me more benefit than I deserve and project Jesus traits on me, even when those traits are not present in me.
That suggests two realities to me.
1. People still are aware of the genuine Jesus story, and,
2. They are looking for it, and not churchiness, in people who self-identify as followers of Jesus.
This convinces me, more than ever, that the most effective evangelism is of a gospel that is lived out sincerely, if not perfectly, before it is preached.
And, most mere church people, I'm afraid, don't show Jesus in their way of living. They show church.
And, church no longer inspires.
My perception is that that makes me different from most church people here in America. In my opinion, most church people live, to one degree or another, to be good church people, not to obey Jesus directly. What that means depends on the church a person identifies with.
I don't say that I live the red letter life well, only that that is my focus, my goal, my intention.
When I talk about being a follower of Jesus among the people of the world, I talk about it in those terms. And, no one accuses me...to my face, at least, of hypocrisy.
People who know me well know, of course, know my shortcomings and some of them are rather quick to challenge me on my faults others will question me, if not challenge me.
Here's my observation. It occurred to some time ago:
People who know me superficially, and pick up on the red letter thing, often give me more benefit than I deserve and project Jesus traits on me, even when those traits are not present in me.
That suggests two realities to me.
1. People still are aware of the genuine Jesus story, and,
2. They are looking for it, and not churchiness, in people who self-identify as followers of Jesus.
This convinces me, more than ever, that the most effective evangelism is of a gospel that is lived out sincerely, if not perfectly, before it is preached.
And, most mere church people, I'm afraid, don't show Jesus in their way of living. They show church.
And, church no longer inspires.
Thursday, November 22, 2018
What is Our Definition of the Word, "Pastor?"
The guy who taught me Hebrew was a bit of a linguistic philosopher. By now, all these years later, I certainly remember his observations about words and language far more clearly than the Hebrew.
He said, "A word that means everything means nothing."
It seems to me that, in the CGGC especially, the word "pastor" has attained the status of a word that means nothing.
------
In our early, Church of God, days, the word was used in a King James Version way, i.e., as a synonym for shepherd.
The biography of John Winebrenner that is most helpful to me is Dr. George Ross' brief 1880 Semi-Centennial Sketch.
After describing Winebrenner as a courageous and radical prophetic figure, a relentless evangelist and a powerful preacher, Ross says, "As a pastor (Winebrenner) had few superiors."
Ross goes on to describe Winebrenner as a man who could, in addition to the activities he was best known for, also provide effective pastoral care, noting that he visited from house to house and prayed with every member of the family.
Interestingly, Ross points out that those visits normally ended with Winebrenner urging the "unconverted" to seek Jesus.
For many years, in the CGGC and everywhere, the word pastor simply referred to someone who acted as a spiritual shepherd and provided pastoral care.
In our movement days, pastor was something a person did, not a title one held.
It was that until no so long ago.
------
I've been following the dialog, on the CGGC CONTAGIOUS blog, between Lew Button and Dan Masshardt on Dan's post, "We are Broken in our Focus on Pastors."
In that chat, Lew uses the word to describe the APEST gift of being a shepherd and, to be fair to Lew, the NIV still translates the word, in Ephesians 4:11, as "pastors," though the ESV translates the word, "shepherds."
Lew is not alone. One way the word pastor is frequently used is as that Spiritual Gift and calling.
------
Another, very modern, way the word is used very commonly in the CGGC is as a label for people who possess credentials from the denomination. So, to many, if one is licensed or ordained, s/he is "Pastor So and So."
Therefore, to many, I'm still Pastor Bill.
I suspect that most of the CGGC people who use the word that way are ignorant of how extremely recently that use of the word came about.
In fact, when I entered the East Pennsylvania Conference of the Churches of God, people with credentials weren't called pastors. They were called ministers.
Credentialed delegates to East Pennsylvania Conference sessions, for example, weren't called Pastoral Delegates in those days. They were Ministerial Delegates.
People with knowledge of Church of God history know that it was extremely important to John Winebrenner and his colleagues, in our days as a thriving, blessed, movement, that the very few people who were credentialed were known as Elders. It was Elder John Winebrenner, never, ever, Pastor John Winebrenner. Winebrenner wouldn't have known what the title Pastor John means.
To be referred to as an elder was crucial to Winebrenner and our people with credentials in our movement days because, to them, that was the biblical way of speaking and we established churches on the New Testament plan.
When the Church of God rocked in the power of the Spirit, the New Testament, and no human tradition, was our only Authority, Our Only Rule of faith in practice.
------
Another use of the word that has become common in the CGGC today and is fuzzily connected to the one previously mentioned.
This use of the word refers to the pastor as the spiritual leader of a local church. This, ultimately, is a way of thinking that has its roots in deeply institutionalized, high church churches in which there is a strong distinction between clergy and laity. The deepest roots of this definition is in the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
As the CGGC becomes more and more institutionalized, the understanding is that a pastor is, essentially, a parish priest: a provider of religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity becomes more and more prominent.
------
Still another use of the word in the CGGC these days is the one employed by Brandon Kelly, CGGC Director of Transformational Ministries, in his eNews APEST blogs. Brandon sees the pastor as a local church leader who supervises?, administrates?, manages? the functioning of APEST gifts in the local church.
My guess is that few people in the CGGC other than Brandon believe this. But, I'm not certain.
As far as I know, General Conference staff isn't actually DOING the position of pastor according to this understanding of the word: That is, other than talking, as far as I know, they're not equipping people to be pastors according to this definition.
Like the two previous uses of the word: Pastor as credentialed person and pastor as parish priest, this, pastor as local church APEST manager, is fuzzily connected to the others.
However, none of these fuzzily connected definitions of the word, to my knowledge, have any connection to the New Testament.
------
And, this fuzziness is its own problem. It's this fuzziness that makes the word mean so many things that it means nothing. It perfectly enables the dysfunction that feeds our decay and decline.
And, as nearly all of us admit, the CGGC is in the midst of numerical decline and spiritual decay.
Shepherd, or Pastor, dominated church cultures are so focused on tolerance-based relationship that focus on truth, even precision in language, becomes lost because, in the context of tepid, tolerant relationships, no form of precision connected to truth or principle matters.
Tolerance is fuzzy. Our conversation is fuzzy.
-------------------
So, the word, pastor, which is so important in our conversation, has become a useless word.
We're at a point now that our very important word, pastor, has no precise meaning. It means whatever the person using it wants it to mean. It communicates nothing precise.
It means anything and everything.
And, therefore, it means nothing.
That's a problem.
We must repent.
He said, "A word that means everything means nothing."
It seems to me that, in the CGGC especially, the word "pastor" has attained the status of a word that means nothing.
------
In our early, Church of God, days, the word was used in a King James Version way, i.e., as a synonym for shepherd.
The biography of John Winebrenner that is most helpful to me is Dr. George Ross' brief 1880 Semi-Centennial Sketch.
After describing Winebrenner as a courageous and radical prophetic figure, a relentless evangelist and a powerful preacher, Ross says, "As a pastor (Winebrenner) had few superiors."
Ross goes on to describe Winebrenner as a man who could, in addition to the activities he was best known for, also provide effective pastoral care, noting that he visited from house to house and prayed with every member of the family.
Interestingly, Ross points out that those visits normally ended with Winebrenner urging the "unconverted" to seek Jesus.
For many years, in the CGGC and everywhere, the word pastor simply referred to someone who acted as a spiritual shepherd and provided pastoral care.
In our movement days, pastor was something a person did, not a title one held.
It was that until no so long ago.
------
I've been following the dialog, on the CGGC CONTAGIOUS blog, between Lew Button and Dan Masshardt on Dan's post, "We are Broken in our Focus on Pastors."
In that chat, Lew uses the word to describe the APEST gift of being a shepherd and, to be fair to Lew, the NIV still translates the word, in Ephesians 4:11, as "pastors," though the ESV translates the word, "shepherds."
Lew is not alone. One way the word pastor is frequently used is as that Spiritual Gift and calling.
------
Another, very modern, way the word is used very commonly in the CGGC is as a label for people who possess credentials from the denomination. So, to many, if one is licensed or ordained, s/he is "Pastor So and So."
Therefore, to many, I'm still Pastor Bill.
I suspect that most of the CGGC people who use the word that way are ignorant of how extremely recently that use of the word came about.
In fact, when I entered the East Pennsylvania Conference of the Churches of God, people with credentials weren't called pastors. They were called ministers.
Credentialed delegates to East Pennsylvania Conference sessions, for example, weren't called Pastoral Delegates in those days. They were Ministerial Delegates.
People with knowledge of Church of God history know that it was extremely important to John Winebrenner and his colleagues, in our days as a thriving, blessed, movement, that the very few people who were credentialed were known as Elders. It was Elder John Winebrenner, never, ever, Pastor John Winebrenner. Winebrenner wouldn't have known what the title Pastor John means.
To be referred to as an elder was crucial to Winebrenner and our people with credentials in our movement days because, to them, that was the biblical way of speaking and we established churches on the New Testament plan.
When the Church of God rocked in the power of the Spirit, the New Testament, and no human tradition, was our only Authority, Our Only Rule of faith in practice.
------
Another use of the word that has become common in the CGGC today and is fuzzily connected to the one previously mentioned.
This use of the word refers to the pastor as the spiritual leader of a local church. This, ultimately, is a way of thinking that has its roots in deeply institutionalized, high church churches in which there is a strong distinction between clergy and laity. The deepest roots of this definition is in the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
As the CGGC becomes more and more institutionalized, the understanding is that a pastor is, essentially, a parish priest: a provider of religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity becomes more and more prominent.
------
Still another use of the word in the CGGC these days is the one employed by Brandon Kelly, CGGC Director of Transformational Ministries, in his eNews APEST blogs. Brandon sees the pastor as a local church leader who supervises?, administrates?, manages? the functioning of APEST gifts in the local church.
My guess is that few people in the CGGC other than Brandon believe this. But, I'm not certain.
As far as I know, General Conference staff isn't actually DOING the position of pastor according to this understanding of the word: That is, other than talking, as far as I know, they're not equipping people to be pastors according to this definition.
Like the two previous uses of the word: Pastor as credentialed person and pastor as parish priest, this, pastor as local church APEST manager, is fuzzily connected to the others.
However, none of these fuzzily connected definitions of the word, to my knowledge, have any connection to the New Testament.
------
And, this fuzziness is its own problem. It's this fuzziness that makes the word mean so many things that it means nothing. It perfectly enables the dysfunction that feeds our decay and decline.
And, as nearly all of us admit, the CGGC is in the midst of numerical decline and spiritual decay.
Shepherd, or Pastor, dominated church cultures are so focused on tolerance-based relationship that focus on truth, even precision in language, becomes lost because, in the context of tepid, tolerant relationships, no form of precision connected to truth or principle matters.
Tolerance is fuzzy. Our conversation is fuzzy.
-------------------
So, the word, pastor, which is so important in our conversation, has become a useless word.
We're at a point now that our very important word, pastor, has no precise meaning. It means whatever the person using it wants it to mean. It communicates nothing precise.
It means anything and everything.
And, therefore, it means nothing.
That's a problem.
We must repent.
Plantar Fasciitis Update
I posted several months ago about developing plantar fasciitis in my left foot. My doctor told me how to deal with it but, in the end, said, whatever you do, it will be gone in about six months. And, it seems he was right.
