Justin has an article in the last CA entitled, "Is THAT a CHURCH?"
It's brief, concise, thoughtful and well done. And, in the way of the Calvinist, it contains five points--this time describing what is true of, as Justin says, "any church."
The article is very provocative. It has spurred a lot of thought in my mind. I'll make some comments later. For now, here are the Five Points of Meierism, describing, in his phrase, "what makes a church a church:"
1. It is a group of believers who gather together for worship to honor and glorify the God revealed to us through the Bible.
2. They gather together for teaching and edification from God's word, to experience transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit for God's glory.
3. They gather together for the ordinances. . ..
4. They strive to be a foretaste of God's Kingdom on earth for their community and everyone they have contact with to help others experience God's love and glory.
5. They partner with Jesus, on His mission, to multiply disciples, leaders, and churches for the furtherance of the Kingdom and for the glory of God.
---------------------------
One comment to begin:
This article is a line cast into the deep and treacherous Sea of CGGC to Talk is to Walk-ism. If there is no repentance of that dreadful sin, the line will catch nothing and we will continue to lose touch with our world.
I'd appreciate your thoughts about what Justin has written and what it might mean to the CGGC culture.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Reading THE CHURCH ADVOCATE (August/September, 2104)
Gang,
As I always do, I've been reading the latest issue of The CHURCH ADVOCATE with great interest and care. There is some very good stuff in this one.
I've just read Lance Finley's very stimulating article. It touches on thoughts I've been thinking and, interestingly, it coincides with a post I've been planning.
Lance's article climaxes by inviting one and all to attend The Gathering in Findlay in October and to hear Scot McKnight present insights on the content of the Christian Gospel as it is detailed in his awesome book, THE KING JESUS GOSPEL.
The first part of Lance's article is a challenge to consider the possibility that what many of us think Jesus' gospel is, is not what Jesus' gospel is. Lance writes with conviction and he writes well. His brief article is positive and provocative.
I've read McKnight's book and I believe that Lance is correct:
We would all be well served to question our own definition of the gospel and we should all be prepared to realize that there is much error in what we think about the very essence of Christian truth.
Thanks, Lance. Well done.
(FYI: I have also read Justin Meier's five point definition of the church and found it to be as provocative as Lance's article. I also found Justin's article to be far more radical than Lance's. I'm very curious about how Justin says will fare in the CGGC's To Talk is to Walk universe. If God is willing, I'll write more about Justin's article later.)
---------------------------------------
For now...
...having read Lance's article, I am prepared to prophecy in a way I rarely do: I will prophecy predicatively, that is, I will offer a picture of what will happen in the future.
As is the case with many prophecies of the future that appear in the Word, my prediction comes with a condition, and it is the typical condition: "Unless you repent and turn from your sin...
...what I am saying will happen, truly will happen."
I suspect that many of you will not find the prediction shocking. But, I want to say this before it happens (...unless there is repentance, of course.)
Here's the prediction:
This year's gathering will, in the end, will be the same tragic and colossal waste of time and human and financial resources in the CGGC that 35,000 by 2000, Natural Church Development and TCAT have been.
So, to be specific:
Unless we repent and turn from our sin, this year's gathering will, in the end, will be a tragic and colossal waste of time and resources.
Of all the "Characteristics of the CGGC Brand" that I have identified, the one that is most applicable here is number 10: To Talk is to Walk-ism.
Perhaps the greatest danger to the CGGC's future is the reality that, in our body--especially in the last half dozen years or so--we seem to live believing that to say something means to have done it.
That is: It is a core value of the CGGC that for us to say that something is true about us makes it a real-life truth about us.
-------------------------
So, what will happen if Scot McKnight convinces CGGCers--ones who have not repented of To Talk-ism--that they need to rethink the gospel?
What has been happening recently, is that they will agree that we need to rethink the gospel. AND, having done that two things will happen:
1. Having thought that we need to rethink the gospel, they will think we have walked the walk of rethinking of the gospel and, most tragically--AGAIN--
2. Not one thing will change as far as the shepherd-dominated dysfunctions that drive our sin and the decline that is the fruit of our sin.
