What's Right and What's Wrong with Lance's "Where are We Now?" Series

I've been following, with great interest, Lance's eNews series: Where are We Now?.

And, I have to say that I'm impressed with Lance's honesty and forthrightness.

The CGGC is in decline. It is decaying spiritually.

It is impossible to deny those realities though many have chosen to ignore them.

What's Lance is doing is, in my opinion, good.

Here's what it's lacking: APEST.

From the first word of the series, I've been asking myself: What APEST fruit is Lance producing.

I saw, from the beginning, that it wasn't typical CGGC Shepherd Speak.

While, in the beginning, Lance ended his articles offering some brief words of comfort, he didn't offer the comfort that a shepherd would. He always identified a problem or failing of the body and he always, also, concluded leaving the impression that the problem is real and must be solved, or else. This is not shepherd speak.

In recent articles, Lance hasn't offered comfort. He's left the problem exposed and bare.

And, that's all good.

Six articles into the series, its clear to me that Lance is bearing fruit of being an APEST Teacher.

His articles are scholarly. By CGGC standards, they are intellectual. They are erudite and carefully considered. They convey information.

These are all fruit of a legitimate APEST Teacher.

What Lance's articles lack is what is always lacking in the CGGC today:

APEST balance.

In most of the articles, my conclusion was that what Lance lacks is an answer to the question, "And, how did we get here?"

That's the prophetic question. Another way of asking it is, "What do we need to repent of?"

I'm convinced that all of the information Lance is passing on will come to nothing, other than an institutionally produced Strategic Plan which, will, in the end, come to nothing apart from changes in the structure of the institution.

No.

What must be added to Lance's description of where we are is the, honest, Spirit-empowered word of prophets detailing how we got to where we are, or, what we must turn from in order to reverse our decline and decay.

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And, that's not all that must be added.

After a Spirit-voiced called to repent and to turn from sin, there must be:

An apostolic description of how we move forward.

This needs to come from an apostle who's not been cowed by the shepherd dominated leadership culture and who is walking in his/her gift.

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Lance claims to believe in APEST.

What he's doing in his articles describing where we are now will absolutely come to nothing unless and until he empowers APEST to function.

He may believe in APEST. Until he begins to live it, though, we will only continue to decline and decay.

We must repent.