I work on my feet on a very hard floor. Most of my work days are ten hours long. Many days were excruciating. But, I didn't miss one hour of work because of it.
About four months in, however, I developed tendonitis along the outside of the foot, presumably due to changing the way I step. The tendonitis is still around, though, on the worst day, it's not as painful as the other problem.
I'm afraid that the condition may be chronic, and come and go from time to time. But, that's, no doubt, only part of being a geezer.
I work on my feet on a very hard floor. Most of my work days are ten hours long. Many days were excruciating. But, I didn't miss one hour of work because of it.
About four months in, however, I developed tendonitis along the outside of the foot, presumably due to changing the way I step. The tendonitis is still around, though, on the worst day, it's not as painful as the other problem.
I'm afraid that the condition may be chronic, and come and go from time to time. But, that's, no doubt, only part of being a geezer.
Monday, November 12, 2018
Four Observations on Dan Masshardt's "Pastors" Post on the CGGC Blog
1. It's carefully supported with references to biblical authority, as if the Bible really is our only rule of faith and practice.
2. It understands early Church of God teaching and practice on the church and points out the differences between what we did when we were a thriving movement and what we're doing now in our decline and decay.
3. It is passionate and focused, bordering on strident, in a way that was common in our movement days but is considered unseemly today.
4. It actually calls, specifically, for repentance.
------------------
If you haven't read it yet, read it and break the ties that have us in bondage and do it.
2. It understands early Church of God teaching and practice on the church and points out the differences between what we did when we were a thriving movement and what we're doing now in our decline and decay.
3. It is passionate and focused, bordering on strident, in a way that was common in our movement days but is considered unseemly today.
4. It actually calls, specifically, for repentance.
------------------
If you haven't read it yet, read it and break the ties that have us in bondage and do it.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
An H-I-T Job on Brandon Kelly's eNews APEST Series
I received several useful and interesting off-the-blog comments on my post about heresy and theological error in what Brandon Kelly has been posting on the CGGC eNews and publishing in The CHURCH ADVOCATE regarding APEST.
One of those off-the-blog comments contains perhaps the most important observation I've seen about the culture the CGGC has created for itself in the past 80 plus years.
I refer to it as H-I-T: Honest, Insightful and True, because that's, precisely, what I think it is.
This is the two-sentence comment:
I don't think think the CGGC is really interested in APEST. They're just letting Brandon play.
And, based on the fruit we are producing, that fits.
I'm choosing to call this comment a H-I-T because...
The comment was communicated honestly and that's noteworthy to me because, in the CGGC, we're not honest with ourselves about ourselves. We're declining. Lance wrote that on the eNews since his first article as ED. Yet, in our dishonesty, in our denial of our own reality, we still will only mildly tweak, and only in talk, here and there.
It's insightful. It describes concisely, precisely and accurately the response of the CGGC body to this, nearly completed, year-long effort, by the leadership in the General Conference office, to educate, edify and motivate the body to implement APEST.
And, it's true. Does anyone deny either statement? Have CGGC people shown any interest in turning from their failing and non-blessed traditions to actually do APEST? Is there one shred of evidence anywhere that, as a people, the CGGC body is doing anything but to let Brandon invest his time playing around with APEST?
-------------------
I've been clear that, in my opinion, Brandon's APEST thinking is laced with theological error, even heresy. So, obviously, it doesn't bother me that what he's teaching will come to nothing.
However, those two sentences I quoted don't describe Brandon. They describe us, the people of the CGGC.
As I was meditating on the totality of this tragedy, the final words of the Book of Judges overpowered me:
...everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Those were spiritually dark years for Israel. They marked a time of spiritual decline and decay.
To be fair to those people, they sought good. They did what was right, not wrong, in their own eyes.
As do, apparently, each of us, as we allow Brandon to play around with APEST for a whole year without any intention of heeding his wisdom or following his leadership.
Like the people of ancient Israel, each of us unrepentantly do what is right in own own eyes.
What that really means about the people of Israel, in those sad and dark days, is each person was his/her own authority, in effect, his/her own god.
It means precisely that about the CGGC today.
Woe unto us.
And, we know that we live in the midst of woe, don't we? The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us. And, we don't seem to care...at least, to care enough to change our ways...
...or, at least, follow our leaders in changing our ways.
------------------
So, according to someone other than me, the people of the CGGC are willing to let Brandon invest a year of his time in General Conference leadership playing with himself over the issue of APEST. And, that we have no intention of following the vision he is casting for us.
---------------------
To speak in traditional terms, the denominational i.e., church body, the CGGC, is declining.
And, Brandon and Lance, and the whole CGGC General Conference leadership team, really, is calling the body to a different practice of the Doctrine of Church, of Ecclesiology.
Does anyone think that it's a good or healthy or loving or Christlike thing that we'd let our denominational Director of Transformational Ministries go on and on about transforming our way of being a church together...
...and to have no intention of doing it...
...with the universal conviction that the wise thing, in Christ, is to allow our brother simply to play with his ideas!?!?!?!!!
That seems to someone other than me, to be the height of the wisdom of the CGGC body.
We must repent.
One of those off-the-blog comments contains perhaps the most important observation I've seen about the culture the CGGC has created for itself in the past 80 plus years.
I refer to it as H-I-T: Honest, Insightful and True, because that's, precisely, what I think it is.
This is the two-sentence comment:
I don't think think the CGGC is really interested in APEST. They're just letting Brandon play.
And, based on the fruit we are producing, that fits.
I'm choosing to call this comment a H-I-T because...
The comment was communicated honestly and that's noteworthy to me because, in the CGGC, we're not honest with ourselves about ourselves. We're declining. Lance wrote that on the eNews since his first article as ED. Yet, in our dishonesty, in our denial of our own reality, we still will only mildly tweak, and only in talk, here and there.
It's insightful. It describes concisely, precisely and accurately the response of the CGGC body to this, nearly completed, year-long effort, by the leadership in the General Conference office, to educate, edify and motivate the body to implement APEST.
And, it's true. Does anyone deny either statement? Have CGGC people shown any interest in turning from their failing and non-blessed traditions to actually do APEST? Is there one shred of evidence anywhere that, as a people, the CGGC body is doing anything but to let Brandon invest his time playing around with APEST?
-------------------
I've been clear that, in my opinion, Brandon's APEST thinking is laced with theological error, even heresy. So, obviously, it doesn't bother me that what he's teaching will come to nothing.
However, those two sentences I quoted don't describe Brandon. They describe us, the people of the CGGC.
As I was meditating on the totality of this tragedy, the final words of the Book of Judges overpowered me:
...everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Those were spiritually dark years for Israel. They marked a time of spiritual decline and decay.
To be fair to those people, they sought good. They did what was right, not wrong, in their own eyes.
As do, apparently, each of us, as we allow Brandon to play around with APEST for a whole year without any intention of heeding his wisdom or following his leadership.
Like the people of ancient Israel, each of us unrepentantly do what is right in own own eyes.
What that really means about the people of Israel, in those sad and dark days, is each person was his/her own authority, in effect, his/her own god.
It means precisely that about the CGGC today.
Woe unto us.
And, we know that we live in the midst of woe, don't we? The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us. And, we don't seem to care...at least, to care enough to change our ways...
...or, at least, follow our leaders in changing our ways.
------------------
So, according to someone other than me, the people of the CGGC are willing to let Brandon invest a year of his time in General Conference leadership playing with himself over the issue of APEST. And, that we have no intention of following the vision he is casting for us.
---------------------
To speak in traditional terms, the denominational i.e., church body, the CGGC, is declining.
And, Brandon and Lance, and the whole CGGC General Conference leadership team, really, is calling the body to a different practice of the Doctrine of Church, of Ecclesiology.
Does anyone think that it's a good or healthy or loving or Christlike thing that we'd let our denominational Director of Transformational Ministries go on and on about transforming our way of being a church together...
...and to have no intention of doing it...
...with the universal conviction that the wise thing, in Christ, is to allow our brother simply to play with his ideas!?!?!?!!!
That seems to someone other than me, to be the height of the wisdom of the CGGC body.
We must repent.
Tick Bite
We experienced some unseasonably warm weather here last week. Last Sunday was a very pleasant day. So, I took our very energetic four-ish year old dog for nearly three hours of walks.
Yesterday, I actually looked at a spot on the back of my left hip that had been itching and saw what looked like a tick embedded in the skin. Evie confirmed my suspicion.
Evie pulled it out, very painlessly, with a tweezers. And, without thinking, we flushed it down the toilet.
I made an appointment with a doctor in the medical practice we use, but not with my doctor, who, apparently, is not available today.
Because of where the tick bit me, I can't really see what it looks like.
Evie says it doesn't look like Internet pictures of a Lyme disease bite or a Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever bite.
She says it appears to be infected, but, since she pulled out the tick, I can't feel anything.
So, I see this doctor today. I've seen this doctor before and he was useless. I ended going to my own doctor two days later, when he was available.
I don't want to play around with this.
Yesterday, I actually looked at a spot on the back of my left hip that had been itching and saw what looked like a tick embedded in the skin. Evie confirmed my suspicion.
Evie pulled it out, very painlessly, with a tweezers. And, without thinking, we flushed it down the toilet.
I made an appointment with a doctor in the medical practice we use, but not with my doctor, who, apparently, is not available today.
Because of where the tick bit me, I can't really see what it looks like.
Evie says it doesn't look like Internet pictures of a Lyme disease bite or a Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever bite.
She says it appears to be infected, but, since she pulled out the tick, I can't feel anything.
So, I see this doctor today. I've seen this doctor before and he was useless. I ended going to my own doctor two days later, when he was available.
I don't want to play around with this.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Theological Error, Even Heresy?, in Brandon Kelly's APEST eNews Posts
I'm writing this prophetically, not as a word of prophecy, but, because prophets are stewards of truth for the Kingdom, to draw attention to one dangerous teaching and one other teaching in Brandon Kelly's APEST posts in the CGGC eNews that I find to be impractical and very troubling.
------------------
What sort of theological error is so serious that it can be deemed to be heresy?
I have no precise answer to that question, especially one that is appropriate to a blog post like this one.
However, I think that when a theological error touches what we believe about God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it's an error that crosses over a line that should never even be approached.
In my opinion, Brandon crosses over that line in his CHURCH ADVOCATE article referenced in his recent eNews post, which is the first of two posts on the APEST gift of the shepherd.
In that article, Brandon describes his understanding of the difference between someone with the gift of shepherding and someone who holds the "standard title" pastor, i.e., someone who leads a local church. (There's a whole short book that could be written to correct that theological error.)
In my opinion, Brandon crosses over the line that defines heresy when he says,
A pastor's responsibility in leading a local church is to ensure that all five of the Five-fold Ministries are being lived out as a community of faith and to have a basic competency in each five.
Again, there's a whole book here...and, not a short one.
But, to go to the place where Brandon's heresy happens:
Brandon is assigning to the local church pastor...
...to a human being...
...a work of the Lord...of God.
We often refer to the APEST gifts as spiritual gifts, and, certainly, they are.
But, in the Ephesians 4 passage Brandon is working from, it's Jesus, not the Holy Spirit Who is doing the gifting.
The NIV takes some liberties with the Greek text but makes the point appropriately: "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets..."