----------------------
In Lance's article, he asks his readers when was the last time they thought about the content of the gospel.
Coincidentally, I have been doing that and I have been doing it for years.
In fact, I blogged about the CGGC's false take on the content of the gospel years ago on Brian Miller's blog. I have been meditating feverishly on the content of the gospel since long before I read McKnight's book.
And, I will add this: One of the convictions that underlies much of what I blog here is that what the CGGC does, from the top down, is fruit of belief in a false gospel.
--------------------------
Here's a second part of the prophecy: Unless what we do changes radically after Scot McKnight leaves Findlay in October, we will be heaping more burning coals of God's wrath on ourselves.
-------------------------
As it stands now, I will be unable to attend The Gathering because of commitments I have to my job and my family. But, if you can...
...please attend The Gathering. And...
...please leave prepared to live differently and to demand that we all live differently!
If God is willing, I will write more on this thread later.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
My Personal Missional Myth: BUSTED
A few months ago I was exchanging a wide-ranging series of emails with a member of the ERC staff on topics covering, among others:
I admitted, and not happily or joyfully, that we are not doing well--in two ways.
First, we are not doing well in terms of the values touted by CGGC and ERC leaders which we reject. But, of course, that is to be expected and that doesn't bother me at all.
For instance, our worship attendance is not increasing, though we never, ever count the number who attend our version of the Sunday morning show. We dedicated no infants last year and would have spurned any request to do so because to do so would absolutely violate the CGGC's Mission Statement's claim that our gathering is based on "the New Testament plan" and because to do so would violate the new We Believe's assertion that the Bible is our "only" "rule."
Second, what does irk me, hurt and concern me, however, is that we are also not doing well in terms of what we do believe in and value. To use language that drove the conversation on Brian Miller's blog, we are not turning out to be externally focused.
Far from it, in fact. In fact, we appear to be increasingly internally focused--at least as a group.
It stuns me and befuddles me that what I was certain would make us externally-focused hasn't done that at all.
I still embrace a goodly portion of what I was taught in the Missional Leadership Initiative and in what is asserted in missional literature. Because of that, I began by redefining righteousness in our gathering.
I abandoned, intentionally and verbally, the CGGC's conventional wisdom that I have describe in my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand as "False, Flock-Based Righteousness" in favor of biblical teachings from three sources:
Up to that point, I had towed the CGGC line.
I had actually once promoted growth in numbers at the Sunday morning show as a sign of a legitimate growth in righteousness. I once encouraged people, for instance, to invite others to "church" on Sunday. I once defined success by increasing participation in small group involvement, e. g., the size of the Youth Group or Women's Fellowship or a midweek Bible Study...
...but then, I repented of all of that thinking and I turned away from it.
The time came when I began to teach that many people who are preparing for the Day by doing those things will be counted among those stunned to hear Jesus say to them, "away from me you evildoers."
There were two responses to that abrupt and radical change in teaching.
1. Many people at Faith rejected the new teaching. They wanted to believe that the Lord is really glorified by church attendance and that small group attendance is fruit of sanctification. In time, those people vamoosed.
2. Others, a smaller number, were convinced by the simple arguments for the new teaching from the Gospels and from James.
You might very well be amazed by the lives that some of the people who remain at Faith are living: Lives lived straight from the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5-7 and from Matthew 25 and from the Epistle of James. These are people who add verse 10 when they cite Ephesians 2:8 and 9.
They are people of Micah 6:8 who act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God. They live radical lives of repentance which bear fruit, not in flock-based faux righteousness but in the righteousness Jesus taught and lived.
However, here's the shocking truth about those same people:
If anything, they are more inward-focused as a group than they were when they were people who lived the values embodied in the CGGC Statistical Report.
They have busted to pieces my personal missional myth.
I believed that if they grew in personal righteousness that, as a result of that act of conversion they would, naturally, become people of the so-called Great Commission.
Very simply, they have not.
They do meet to encourage the others among us to grow in lives of mercy, grace, love and forgiveness. They confront each other over sin and help each other understand what the life lived and taught by Jesus looks like...
