Revelation 1:5b-6 opens the last book in Scripture declaring praise for Jesus with words that also condemn the plans and the latest Strategic Plan of the leaders of today's CGGC ERC.
"To him who love us and has freed us from our sin by his blood and has made to be a kingdom and priests..."
As ERC leadership puts its finishing touches on its plan to gather delegates to a special Conference session in Carlisle on January 13, I'm remembering the way people described to me the beginning of the process, as far as the credentialed minions of the Conference are concerned.
There was a series of...what did they call them?...information gathering meetings? held at various locations around the Conference.
I asked one of my...as Lew maligns them..."Snipers"...who ascends a nice distance up the ERC mountain, how many people were present at the meeting he attended who were not ERC pastors.
He said that there certainly were none.
And, he added, as if startled that I could be so uninformed, "I'm pretty sure that that these meetings were open only to get feedback from pastors."
And, I suspect that he was correct. And, at the very least, none of the uncredentialed deigned to soil his meeting.
His impression fits the M.O., and the Middle Ages theology, of ERC hierarchs.
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Nevertheless, the New Covenant, prophesied in Jeremiah 31, speaks of a new arrangement between the Lord and the people of the earth, in which, as the Lord says it through Jeremiah, "...they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." (31:34)
The Gospels are clear, to the degree that making the point almost seems ridiculous. Jesus didn't lecture to Jewish priests in order to prepare the way for the New Covenant.
He called apostles from among the most common people and traveled and preached in rural villages to whomever would listen, from, as the Lord spoke through Jeremiah, the least of them to the greatest.
First Peter 2:9 declared to early disciples, "...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood..."
The early growth of the Kingdom Jesus announced did not come from among the theologically trained and those advanced within institutional Judaism.
It came from among any and every man and woman who had repented of their sin and believed the gospel that Jesus is the Christ.
That is the definition of a grassroots Christian movement.
But, according to what ERC mountaintoppers are actually doing...the grassroots of their church slums only as low as ERC parish priests who don't reside any distance up the ERC mountain.
As I followed those videos promoting the Strategic Plan, it seems to me that the focus and energy and passion is invested in those Safe Space Connextion Groups designed to buck up pastors wilting under the demand that they function as parish priests.
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I can tell you with absolute certainty:
Based on what Jesus taught and did and, based on the ministry of the early disciples, and, based on times of revival and awakening in the history of the Kingdom...
WHAT THE ERC HIERARCHS HAVE IN MIND IS ANYTHING BUT GRASSROOTS!
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If we are going to change so that we join God in the work He is doing,...
...we are going to have to embrace the core New Testament reality that...
...He has made His Kingdom out of the priesthood of every sinner who has repented of sin and who believes the gospel,...
...that His work is centered, not in the pastors of churches,...
...but that everyone who repents and believes is already a priest.
The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing will not bless this plan...
...because this plan can not possibly be His plan.
Their plan is church first, not Kingdom only.
It steals the priesthood from, well, the grassroots, to strengthen the divide between laity and clergy...
...and, of course, to increase the size and power of their churchly hierarchy.
Jesus came and lived and died for a purpose. As Revelation 1 says, He made us "to be a kingdom and priests."
But, that's not the vision of the new New Strategic Plan.
We must repent.
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