Understand this:
It is Jesus Who created the APEST gifts. It is Jesus Who defines their purpose and Who directs the people who possess those gifts. (Eph. 4:11-13)
With these words, Paul is writing to the Ephesians about the Lord of the Kingdom directing the operation of the Kingdom.
Paul is not talking about the church here and he's certainly not suggesting, as Brandon does, that a local church pastor has any role in ensuring that APEST gifts are being lived out with a basic competency.
------------------
In my opinion, one way a theological error becomes heresy is to assign to a human being what can only be done by the Lord.
And, clearly, by suggesting that the human pastor of a local church ensures "that all five of the Five-fold ministries are being lived out as a community of faith...," Brandon does that.
This, in my opinion, is heresy.
And, it's an old sin: To claim for a human what can only be God's.
I'm certain that Brandon did this innocently and sincerely, and with the very best of intentions. And, I'm certain that he means to do no harm.
And, while I don't know him well, I know him to be a nice guy. And, I know he loves the church.
But, in my opinion, this is a very, very serious theological error.
I truly believe it is heresy. I believe it will continue to prevent us from walking in the power and blessing of the Spirit.
------------------
As to the other issue, the theological error:
It crops up in each of his posts about immaturity in each of the gifts he's addressed so far.
In each case, Brandon suggests that, when APESTs mature, they will moderate in living out their gift...that they will no longer be as extreme in living out their gift.
At first, I misread him. I suggested that Brandon was arguing that APEs would become mature and become more like shepherds, but that's not really it.
What Brandon suggests is that, as they mature, APESTs will cease to be radical in living out their gift. They will mellow. They will moderate.
I don't see that in the Word. And, Brandon offers no authority from the Word to support his opinion.
What I see in the Word is that, as any believer matures, s/he will engage in the mutual submission that is essential to life in Christ's body.
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12, the eye will realize that the whole body is not the eye. As it matures, the eye doesn't stop focusing. Instead, it continues to be the most insightful eye it can be, yet it rejoices in the fact that the body also has feet and hands.
This is an important distinction.
Life in the Spirit is vivid. It's continually fresh. It's life touched by fire.
And, maturity in the Spirit is not tame and reserved and moderate, as Brandon suggests. Maturity in the Spirit is life, real LIFE!
A mature APEST is every bit as radical in his/her gift as ever. Perhaps, more so. However, in maturity, APESTs love the other gifts, and the people who possess them, with genuine, Christlike love and Holy Spirit power...and they submit to them.
A mature APEST does it, as Paul says in Ephesians, "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Eph. 5:21)
Earlier, I said that, on this point, Brandon is impractical.
The mature in the body of Christ ooze the Spirit's power. The church's saints are not moderate and tame. They don't live their gifts with restraint. They produce fire, the Spirit's fire.
---------------------
One aspect of life in the Kingdom when there is what sometimes called revival, is passion for truth.
Right now, we don't have that zeal for truth.
There's error, even what strikes me as heresy, in the CGGC wind. And, we need to care about that...in community.
The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us.
We must repent.
------------------
What sort of theological error is so serious that it can be deemed to be heresy?
I have no precise answer to that question, especially one that is appropriate to a blog post like this one.
However, I think that when a theological error touches what we believe about God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it's an error that crosses over a line that should never even be approached.
In my opinion, Brandon crosses over that line in his CHURCH ADVOCATE article referenced in his recent eNews post, which is the first of two posts on the APEST gift of the shepherd.
In that article, Brandon describes his understanding of the difference between someone with the gift of shepherding and someone who holds the "standard title" pastor, i.e., someone who leads a local church. (There's a whole short book that could be written to correct that theological error.)
In my opinion, Brandon crosses over the line that defines heresy when he says,
A pastor's responsibility in leading a local church is to ensure that all five of the Five-fold Ministries are being lived out as a community of faith and to have a basic competency in each five.
Again, there's a whole book here...and, not a short one.
But, to go to the place where Brandon's heresy happens:
Brandon is assigning to the local church pastor...
...to a human being...
...a work of the Lord...of God.
We often refer to the APEST gifts as spiritual gifts, and, certainly, they are.
But, in the Ephesians 4 passage Brandon is working from, it's Jesus, not the Holy Spirit Who is doing the gifting.
The NIV takes some liberties with the Greek text but makes the point appropriately: "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets..."
Understand this:
It is Jesus Who created the APEST gifts. It is Jesus Who defines their purpose and Who directs the people who possess those gifts. (Eph. 4:11-13)
With these words, Paul is writing to the Ephesians about the Lord of the Kingdom directing the operation of the Kingdom.
Paul is not talking about the church here and he's certainly not suggesting, as Brandon does, that a local church pastor has any role in ensuring that APEST gifts are being lived out with a basic competency.
------------------
In my opinion, one way a theological error becomes heresy is to assign to a human being what can only be done by the Lord.
And, clearly, by suggesting that the human pastor of a local church ensures "that all five of the Five-fold ministries are being lived out as a community of faith...," Brandon does that.
This, in my opinion, is heresy.
And, it's an old sin: To claim for a human what can only be God's.
I'm certain that Brandon did this innocently and sincerely, and with the very best of intentions. And, I'm certain that he means to do no harm.
And, while I don't know him well, I know him to be a nice guy. And, I know he loves the church.
But, in my opinion, this is a very, very serious theological error.
I truly believe it is heresy. I believe it will continue to prevent us from walking in the power and blessing of the Spirit.
------------------
As to the other issue, the theological error:
It crops up in each of his posts about immaturity in each of the gifts he's addressed so far.
In each case, Brandon suggests that, when APESTs mature, they will moderate in living out their gift...that they will no longer be as extreme in living out their gift.
At first, I misread him. I suggested that Brandon was arguing that APEs would become mature and become more like shepherds, but that's not really it.
What Brandon suggests is that, as they mature, APESTs will cease to be radical in living out their gift. They will mellow. They will moderate.
I don't see that in the Word. And, Brandon offers no authority from the Word to support his opinion.
What I see in the Word is that, as any believer matures, s/he will engage in the mutual submission that is essential to life in Christ's body.
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12, the eye will realize that the whole body is not the eye. As it matures, the eye doesn't stop focusing. Instead, it continues to be the most insightful eye it can be, yet it rejoices in the fact that the body also has feet and hands.
This is an important distinction.
Life in the Spirit is vivid. It's continually fresh. It's life touched by fire.
And, maturity in the Spirit is not tame and reserved and moderate, as Brandon suggests. Maturity in the Spirit is life, real LIFE!
A mature APEST is every bit as radical in his/her gift as ever. Perhaps, more so. However, in maturity, APESTs love the other gifts, and the people who possess them, with genuine, Christlike love and Holy Spirit power...and they submit to them.
A mature APEST does it, as Paul says in Ephesians, "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Eph. 5:21)
Earlier, I said that, on this point, Brandon is impractical.
The mature in the body of Christ ooze the Spirit's power. The church's saints are not moderate and tame. They don't live their gifts with restraint. They produce fire, the Spirit's fire.
---------------------
One aspect of life in the Kingdom when there is what sometimes called revival, is passion for truth.
Right now, we don't have that zeal for truth.
There's error, even what strikes me as heresy, in the CGGC wind. And, we need to care about that...in community.
The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us.
We must repent.
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Update on Evie's Recovery from Heart Surgery
Tomorrow will be ten weeks since Evie had aortic valve replacement surgery.
The surgery went very well but other issues began to present her first day home from the hospital.
She began to experience an irregular heartbeat in ways that I still don't understand. Often her heartbeat was in the 90s but her pulse about half that.
As I say, I don't understand.
I know many of you have been seeking updates on her progress but the whole situation has been so uncertain that I...believe it or not...was at a loss for words.
Throughout, the doctors have been saying that this condition is not life threatening. And, we've chosen to believe that.
One problem that seems to be a part of the irregular heartbeat issue is that she lost a lot of blood during surgery and she became very anemic.
Our GP recommended a form of iron we'd not heard of...and was hard to get at a local drug store. She finally found it in the recommended dose on Amazon and has been taking it for about a month.
The iron supplement seems to have made the difference, though we may never know for certain.
For nearly two weeks now, her heart has rarely been out of rhythm and her energy level is rising.
She's returned, on a limited schedule, to her part-time job and is holding her own.
At this point, the only meaningful restriction on her is that she won't be able to walk Laddie for another two weeks. I can't tell you how anxious I am for that day to come!
Thank you all for your prayers.
The surgery went very well but other issues began to present her first day home from the hospital.
She began to experience an irregular heartbeat in ways that I still don't understand. Often her heartbeat was in the 90s but her pulse about half that.
As I say, I don't understand.
I know many of you have been seeking updates on her progress but the whole situation has been so uncertain that I...believe it or not...was at a loss for words.
Throughout, the doctors have been saying that this condition is not life threatening. And, we've chosen to believe that.
One problem that seems to be a part of the irregular heartbeat issue is that she lost a lot of blood during surgery and she became very anemic.
Our GP recommended a form of iron we'd not heard of...and was hard to get at a local drug store. She finally found it in the recommended dose on Amazon and has been taking it for about a month.
The iron supplement seems to have made the difference, though we may never know for certain.
For nearly two weeks now, her heart has rarely been out of rhythm and her energy level is rising.
She's returned, on a limited schedule, to her part-time job and is holding her own.
At this point, the only meaningful restriction on her is that she won't be able to walk Laddie for another two weeks. I can't tell you how anxious I am for that day to come!
Thank you all for your prayers.
It's getting Hard for me to Care about the CGGC
I, honestly, to the depths of my being, believe that, "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature..." that Jesus will give apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers to His disciples "to prepare the saints for works of ministry."
And, with that same conviction, I believe that I am one who is called to be a prophet.
I have many historical role models. Among them are several in particular of the Old Testament prophets. And, more particularly, several in the New Testament who prophesied, including John the Baptist and Agabus (who appears twice in the Book of Acts), and, more and more as I walk in my calling, John, the writer of the Book of Revelation, particularly as he detailed the message of Jesus to those seven churches.
And, I have several historical role models from what you'd probably call church history...but I'm certain Jesus doesn't. One of them is Martin Luther, another is John Winebrenner.
One aspect of this walk that fascinates me and challenges me is the fact that many prophets lived faithfully as prophets, and in the face of fierce, sometimes violent, opposition for many DECADES. And, that they kept on going...to the end.
I've been doing this for what? ten-ish years?
And, for most of that time, with vigor, in spite of opposition, in spite of the fact, if gossip is true, I've been defrocked even though I embrace every part of CGGC doctrine and mission...and live it out as sincerely and faithfully as I am able.
But, as I see no change in what CGGCers actually do, the shameless dissonance between talk and walk, and as I see the body's ongoing decline and decay and petrification continue, I have to admit that I feel like I'm hitting a wall.
It's, for the moment at least, not as easy for me to care as it had been...
...and I wonder at, and am amazed by the staying power of the prophets who are my role models.
I've been in this struggle against, well, apathy for a while and I have a thought: I'm thinking that my role models were motivated more by their love for the Lord than by their concern for the people to whom they prophesied.
One of my past failings, I'm realizing, is that, to this point, a significant part of my motivation has come from my love for the CGGC and it's people.
Certainly, I do love the Lord but, because I am so committed to the CGGC, the hard-heartedness of CGGCers hits me harder than I wish it would.
And, if my focus was more on, as Jesus said, "God's Kingdom and His righteousness," I doubt I'd be this flummoxed.
Don't despair though. I won't stop. I believe to abandon this calling is to abandon my salvation.
And, I do know that part of this is that I am emotionally drained by Evie's heart surgery and her lengthy recovery, not so long after she battled cancer and my dad's death last year and my mom's advance in her own journey in dementia.
I hope it won't be this hard to care about living in my calling always.
And, with that same conviction, I believe that I am one who is called to be a prophet.
I have many historical role models. Among them are several in particular of the Old Testament prophets. And, more particularly, several in the New Testament who prophesied, including John the Baptist and Agabus (who appears twice in the Book of Acts), and, more and more as I walk in my calling, John, the writer of the Book of Revelation, particularly as he detailed the message of Jesus to those seven churches.
And, I have several historical role models from what you'd probably call church history...but I'm certain Jesus doesn't. One of them is Martin Luther, another is John Winebrenner.
One aspect of this walk that fascinates me and challenges me is the fact that many prophets lived faithfully as prophets, and in the face of fierce, sometimes violent, opposition for many DECADES. And, that they kept on going...to the end.
I've been doing this for what? ten-ish years?
And, for most of that time, with vigor, in spite of opposition, in spite of the fact, if gossip is true, I've been defrocked even though I embrace every part of CGGC doctrine and mission...and live it out as sincerely and faithfully as I am able.
But, as I see no change in what CGGCers actually do, the shameless dissonance between talk and walk, and as I see the body's ongoing decline and decay and petrification continue, I have to admit that I feel like I'm hitting a wall.
It's, for the moment at least, not as easy for me to care as it had been...
...and I wonder at, and am amazed by the staying power of the prophets who are my role models.
I've been in this struggle against, well, apathy for a while and I have a thought: I'm thinking that my role models were motivated more by their love for the Lord than by their concern for the people to whom they prophesied.
One of my past failings, I'm realizing, is that, to this point, a significant part of my motivation has come from my love for the CGGC and it's people.
Certainly, I do love the Lord but, because I am so committed to the CGGC, the hard-heartedness of CGGCers hits me harder than I wish it would.
And, if my focus was more on, as Jesus said, "God's Kingdom and His righteousness," I doubt I'd be this flummoxed.
Don't despair though. I won't stop. I believe to abandon this calling is to abandon my salvation.
And, I do know that part of this is that I am emotionally drained by Evie's heart surgery and her lengthy recovery, not so long after she battled cancer and my dad's death last year and my mom's advance in her own journey in dementia.
I hope it won't be this hard to care about living in my calling always.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
CONTAGIOUS: Institutionalizing, Managing and Moderating Repentance
During this past week the mountaintoppers in Findlay went public with something that has been percolating for a month and a half or so.
It's a, well, blog: What they describe as an "online 'commons' where CGGC folks will have the opportunity to interact about issues common to us all."
Between now and the end of the year, this blog, named, CONTAGIOUS, is encouraging conversation about corporate confession and repentance.
To be involved from the beginning, a person had to be invited. CONTAGIOUS is anything but an open forum.
In fact, the thing operated in secret since about the beginning of September. So, I'm guessing it has been pretty much established as what it's intended to be.
Now that the blog's been publicized, you can ask for permission to contribute to it by emailing Michael Martin, at the General Conference headquarters building, and requesting "contributor status."
Someone in conversation with me about the conversation on CONTAGIOUS took the words out of my mouth in describing the posts there so far as not bad but consisting of "tweaks and reminders."
It's, for the most part, bland and it's always polite and restrained. So far, on CONTAGIOUS, as the song says, "never is heard a discouraging word."
I have lots of thoughts about this call for conversation on confession and repentance. And, in time, I may say more than what's in this post.
------------------
For now, I'll point out that what the Findlay gang has designed could not be more out of touch with how repentance is called for in the Word and in the history of the Kingdom...but it is very shepherdy, as are all things that have rolled down from the mountaintop in recent decades.
CONTAGIOUS is an attempt at institutionalizing, managing and moderating the call to repent.
However, as unseemly as it may appear to institutional hierarchs sitting in comfy headquarters offices, calls for repentance that come from the Lord normally are bold, primitive, unsophisticated and raw. Often...much more often than not...they are outlandish, outrageous and outright offensive.
The Lord commanded Isaiah to walk around naked from the waist down for three years as a prophecy against Egypt and Cush!
At the moment the Lord called Jeremiah to speak for Him, the Lord explained to and warned Jeremiah of the spiritually destructive and violent nature of the message Jeremiah would preach in His Name: "...to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow..."
As forerunner of Jesus, John taunted Pharisees and Sadducees who traveled into the wilderness to hear him, calling them a "brood of wipers," and ordering them to "produce fruit in keeping with repentance."
Jesus, speaking through another John in the Book of Revelation said to a whole church, "...if you do not wake up, I will come to you like a thief."
Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther offered an invitation to discuss important changes in church practices which, beyond his wildest imaginings, was so offensive that it changed organized and institutionalized Christianity forever.
And, in the face of that history, CGGC leaders hope to slowly simmer a move toward confession and repentance through a conversation that they will, uh, moderate.
Imagine the High Priest of the Israelites attempting to moderate Isaiah as he traipsed bottomless three years running along the highways and byways of the land. "Isaiah, you git yer clothes on!"
I won't go so far as to say that this will come to nothing.
I'll say it this way: If this plan to bring about repentance is successful, it will be the first time in the long history of the people of God that a move to repentance has been institutionalized, managed and moderated.
Indeed, something may come out of this but, before it does, the mountaintoppers will have to get over themselves.
Perhaps, a few of the people who've agreed to participate under the mountaintoppers' moderation will push the boundaries...will behave in the outlandish and outrageous manner of Isaiah and Jeremiah and John and Jesus.
Perhaps, if they do, they'll be permitted to speak for the Lord.
Perhaps we will repent.
It's a, well, blog: What they describe as an "online 'commons' where CGGC folks will have the opportunity to interact about issues common to us all."
Between now and the end of the year, this blog, named, CONTAGIOUS, is encouraging conversation about corporate confession and repentance.
To be involved from the beginning, a person had to be invited. CONTAGIOUS is anything but an open forum.
In fact, the thing operated in secret since about the beginning of September. So, I'm guessing it has been pretty much established as what it's intended to be.
Now that the blog's been publicized, you can ask for permission to contribute to it by emailing Michael Martin, at the General Conference headquarters building, and requesting "contributor status."
Someone in conversation with me about the conversation on CONTAGIOUS took the words out of my mouth in describing the posts there so far as not bad but consisting of "tweaks and reminders."
It's, for the most part, bland and it's always polite and restrained. So far, on CONTAGIOUS, as the song says, "never is heard a discouraging word."
I have lots of thoughts about this call for conversation on confession and repentance. And, in time, I may say more than what's in this post.
------------------
For now, I'll point out that what the Findlay gang has designed could not be more out of touch with how repentance is called for in the Word and in the history of the Kingdom...but it is very shepherdy, as are all things that have rolled down from the mountaintop in recent decades.
CONTAGIOUS is an attempt at institutionalizing, managing and moderating the call to repent.
However, as unseemly as it may appear to institutional hierarchs sitting in comfy headquarters offices, calls for repentance that come from the Lord normally are bold, primitive, unsophisticated and raw. Often...much more often than not...they are outlandish, outrageous and outright offensive.
The Lord commanded Isaiah to walk around naked from the waist down for three years as a prophecy against Egypt and Cush!
At the moment the Lord called Jeremiah to speak for Him, the Lord explained to and warned Jeremiah of the spiritually destructive and violent nature of the message Jeremiah would preach in His Name: "...to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow..."
As forerunner of Jesus, John taunted Pharisees and Sadducees who traveled into the wilderness to hear him, calling them a "brood of wipers," and ordering them to "produce fruit in keeping with repentance."
Jesus, speaking through another John in the Book of Revelation said to a whole church, "...if you do not wake up, I will come to you like a thief."
Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther offered an invitation to discuss important changes in church practices which, beyond his wildest imaginings, was so offensive that it changed organized and institutionalized Christianity forever.
And, in the face of that history, CGGC leaders hope to slowly simmer a move toward confession and repentance through a conversation that they will, uh, moderate.
Imagine the High Priest of the Israelites attempting to moderate Isaiah as he traipsed bottomless three years running along the highways and byways of the land. "Isaiah, you git yer clothes on!"
I won't go so far as to say that this will come to nothing.
I'll say it this way: If this plan to bring about repentance is successful, it will be the first time in the long history of the people of God that a move to repentance has been institutionalized, managed and moderated.
Indeed, something may come out of this but, before it does, the mountaintoppers will have to get over themselves.
Perhaps, a few of the people who've agreed to participate under the mountaintoppers' moderation will push the boundaries...will behave in the outlandish and outrageous manner of Isaiah and Jeremiah and John and Jesus.
Perhaps, if they do, they'll be permitted to speak for the Lord.
Perhaps we will repent.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
A Kingdom of God Ambassadorial Colleague
As I've noted many times, I have a non-parish priest job. And, I see myself, in all of my life, but intentionally, and specifically, on my job, as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.
When I've mentioned my role as an ambassador of the Kingdom, I've normally been thinking theologically, advocating what I do as a much more biblically oriented way to live than the life I once lived, as a pastor or parish priest and as a provider of religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity.
In this post, I'll take a different view and describe a way my job as a manager of the Front End of a grocery store functions.
There are nearly 300 people employed by the company and 50ish of them are coworkers in my department of my store.
One of them, call her Jenny, is a devoted follower of Jesus. She loves the Lord and is wonderfully open and transparent about her walk as a Jesus-follower.
She has a powerful devotional life about which she speaks frequently to me and to others. She cares deeply about biblical truth, specifically about how to live out biblical teaching. She, as Jesus commands, seeks first God's kingdom and His righteousness. She struggles openly over the life she lives and is honest about her failings when she sins...or thinks she's sinned.
We have a lighthearted relationship and I consider her to be an ambassadorial colleague on the job.
The degree to which I have impact on the people I work with is greatly enhanced by Jenny's presence as a fellow Kingdom of God ambassador.
------------------
One other important fact about her: Jenny doesn't, uh, "go to church."
She has drifted in an out of one of our gatherings and would be more involved, I'm certain, if we cared to make the point of inviting her.
She was going to a church that would be the dream of CGGC mountaintoppers and drifted away from it and, and we've talked about this often, Jenny has no desire to hook up with that, or any other, church.
As I point out, as consumed as many people are these days with the church, Jesus wasn't big on church. Three of the four Gospels don't even contain the word yada, yada, yada.
But, when Jesus does talk church, one thing He says is that when two or three are gathered in His Name, He's there.
I have come to conclude that, based on that line of Jesus' thinking, the church is present for Jenny and me...and there are others...on the job...
Because of the way we approach our job.
------------------
Anyway,...
It seems to me that that there are more and more people like Jenny.
And, I don't know exactly what to think about that.
I do know that in the Church of God movement days, the Church of God was concerned first and foremost with connecting people to Jesus and, only after that, getting those people to church and to a church established on the New Testament plan.
And, really, isn't that what we see in the ministry of Jesus who almost never talked about the church?
The Gospels say that Jesus' ongoing message was a call for people to repent and believe the good news. He called individuals to be disciples. And, he acknowledged that there would be a church. But, he was far less interested in the church than in repentance and belief and the life of a disciple.
I think that Jenny has it right. She tells me that someday, maybe, at some future time, she just may reconnect with a church and go to church. But, that's not her priority. Yet, clearly, going to church doesn't seem to be essential to the strength and vitality of her faith.
And, as I say, she's not alone. There are more, and more, and more people like her all the time.
As I live in the world, it seems to me that the American church, with so much focus on itself and, really, so little thought of Jesus, is missing the whole point.
And, that more and more lovers of Jesus all the time, get the point that the church is missing the one thing that is most important, Jesus.
We all need church.
But, I doubt, more and more all the time, that you or I need to "go to" an organized, institutional church.
If you do go to an organized, institutional church, I think, you need to empower yourself to engage the Jennies of the world.
I believe that they grasp something about Jesus that probably you don't.
When I've mentioned my role as an ambassador of the Kingdom, I've normally been thinking theologically, advocating what I do as a much more biblically oriented way to live than the life I once lived, as a pastor or parish priest and as a provider of religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity.
In this post, I'll take a different view and describe a way my job as a manager of the Front End of a grocery store functions.
There are nearly 300 people employed by the company and 50ish of them are coworkers in my department of my store.
One of them, call her Jenny, is a devoted follower of Jesus. She loves the Lord and is wonderfully open and transparent about her walk as a Jesus-follower.
She has a powerful devotional life about which she speaks frequently to me and to others. She cares deeply about biblical truth, specifically about how to live out biblical teaching. She, as Jesus commands, seeks first God's kingdom and His righteousness. She struggles openly over the life she lives and is honest about her failings when she sins...or thinks she's sinned.
We have a lighthearted relationship and I consider her to be an ambassadorial colleague on the job.
The degree to which I have impact on the people I work with is greatly enhanced by Jenny's presence as a fellow Kingdom of God ambassador.
------------------
One other important fact about her: Jenny doesn't, uh, "go to church."
She has drifted in an out of one of our gatherings and would be more involved, I'm certain, if we cared to make the point of inviting her.
She was going to a church that would be the dream of CGGC mountaintoppers and drifted away from it and, and we've talked about this often, Jenny has no desire to hook up with that, or any other, church.
As I point out, as consumed as many people are these days with the church, Jesus wasn't big on church. Three of the four Gospels don't even contain the word yada, yada, yada.
But, when Jesus does talk church, one thing He says is that when two or three are gathered in His Name, He's there.
I have come to conclude that, based on that line of Jesus' thinking, the church is present for Jenny and me...and there are others...on the job...
Because of the way we approach our job.
------------------
Anyway,...
It seems to me that that there are more and more people like Jenny.
And, I don't know exactly what to think about that.
I do know that in the Church of God movement days, the Church of God was concerned first and foremost with connecting people to Jesus and, only after that, getting those people to church and to a church established on the New Testament plan.
And, really, isn't that what we see in the ministry of Jesus who almost never talked about the church?
The Gospels say that Jesus' ongoing message was a call for people to repent and believe the good news. He called individuals to be disciples. And, he acknowledged that there would be a church. But, he was far less interested in the church than in repentance and belief and the life of a disciple.
I think that Jenny has it right. She tells me that someday, maybe, at some future time, she just may reconnect with a church and go to church. But, that's not her priority. Yet, clearly, going to church doesn't seem to be essential to the strength and vitality of her faith.
And, as I say, she's not alone. There are more, and more, and more people like her all the time.
As I live in the world, it seems to me that the American church, with so much focus on itself and, really, so little thought of Jesus, is missing the whole point.
And, that more and more lovers of Jesus all the time, get the point that the church is missing the one thing that is most important, Jesus.
We all need church.
But, I doubt, more and more all the time, that you or I need to "go to" an organized, institutional church.
If you do go to an organized, institutional church, I think, you need to empower yourself to engage the Jennies of the world.
I believe that they grasp something about Jesus that probably you don't.
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Muslimville
We're in Philly. It's the day of Evie's follow-up appointment with the surgeon. She had to have a chest X-ray so we gave ourselves plenty of time to be caught in traffic and get the X-ray before the meeting with the surgeon. Now, we're just killing time.
As I was when I was here to visit her when she was a patient, I'm amazed at the number of people here who are Muslim and, obviously, not of Middle Eastern ancestry. And, many of them millennials.
And, my heart breaks over the ineptitude of the institutional, shepherd dominated, parish priest obsessed American church in taking the powerful, life-changing gospel of Jesus into our world.
You who have a death grip on the church, you have to step aside and empower men and women living in and empowered by the Spirit to reach our world...before it's too late.
As I was when I was here to visit her when she was a patient, I'm amazed at the number of people here who are Muslim and, obviously, not of Middle Eastern ancestry. And, many of them millennials.
And, my heart breaks over the ineptitude of the institutional, shepherd dominated, parish priest obsessed American church in taking the powerful, life-changing gospel of Jesus into our world.
You who have a death grip on the church, you have to step aside and empower men and women living in and empowered by the Spirit to reach our world...before it's too late.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
A Brief Comment on Brandon Kelly's Second Article of Evangelists
It's, again, a very shepherdy take on APEST.
And, it omits noting that, essential to the activity of Evangelists, is calling people to repentance.
From my experience, and from my knowledge of the history of the Kingdom, evangelists call for repentance more than prophets do.
This article is on how churches can participate in the "evangelistic function in the church." It certainly ignores the history of the Church of God in its movement days.
Then, all of our churches were evangelistic. Being evangelistic was the essence of being Church of God.
And, it omits noting that, essential to the activity of Evangelists, is calling people to repentance.
From my experience, and from my knowledge of the history of the Kingdom, evangelists call for repentance more than prophets do.
This article is on how churches can participate in the "evangelistic function in the church." It certainly ignores the history of the Church of God in its movement days.
Then, all of our churches were evangelistic. Being evangelistic was the essence of being Church of God.
Lance's, What do you Seek?
Lance wrote an eNews article six weeks ago, entitled, What do you Seek?
The article appeared on August 24, the day I rushed Evie to the ER on the day after she returned home from heart surgery.
That was a stressful day and it began a new chapter in her struggle against heart disease...more about that at some point in the future, I'm sure.
From the first reading of Lance's article, I was struck by its poignancy and power and since then I've been determined to comment on it.
Please go into the eNews archives and find it and read it.
------------------
In the article, Lance quotes Luke 19:10 which says that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Lance points out that Jesus was constantly in the presence of "people who had been told that they were beyond the reach of God."
Then he asks what about us? You? Me? He asks, "When's the last time you went looking, searching for someone who was lost?"
In this powerful article, Lance confesses, "My natural inclination is to seek comfort, safety and security."
So, no. Lance doesn't seek the lost.
In this moment of unusual honesty and transparency from a leader of our declining and decaying body, Lance compares himself to Jesus and admits personal failure.
Lance's honest confession is, indeed, poignant.
To this day, I continue to be stunned by the article and its power.
------------------
I love Lance.
I knew him when he was a seminary student, a ministerial greenhorn.
I've seen him in his youth, in his naivete. I encountered his heart when it was still forming.
I believe I know what's underneath today's man of the mountaintop and what he's become after decades of involvement in the dysfunctioning CGGC institution.
I know him, today, to be a man who, as he confesses in his article, doesn't follow Jesus...who doesn't seek the lost...
But, whose heart is torn over that truth...
Who truly wants to follow another path than the one he's walking.
------------------
But, here's the thing.
There was a time when our brother made the choice not to seek the lost and, instead, to seek something else in their place.
Lance chose to seek an important institutional job in which he'd sit in a corner office, in which he'd be located on the outskirts of a nice sized city, with oodles of lost people.
Lance chose to seek ex officio membership in numerous institutional councils and commissions and conferences which meet in the headquarters building and other councils and commissions and conferences scattered across the country, well, across the world, really.
When Lance made that choice, he was, at the same time, deciding to choose to be separated from the lost of his city, who'd need to get past his office staff if they even wanted to meet him.
------------------
Yet, I'm confident that I know Lance's heart.
I'm convinced that Lance knows that he shouldn't be anchored to that corner office desk and that he should be in the world seeking the lost, following Jesus' way and teaching.
Torn.
I think that's the best word to describe the heart of the man who wrote that poignant and powerful eNews article.
I truly believe that his heart is torn.
And, I'll say this:
The root of this very real problem, this problem that, truly, is driving our denominational demise, is our dysfunctioning value system which, itself, is entirely disconnected from the way and teaching of Jesus...
A value system that created the CGGC institution which Lance loves and serves...
And which Lance chose to serve first, before he serves and follows Jesus.
------------------
Jesus never attended a council meeting, nor a conference nor did He ever meet with a commission.
Jesus didn't create an institution.
He didn't sit in a corner office.
Jesus lived love...and grace...and mercy...in the world.
Among the lost. Among the least.
And, He defined greatness, not in terms of leadership authority or position, but in being a slave to all.
Our broken and dysfunctioning system tells its best and brightest, people like Lance...
...to seek that corner office with its staff and all the meetings and the councils and commissions and conferences...
But, Jesus would have our best and our brightest go into the world, not to work from offices in headquarters buildings.
Jesus would have our best and our brightest follow the ways of the Kingdom, not lead the institution of the church.
------------------
I know that there was a time that Lance gave his heart to Jesus.
But, more recently and to this day, as can be seen in the way he invests his time, Lance gave his LIFE to the institutional church.
As did many others among our best and brightest.
And, we decline and decay...
And, the Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing.
We need to define greatness in the CGGC by greatness in the Kingdom, not by position and authority in our institutional church.
We must repent.
Go, Lance. Go. Seek
The article appeared on August 24, the day I rushed Evie to the ER on the day after she returned home from heart surgery.
That was a stressful day and it began a new chapter in her struggle against heart disease...more about that at some point in the future, I'm sure.
From the first reading of Lance's article, I was struck by its poignancy and power and since then I've been determined to comment on it.
Please go into the eNews archives and find it and read it.
------------------
In the article, Lance quotes Luke 19:10 which says that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Lance points out that Jesus was constantly in the presence of "people who had been told that they were beyond the reach of God."
Then he asks what about us? You? Me? He asks, "When's the last time you went looking, searching for someone who was lost?"
In this powerful article, Lance confesses, "My natural inclination is to seek comfort, safety and security."
So, no. Lance doesn't seek the lost.
In this moment of unusual honesty and transparency from a leader of our declining and decaying body, Lance compares himself to Jesus and admits personal failure.
Lance's honest confession is, indeed, poignant.
To this day, I continue to be stunned by the article and its power.
------------------
I love Lance.
I knew him when he was a seminary student, a ministerial greenhorn.
I've seen him in his youth, in his naivete. I encountered his heart when it was still forming.
I believe I know what's underneath today's man of the mountaintop and what he's become after decades of involvement in the dysfunctioning CGGC institution.
I know him, today, to be a man who, as he confesses in his article, doesn't follow Jesus...who doesn't seek the lost...
But, whose heart is torn over that truth...
Who truly wants to follow another path than the one he's walking.
------------------
But, here's the thing.
There was a time when our brother made the choice not to seek the lost and, instead, to seek something else in their place.
Lance chose to seek an important institutional job in which he'd sit in a corner office, in which he'd be located on the outskirts of a nice sized city, with oodles of lost people.
Lance chose to seek ex officio membership in numerous institutional councils and commissions and conferences which meet in the headquarters building and other councils and commissions and conferences scattered across the country, well, across the world, really.
When Lance made that choice, he was, at the same time, deciding to choose to be separated from the lost of his city, who'd need to get past his office staff if they even wanted to meet him.
------------------
Yet, I'm confident that I know Lance's heart.
I'm convinced that Lance knows that he shouldn't be anchored to that corner office desk and that he should be in the world seeking the lost, following Jesus' way and teaching.
Torn.
I think that's the best word to describe the heart of the man who wrote that poignant and powerful eNews article.
I truly believe that his heart is torn.
And, I'll say this:
The root of this very real problem, this problem that, truly, is driving our denominational demise, is our dysfunctioning value system which, itself, is entirely disconnected from the way and teaching of Jesus...
A value system that created the CGGC institution which Lance loves and serves...
And which Lance chose to serve first, before he serves and follows Jesus.
------------------
Jesus never attended a council meeting, nor a conference nor did He ever meet with a commission.
Jesus didn't create an institution.
He didn't sit in a corner office.
Jesus lived love...and grace...and mercy...in the world.
Among the lost. Among the least.
And, He defined greatness, not in terms of leadership authority or position, but in being a slave to all.
Our broken and dysfunctioning system tells its best and brightest, people like Lance...
...to seek that corner office with its staff and all the meetings and the councils and commissions and conferences...
But, Jesus would have our best and our brightest go into the world, not to work from offices in headquarters buildings.
Jesus would have our best and our brightest follow the ways of the Kingdom, not lead the institution of the church.
------------------
I know that there was a time that Lance gave his heart to Jesus.
But, more recently and to this day, as can be seen in the way he invests his time, Lance gave his LIFE to the institutional church.
As did many others among our best and brightest.
And, we decline and decay...
And, the Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing.
We need to define greatness in the CGGC by greatness in the Kingdom, not by position and authority in our institutional church.
We must repent.
Go, Lance. Go. Seek
Friday, September 28, 2018
A Question about Evie's Heart Surgery
A male friend emailed me this question:
Now that Evie has a porcine valve, can she understand men better?
ROTFLOL
Sadly, though, the valve is bovine.
But, it always helps to laugh.
Now that Evie has a porcine valve, can she understand men better?
ROTFLOL
Sadly, though, the valve is bovine.
But, it always helps to laugh.
Being CGGC-Catholic in the ERC
I've been chatting off the blog with someone, making the point that the founders of our movement were very careful to declare that they were not Protestants. They hoped that their efforts would be part of, as Winebrenner said it, on the very day the Church of God was formed, "another great reformation."
And, we've trashed that founding vision. We've become blatantly and blandly Protestant. And, we're, as we all know, declining.
----------------
Having made that point, I'll go a step beyond to note that, in my ERC, we've become more than a little too Roman Catholic.
If you're a Roman Catholic, you define righteousness in terms of your involvement in your local parish and of receiving the sacraments provided by your parish priest and by faith in the doings of the church's institutional hierarchy from your Bishop up to the Pope.
If you're ERC CGGC, think about the new New Strategic Plan.
In the ERC these days, you define, well, righteousness by involvement in your local healthy, life-giving church whose leadership is provided by your healthy, life-giving pastor and by your healthy, life-giving Conference leadership.
The parallel is stunning.
I often remark that CGGC pastors function as parish priests, as providers of religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity.
And, that's true.
We don't call the religious products and services provided by our parish priests, sacraments...
But, they really are CGGC sacraments.
In the ERC way of thinking, the goal is to get people to consume our pastors' religious products and services in the same way Roman Catholics want good Catholics to participate in the sacraments.
These days, the most important CGGC sacrament is the sermon.
We don't ask our people to take the Eucharist weekly but we do want the laity to take to heart their pastor's sermon.
------------------
There are many ways that the ERC's new New Strategic Plan is theologically bankrupt.
Perhaps the most dangerous is in its definition of righteousness in terms of involvement with the church, the parish priesthood and the institutional hierarchy.
This is so un-Jesus.
Read the Gospels.
We must repent.
And, we've trashed that founding vision. We've become blatantly and blandly Protestant. And, we're, as we all know, declining.
----------------
Having made that point, I'll go a step beyond to note that, in my ERC, we've become more than a little too Roman Catholic.
If you're a Roman Catholic, you define righteousness in terms of your involvement in your local parish and of receiving the sacraments provided by your parish priest and by faith in the doings of the church's institutional hierarchy from your Bishop up to the Pope.
If you're ERC CGGC, think about the new New Strategic Plan.
In the ERC these days, you define, well, righteousness by involvement in your local healthy, life-giving church whose leadership is provided by your healthy, life-giving pastor and by your healthy, life-giving Conference leadership.
The parallel is stunning.
I often remark that CGGC pastors function as parish priests, as providers of religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity.
And, that's true.
We don't call the religious products and services provided by our parish priests, sacraments...
But, they really are CGGC sacraments.
In the ERC way of thinking, the goal is to get people to consume our pastors' religious products and services in the same way Roman Catholics want good Catholics to participate in the sacraments.
These days, the most important CGGC sacrament is the sermon.
We don't ask our people to take the Eucharist weekly but we do want the laity to take to heart their pastor's sermon.
------------------
There are many ways that the ERC's new New Strategic Plan is theologically bankrupt.
Perhaps the most dangerous is in its definition of righteousness in terms of involvement with the church, the parish priesthood and the institutional hierarchy.
This is so un-Jesus.
Read the Gospels.
We must repent.
The Church of God is Not Protestant but the CGGC most definitely is
In an important and, to me, intriguing off blog exchange, I recently quoted a crucial phrase from Winebrenner's speech which launched the Eldership of the Church of God in Harrisburg in 1830.
Winebrenner declared that, in order for the vision of Church of God founders to be accomplished, there will have to be "another great reformation."
In that statement, embraced by everyone present, and lived out for a generation plus, Winebrenner declared that the Protestant Reformation had failed.
What the men and women who were gathered in that room were a part of was intended to move beyond the Protestant brand of Christianity.
There are many ways in which the declining and decaying CGGC in 2018 is decrepit. No one denies that our congregations are becoming old and that we're not reaching millennials.
We thrash about spouting new ideas, yet, none take hold. Not one, to this point, has made the slightest positive difference.
And, one way to understand how the once dynamic Church of God has come to this state is that, in defiance of its founding vision, it has become Protestant.
The Winebrenner generation was convinced and passionate in its conviction that being Protestant was a bad thing. They refused to give into that temptation.
Today's CGGC is, despite the intense conviction of Church of God founders, unashamedly and very blandly Protestant...Evangelical Protestant.
And, if we're honest, Winebrenner was right. Being Protestant has not worked for us. We have become conventional where, in a very positive way, we once were weird.
We are, as we all know, declining and decaying to the point that we're becoming desperate.
-----------------
On a side note, I'm convinced that it's when we abandoned Winebrenner's reasoning for observing Feet Washing, in favor of Forney's, that we stepped over a very dangerous line.
I believe nearly all the official doctrinal talk in We Believe. And, unlike many, I live it.
The one meaningful exception is on our rationale for observing Feet Washing.
We've trashed Winebrenner on that point. That act is more significant, I think, than anyone else realizes.
----------------
There are many ways in which we must repent.
We must repent of being Protestant.
Winebrenner declared that, in order for the vision of Church of God founders to be accomplished, there will have to be "another great reformation."
In that statement, embraced by everyone present, and lived out for a generation plus, Winebrenner declared that the Protestant Reformation had failed.
What the men and women who were gathered in that room were a part of was intended to move beyond the Protestant brand of Christianity.
There are many ways in which the declining and decaying CGGC in 2018 is decrepit. No one denies that our congregations are becoming old and that we're not reaching millennials.
We thrash about spouting new ideas, yet, none take hold. Not one, to this point, has made the slightest positive difference.
And, one way to understand how the once dynamic Church of God has come to this state is that, in defiance of its founding vision, it has become Protestant.
The Winebrenner generation was convinced and passionate in its conviction that being Protestant was a bad thing. They refused to give into that temptation.
Today's CGGC is, despite the intense conviction of Church of God founders, unashamedly and very blandly Protestant...Evangelical Protestant.
And, if we're honest, Winebrenner was right. Being Protestant has not worked for us. We have become conventional where, in a very positive way, we once were weird.
We are, as we all know, declining and decaying to the point that we're becoming desperate.
-----------------
On a side note, I'm convinced that it's when we abandoned Winebrenner's reasoning for observing Feet Washing, in favor of Forney's, that we stepped over a very dangerous line.
I believe nearly all the official doctrinal talk in We Believe. And, unlike many, I live it.
The one meaningful exception is on our rationale for observing Feet Washing.
We've trashed Winebrenner on that point. That act is more significant, I think, than anyone else realizes.
----------------
There are many ways in which we must repent.
We must repent of being Protestant.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Scuttlebutt on the ERC E. D. Search
I've heard from multiple sources by now that the search has been narrowed down to two candidates. And, if I know that, I'm guessing most people do.
I'm interested to see what the searchers, who framed the search, value. It has to have been a bit of a Rorschach test for them, eh?
I don't know who the finalists are. I haven't asked. I do know about some who applied and didn't make the cut.
------------------
I have been very clear about the ways I consider the ERC's new New Strategic Plan to be theologically corrupt and theologically bankrupt.
It's all about healthy, life-giving pastors, churches and institutional leadership. Yet, in three of the four Gospels, the word church doesn't appear and there isn't one congregational pastor anywhere in the whole Bible and there is no such thing as an institutional leadership hierarchy to be found in the New Testament. The plan, therefore, is based kn what is obviously unbiblical.
Our body has always claimed as its central belief that, "The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice."
I wonder how someone who submits to and embraces that core belief can wish to be associated with the new New Strategic Plan.
Or will he...I expect it will be a he...plan to use his position to actually be a man of the Word, in spite failings of the new New Strategic Plan...and go above and beyond the plan?
One can but hope and pray.
I'm interested to see what the searchers, who framed the search, value. It has to have been a bit of a Rorschach test for them, eh?
I don't know who the finalists are. I haven't asked. I do know about some who applied and didn't make the cut.
------------------
I have been very clear about the ways I consider the ERC's new New Strategic Plan to be theologically corrupt and theologically bankrupt.
It's all about healthy, life-giving pastors, churches and institutional leadership. Yet, in three of the four Gospels, the word church doesn't appear and there isn't one congregational pastor anywhere in the whole Bible and there is no such thing as an institutional leadership hierarchy to be found in the New Testament. The plan, therefore, is based kn what is obviously unbiblical.
Our body has always claimed as its central belief that, "The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice."
I wonder how someone who submits to and embraces that core belief can wish to be associated with the new New Strategic Plan.
Or will he...I expect it will be a he...plan to use his position to actually be a man of the Word, in spite failings of the new New Strategic Plan...and go above and beyond the plan?
One can but hope and pray.
A Facebook Comment to Brent
In the Facebook conversation of my Brent Sleasman post, I made this observation to Brent:
"In the CGGC, in the last decade or so, what we say in a moment has come to mean everything and what we do over a period of time has come to mean very little."
That comment was intended to accomplish two ends:
First, to explain why I'm convinced that Brent's call for the people of the CGGC to engage in important conversations will come to nothing.
Brent was deputized to announce this vision but, for many years now, we've cast numerous worthwhile, even exciting, visions without a scintilla of an effort to live out that vision.
Unless things are about to change radically, there will be no attempt from the people who produce the eNews to provide practical and useful ways for CGGC people to make this really nice idea a reality.
Second, the comment serves as a definition of my To Talk is to Walk-ism characteristic of the CGGC brand.
We value talk. We are fast talkers.
But, the absolute truth is that what we do has come to mean very little and, if anything, to mean less and less as time goes on.
We won't do what Brent suggests not because Brent has failed in any way. We won't do it because we don't DO anything.
For us, sometime in the last decade, or so, talk became walk.
"In the CGGC, in the last decade or so, what we say in a moment has come to mean everything and what we do over a period of time has come to mean very little."
That comment was intended to accomplish two ends:
First, to explain why I'm convinced that Brent's call for the people of the CGGC to engage in important conversations will come to nothing.
Brent was deputized to announce this vision but, for many years now, we've cast numerous worthwhile, even exciting, visions without a scintilla of an effort to live out that vision.
Unless things are about to change radically, there will be no attempt from the people who produce the eNews to provide practical and useful ways for CGGC people to make this really nice idea a reality.
Second, the comment serves as a definition of my To Talk is to Walk-ism characteristic of the CGGC brand.
We value talk. We are fast talkers.
But, the absolute truth is that what we do has come to mean very little and, if anything, to mean less and less as time goes on.
We won't do what Brent suggests not because Brent has failed in any way. We won't do it because we don't DO anything.
For us, sometime in the last decade, or so, talk became walk.
Sunday, September 23, 2018
A Long-Term Dysfunction in the CGGC Leadership Culture
"I don't need a response and I have no interest in another email correspondence that doesn't go anywhere helpful."
------------------
These are words contained in an email I received not so long ago from someone who, by any definition of the term, would be considered to be a "mountaintopper" in the broad CGGC community.
Please don't attempt to figure out who. More about that later.
The email I received, as is clear from the quoted sentence, was intended to be a one-way rant,...
...and, earlier on it says, "It's come to my attention..."
By the mountaintoppers' admission, then, it's based on gossip and second hand knowledge.
I considered carefully if I should address the issues this email illustrates and, if I do address it, how to address it.
Here's what I'm coming up with:
1. This isn't the first time I've received this sort of comment from the CGGC mountaintop.
It's been going on for a while. I'm no longer startled. And, therefore, it's become possible for me to see these things from 40,000 feet.
The reason I hope you don't attempt to figure out who the author of the email is, precisely, because this isn't the first note of this sort that I've received from on high, CGGC speaking, over the years.
(It is the first, though, that STARTED OUT telling me the conversation is already over. It's also the first that I can recall that was based on what someone else told the mountaintopper about me.)
To be fair, when I say these notes are fairly common I'm, perhaps, overstating. Over the last decade or so, I've seen comments similar to this several times.
CGGC Mountaintoppers seem to feel empowered to make this sort of statement within the CGGC community. More about that later.
And, I think there's something noteworthy there.
2. As many of the readers of this blog know, there was a time, decades ago, when I was on staff at Winebrenner and that Evie was on General Conference staff as the Director of Denominational Communications during the Draper and Boyer regimes.
I'd never suggest that I was an insider in Findlay and I'd certainly never suggest that I was a mountaintopper.
But, as difficult as it is for me to even think about it, even in passing, Evie was a mountaintopper.
Evie's extremely bright. And, she's unbelievably likable. She held a Director level position on General Conference staff. Her position as a leader of the denomination was embraced and accepted unquestionably during those days.
And, as a CGGCer on staff at Winebrenner, and as her spouse, I rubbed elbows with the people who were the movers and shakers of the CGGC world at the time.
And,...
...at that time, I was also a CGGC good guy, attempting to fit in, fully and enthusiastically supporting the 35,000 X 2000 initiative and doing everything in my power to contribute to its success.
As a good guy, if not a mountaintopper, I'd hear dismissive comments spoken by various mountaintoppers of that day about the people who didn't kowtow to the wisdom and authority of the mountaintop.
"Don't even talk to him. You'll never convince him."
The point there was that anyone out of sync with the vision on the top of the CGGC could and should be dismissed, disrespected, even.
The point of that attitude being that the mountaintoppers know, for certain, that they are the spiritual end all and be all in the CGGC world. They're not to be challenged, even questioned.
And, as a point of history that can't be denied:
Remember, looking back nearly three decades, that, in the end, 35,000 X 2000 has proved to be a monumental disaster that continues to this day to threaten the CGGC's future existence!
And, that the people shunned and dismissed by the mountaintoppers turned out to be exactly correct!
And, the mountaintoppers exactly, precisely and entirely and disastrously wrong!
Here's the absolute truth. The same attitude that produced the sentence that opens this post goes back at least as far as our days in Findlay.
Our leadership problems come from cultural values embraced by the mountaintoppers for many decades.
The attitude that generated that sentence was rampant when the person who wrote the sentence to me was active in the CGYA.
3.The sentence I quoted to begin this post has particular meaning in light the the eNews posts Lance invited Brent to write on having difficult conversations.
The sort of difficult, important conversation these guys advocate doesn't happen in five minute's time, chatting with a stranger whilst chewing on a Snickers bar.
Brent makes that precise point in declaring that, in order to have important conversations, you must take time.
Those conversations do, indeed, take time to develop. And, while the hope is that, over the passage of time, they will end well,...
...they begin in the context of passionate and vehement difference. That's what makes them difficult.
They require the establishment of some kind of common ground and the building of trust...
...and of mutual respect.
They, frequently, involve the overcoming of a difficult history.
More than that, they may make it necessary for prejudices to be set aside, often by both parties...as Brent also makes clear.
It seems to me, a person who could write the sentence that begins this post may not capable of the patience and longsuffering and respect for a person who thinks and feels differently that difficult conversation requires.
I am absolutely certain, however, that the person who wrote the sentence supports, intellectually and theoretically and hypothetically, the concept of CGGC people engaging in the rigorous spiritual and emotional demands placed on someone engaged in difficult conversation.
But, I can't see that happening, for him, at least...
...at least until he repents.
In my opinion, the sentence, and the attitude it is fruit of, leads the people of the CGGC back to the...
...FOLLOWERSHIP CRISIS...
...we've been in for at least a decade.
We don't lack for people who think of themselves as leaders.
What we lack, from mountaintoppers, is action to follow.
As I often mention, I gave up life as a CGGC pastor/parish priest. I'm working full-time in the world and live intentionally as an ambassador of Christ's Way.
A goal of my daily life, as a result of my own act of repentance, is to create the opportunity for me to have precisely the difficult and important conversations Lance and Brent advocate.
I'm DOING it,...
...certainly not perfectly...
...But, I'm DOING it.
I've created a walk which came before my talk.
But, all I'm getting, so far, from the mountaintop, is talk.
It may be that a description of the walk is planned for future eNews articles. That would be a blessing.
But, in recent years, we've had more than enough talk, about an uncountable number of good ideas, unaccompanied by action.
As Eliza Doolittle sang, "Show me."
------------------
These are words contained in an email I received not so long ago from someone who, by any definition of the term, would be considered to be a "mountaintopper" in the broad CGGC community.
Please don't attempt to figure out who. More about that later.
The email I received, as is clear from the quoted sentence, was intended to be a one-way rant,...
...and, earlier on it says, "It's come to my attention..."
By the mountaintoppers' admission, then, it's based on gossip and second hand knowledge.
I considered carefully if I should address the issues this email illustrates and, if I do address it, how to address it.
Here's what I'm coming up with:
1. This isn't the first time I've received this sort of comment from the CGGC mountaintop.
It's been going on for a while. I'm no longer startled. And, therefore, it's become possible for me to see these things from 40,000 feet.
The reason I hope you don't attempt to figure out who the author of the email is, precisely, because this isn't the first note of this sort that I've received from on high, CGGC speaking, over the years.
(It is the first, though, that STARTED OUT telling me the conversation is already over. It's also the first that I can recall that was based on what someone else told the mountaintopper about me.)
To be fair, when I say these notes are fairly common I'm, perhaps, overstating. Over the last decade or so, I've seen comments similar to this several times.
CGGC Mountaintoppers seem to feel empowered to make this sort of statement within the CGGC community. More about that later.
And, I think there's something noteworthy there.
2. As many of the readers of this blog know, there was a time, decades ago, when I was on staff at Winebrenner and that Evie was on General Conference staff as the Director of Denominational Communications during the Draper and Boyer regimes.
I'd never suggest that I was an insider in Findlay and I'd certainly never suggest that I was a mountaintopper.
But, as difficult as it is for me to even think about it, even in passing, Evie was a mountaintopper.
Evie's extremely bright. And, she's unbelievably likable. She held a Director level position on General Conference staff. Her position as a leader of the denomination was embraced and accepted unquestionably during those days.
And, as a CGGCer on staff at Winebrenner, and as her spouse, I rubbed elbows with the people who were the movers and shakers of the CGGC world at the time.
And,...
...at that time, I was also a CGGC good guy, attempting to fit in, fully and enthusiastically supporting the 35,000 X 2000 initiative and doing everything in my power to contribute to its success.
As a good guy, if not a mountaintopper, I'd hear dismissive comments spoken by various mountaintoppers of that day about the people who didn't kowtow to the wisdom and authority of the mountaintop.
"Don't even talk to him. You'll never convince him."
The point there was that anyone out of sync with the vision on the top of the CGGC could and should be dismissed, disrespected, even.
The point of that attitude being that the mountaintoppers know, for certain, that they are the spiritual end all and be all in the CGGC world. They're not to be challenged, even questioned.
And, as a point of history that can't be denied:
Remember, looking back nearly three decades, that, in the end, 35,000 X 2000 has proved to be a monumental disaster that continues to this day to threaten the CGGC's future existence!
And, that the people shunned and dismissed by the mountaintoppers turned out to be exactly correct!
And, the mountaintoppers exactly, precisely and entirely and disastrously wrong!
Here's the absolute truth. The same attitude that produced the sentence that opens this post goes back at least as far as our days in Findlay.
Our leadership problems come from cultural values embraced by the mountaintoppers for many decades.
The attitude that generated that sentence was rampant when the person who wrote the sentence to me was active in the CGYA.
3.The sentence I quoted to begin this post has particular meaning in light the the eNews posts Lance invited Brent to write on having difficult conversations.
The sort of difficult, important conversation these guys advocate doesn't happen in five minute's time, chatting with a stranger whilst chewing on a Snickers bar.
Brent makes that precise point in declaring that, in order to have important conversations, you must take time.
Those conversations do, indeed, take time to develop. And, while the hope is that, over the passage of time, they will end well,...
...they begin in the context of passionate and vehement difference. That's what makes them difficult.
They require the establishment of some kind of common ground and the building of trust...
...and of mutual respect.
They, frequently, involve the overcoming of a difficult history.
More than that, they may make it necessary for prejudices to be set aside, often by both parties...as Brent also makes clear.
It seems to me, a person who could write the sentence that begins this post may not capable of the patience and longsuffering and respect for a person who thinks and feels differently that difficult conversation requires.
I am absolutely certain, however, that the person who wrote the sentence supports, intellectually and theoretically and hypothetically, the concept of CGGC people engaging in the rigorous spiritual and emotional demands placed on someone engaged in difficult conversation.
But, I can't see that happening, for him, at least...
...at least until he repents.
In my opinion, the sentence, and the attitude it is fruit of, leads the people of the CGGC back to the...
...FOLLOWERSHIP CRISIS...
...we've been in for at least a decade.
We don't lack for people who think of themselves as leaders.
What we lack, from mountaintoppers, is action to follow.
As I often mention, I gave up life as a CGGC pastor/parish priest. I'm working full-time in the world and live intentionally as an ambassador of Christ's Way.
A goal of my daily life, as a result of my own act of repentance, is to create the opportunity for me to have precisely the difficult and important conversations Lance and Brent advocate.
I'm DOING it,...
...certainly not perfectly...
...But, I'm DOING it.
I've created a walk which came before my talk.
But, all I'm getting, so far, from the mountaintop, is talk.
It may be that a description of the walk is planned for future eNews articles. That would be a blessing.
But, in recent years, we've had more than enough talk, about an uncountable number of good ideas, unaccompanied by action.
As Eliza Doolittle sang, "Show me."
The "Brent Sleasman" Post: The 2nd most Viewed of all Time here
I've been running this blog since 2013. Readership has increased and decreased in waves over the course of those five years.
The month in which readership reached its peak was, actually, January of this year, when I was commenting on the meeting to approve the ERC's new New Strategic Plan...and commenting on the plan itself.
The post which has had the largest readership, by far, is from 2014. It's title is, MY PERSONAL MISSIONAL MYTH: BUSTED.
I re-read the post before beginning this one and I was impressed because the post itself was decent enough but it generated a conversation similar to what might have appeared on Brian Miller's Emerging CGGC blog back in the day. People whose comments appeared in that conversation include current ERC staffer, Dave Williams, Western Region sage Phil Wilson plus Dan Horwedel from the Midwest Region and Jack Guyler and Dan Masshardt from the ERC.
Until this past week, the number of hits on that post was almost exactly double the hits on the second most read post on this blog.
However, Brent put, on Facebook, a link to my post on how his eNews article on Important Conversations will come to nothing. That link created oodles of interest...and a decent conversation on Facebook, though no comments were entered here.
Thanks to Brent, that post is now the second most viewed post on this blog, though still far from the most viewed post.
One comment: Brent is rare, if not unique, among CGGC people of significance in that he's open to conversation. Not only does he not seem to fear it, he encourages it.
There's some conversation on Facebook about where or not he's actually a CGGC mountaintopper.
I argue, rather convincingly, I think, that he is...and, that he's emerging as Lance's unofficial Director of CGGC Theology and Philosophy.
And, I'm comfortable with that. We could do far worse.
If you haven't seen the Facebook dialog, I recommend it to you.
The month in which readership reached its peak was, actually, January of this year, when I was commenting on the meeting to approve the ERC's new New Strategic Plan...and commenting on the plan itself.
The post which has had the largest readership, by far, is from 2014. It's title is, MY PERSONAL MISSIONAL MYTH: BUSTED.
I re-read the post before beginning this one and I was impressed because the post itself was decent enough but it generated a conversation similar to what might have appeared on Brian Miller's Emerging CGGC blog back in the day. People whose comments appeared in that conversation include current ERC staffer, Dave Williams, Western Region sage Phil Wilson plus Dan Horwedel from the Midwest Region and Jack Guyler and Dan Masshardt from the ERC.
Until this past week, the number of hits on that post was almost exactly double the hits on the second most read post on this blog.
However, Brent put, on Facebook, a link to my post on how his eNews article on Important Conversations will come to nothing. That link created oodles of interest...and a decent conversation on Facebook, though no comments were entered here.
Thanks to Brent, that post is now the second most viewed post on this blog, though still far from the most viewed post.
One comment: Brent is rare, if not unique, among CGGC people of significance in that he's open to conversation. Not only does he not seem to fear it, he encourages it.
There's some conversation on Facebook about where or not he's actually a CGGC mountaintopper.
I argue, rather convincingly, I think, that he is...and, that he's emerging as Lance's unofficial Director of CGGC Theology and Philosophy.
And, I'm comfortable with that. We could do far worse.
If you haven't seen the Facebook dialog, I recommend it to you.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Hearing Nasty or Untrue things said behind my Back
Just recently someone passed on to me, quite accidentally I'm certain, some either untrue, nasty or both, things that have been said about me behind my back.
This was in a CGGC context. Don't try to guess if it was you who alerted me to them. I won't say. This has happened several times.
And, here's the thing.
What I heard said about me doesn't bother me precisely BECAUSE it's being said in a community of people who identify themselves with the church and with Jesus...and it's become so normal for it to happen.
I got used to sniping and exaggerations and, well, lies spoken behind my back shortly after I committed to live as a prophet. It surprises me how little I care, and how easily I can forgive when forgiveness is sought.
What's new in this is that it occurred to me that, if the same thing happened on my real-life job, I'd be devastated.
I'm going to be thinking this through for a long time. I don't know exactly what to make of it, but there is significance here...about being part of an institutionalized church, and living in the world.
This was in a CGGC context. Don't try to guess if it was you who alerted me to them. I won't say. This has happened several times.
And, here's the thing.
What I heard said about me doesn't bother me precisely BECAUSE it's being said in a community of people who identify themselves with the church and with Jesus...and it's become so normal for it to happen.
I got used to sniping and exaggerations and, well, lies spoken behind my back shortly after I committed to live as a prophet. It surprises me how little I care, and how easily I can forgive when forgiveness is sought.
What's new in this is that it occurred to me that, if the same thing happened on my real-life job, I'd be devastated.
I'm going to be thinking this through for a long time. I don't know exactly what to make of it, but there is significance here...about being part of an institutionalized church, and living in the world.
Why Brent Sleasman's Call to "Important Conversations" will come to Nothing
Apart from the brouhaha over why my eNews comment on Brent's guest article in the eNews, SETTING THE STAGE FOR IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS: HUMAN SEXUALITY, was not published, I want to make a predictive prophecy about it.
I don't do the predictive part of prophecy often. In this case, as is usually the case, when I do it, I'm slightly embarrassed because I suspect everyone who reads it will think, "Well, duh! Who doesn't already know that?"
Yet, what seems obvious to me usually isn't to everyone.
Yet, what seems obvious to me usually isn't to everyone.
So, in case you haven't realized it, what Brent and Lance want to happen in the CGGC...with CGGC people setting the stage for and having important conversations about difficult issues...isn't going to become the way of the CGGC future.
Unless, of course, we repent.
Unless, of course, we repent.
It's the reasons I see for that reality that leads me to type this out even though you probably already know it. There are several reasons and they're not all that profound.
1. They want our parish priests to be the people leading these conversations.
This is a mistake that we started making at least 80 years ago and we continue to make and it ALWAYS leads to failure. ALWAYS.
In Church of God movement days, our minute handful of ministers, they weren't called pastors until very recently, did not provide religious products and services to be consumed by a passive laity.
In Church of God movement days, we didn't have a clergy and we most certainly didn't have a laity.
In Church of God movement days, it was understood that the work of the Kingdom was done by the people of the congregations and that the ministers were servants of the Lord whose role was to prepare the saints for works of ministry, as Paul describes the role of APESTs in Ephesians 4:11-13.
It's become our way constantly to tweak the role of the parish priest, to add just one more little duty to the job description to suit changing times or to follow fads.
And, that's what's being done here.
Let's have our parish priests devote a nice chunk of time, emotion and energy to setting the stage for important conversations...and, then, of course, to having those conversations.
And why not!??!!?!!
Church pastors don't have nearly enough to do now. It's long past time that we asked to work a full-time schedule.
In Church of God movement days, our people...our PEOPLE...were having the important conversations...about slavery, about war, about alcohol abuse.
And, our ministers were empowering those conversations. But, they weren't being paid to be the people who invested time and established space for those conversations to take place.
We always do this these days.
We talk about discipling but we walk the system in which our pastors are parish priests who provide religious products and services to be consumed by our passive laity...and, now, apparently, by the unchurched world.
We always do this. It always fails.
It will fail again.
2. More at the place where parish priest ministry meets the road...
...what are the people of our aging congregations expected to think when their pastor adds setting the stage for important conversations to his/her schedule and has less time for sermon and Bible Study preparation and home and hospital visitation?
What does the laity always think!
The time and energy invested in setting the stage for important conversations breaks the unspoken agreement between pastor and church and the laity, justifiably, becomes angry.
The time and energy invested in setting the stage for important conversations breaks the unspoken agreement between pastor and church and the laity, justifiably, becomes angry.
And, when the people of the laity, who pay the Conference tithe, complain to regional leadership and demand that their pastor either spend more time with the old people, or get them a pastor who will, what's regional leadership always do?
And, what happens to all the important institutional obligations a parish priest attends to? The church and regional meetings?
What happens to the time the parish priest needs to devote to his/her family?
What happens to the time the parish priest needs to devote to his/her family?
This setting the stage for important conversations is a big task. It involves the investment of time and emotion for a parish priest.
What's the consumer of the parish priest's more traditional products and services supposed to do? Those consumers are paying good money for the services that they expect to receive. What's the pastor's family supposed to do?
What does the parish priest stop doing to start preparing for important conversations?
What does the parish priest stop doing to start preparing for important conversations?
CGGC mountaintoppers created our laity. They've created the expectation that churches consume religious products and services. CGGC mountaintoppers created, from Winebrenner's movement, the notion of credentialed priestly leadership in the place of Winebrenner's universal priesthood.
For this setting the stage for important conversations vision to work, the roles of the parish priest and the consuming laity will have to be adjusted, at the very least.
They won't be.
3. One of my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand is, Cynicism.
Despite the fact that I regularly denounce the cynics, I suspect that many who read my blog are cynics. If you're not already a cynic, imagine being a cynic reading these articles by Brent...
...or, more likely, reading about them on this blog because you probably wouldn't waste your time reading the eNews blog.
How many times have you heard, or heard of, these ideas and initiatives rolling down from the CGGC mountaintop?!!!?!
Are you even going to bother to moan at this one?
There's nothing in what Brent's suggesting that will soften the hearts of our many cynics.
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So, the SETTING THE STAGE FOR IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS thing will go nowhere.
And, I need to be clear about one thing: In my opinion, that's a bad thing.
By leaving the parish priest ministry to live in the world as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God, I actually have the conversations Brent advocates.
Having those conversations has become my life in a significant way. I live for the moments those conversations happen.
But what the eNews has in mind? It's not going to happen.
A significant theme in my lost comment to Brent's post was my call, again, to turn from the belief in the church as an institution led by a clergy class...
...and to empower every believer to be a priest.
So far, CGGC mountaintoppers refuse to do that.
What Brent and Lance propose is impractical for life in the real world.
It can't work. It won't happen, no matter how valuable the core idea may be.
A significant theme in my lost comment to Brent's post was my call, again, to turn from the belief in the church as an institution led by a clergy class...
...and to empower every believer to be a priest.
So far, CGGC mountaintoppers refuse to do that.
What Brent and Lance propose is impractical for life in the real world.
It can't work. It won't happen, no matter how valuable the core idea may be.
Until the mountaintoppers repent of and turn from their institutional vision of the church with its stark clergy/laity divide, it can't happen.
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