...but they actually resist bringing others into the koinonia they share.
They are as a group, more internally-focused than ever, though, oddly, as individuals, they are very kingdom-oriented.
Why?
I can't say for certain.
I'm playing with the idea that they have become what my own APEST equipping (which is extremely prophetic) produces.
Prophets lead repentance and preach righteousness--and that's what we do. We are unbalanced in the way shepherd-dominated, parish priest, pastor led congregations are. The specific abuses are different in the end, but they are abuses nonetheless.
I have hoped, for some time, that a genuinely apostolic person would take interest in us. But, if the Lord has called any to us, s/he has declined His leading.
At any rate, we are at a bit of an impasse. We've gotten to where our journey has led but not to the place we hoped to be.
Interestingly, we have asked the appropriate renewal people in the ERC and CGGC for assistance only to be told that they have nothing available that will assist us.
I am at a loss.
- the Region's Sexual Misconduct Policy,
- the differences between Organic/Simple/House Churches and the typical Evangelical Christendom congregation that is the norm in the CGGC and
- the so-called "metrics" included in the latest CGGC "Scorecard," AKA Statistical Report, (most of which are not actually metrics because metrics are quantitative measures and most of what the CGGC tries to assess are issues of quality--i.e., attributes that can not be counted).
I admitted, and not happily or joyfully, that we are not doing well--in two ways.
First, we are not doing well in terms of the values touted by CGGC and ERC leaders which we reject. But, of course, that is to be expected and that doesn't bother me at all.
For instance, our worship attendance is not increasing, though we never, ever count the number who attend our version of the Sunday morning show. We dedicated no infants last year and would have spurned any request to do so because to do so would absolutely violate the CGGC's Mission Statement's claim that our gathering is based on "the New Testament plan" and because to do so would violate the new We Believe's assertion that the Bible is our "only" "rule."
Second, what does irk me, hurt and concern me, however, is that we are also not doing well in terms of what we do believe in and value. To use language that drove the conversation on Brian Miller's blog, we are not turning out to be externally focused.
Far from it, in fact. In fact, we appear to be increasingly internally focused--at least as a group.
It stuns me and befuddles me that what I was certain would make us externally-focused hasn't done that at all.
I still embrace a goodly portion of what I was taught in the Missional Leadership Initiative and in what is asserted in missional literature. Because of that, I began by redefining righteousness in our gathering.
I abandoned, intentionally and verbally, the CGGC's conventional wisdom that I have describe in my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand as "False, Flock-Based Righteousness" in favor of biblical teachings from three sources:
- The "Sermon on the Mount,"
- Jesus' teaching about the Day of Judgment in His sheep and goats prophecy in Matthew 25, and
- James' definition of "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless" in James 1:27.
Up to that point, I had towed the CGGC line.
I had actually once promoted growth in numbers at the Sunday morning show as a sign of a legitimate growth in righteousness. I once encouraged people, for instance, to invite others to "church" on Sunday. I once defined success by increasing participation in small group involvement, e. g., the size of the Youth Group or Women's Fellowship or a midweek Bible Study...
...but then, I repented of all of that thinking and I turned away from it.
The time came when I began to teach that many people who are preparing for the Day by doing those things will be counted among those stunned to hear Jesus say to them, "away from me you evildoers."
There were two responses to that abrupt and radical change in teaching.
1. Many people at Faith rejected the new teaching. They wanted to believe that the Lord is really glorified by church attendance and that small group attendance is fruit of sanctification. In time, those people vamoosed.
2. Others, a smaller number, were convinced by the simple arguments for the new teaching from the Gospels and from James.
You might very well be amazed by the lives that some of the people who remain at Faith are living: Lives lived straight from the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5-7 and from Matthew 25 and from the Epistle of James. These are people who add verse 10 when they cite Ephesians 2:8 and 9.
They are people of Micah 6:8 who act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God. They live radical lives of repentance which bear fruit, not in flock-based faux righteousness but in the righteousness Jesus taught and lived.
However, here's the shocking truth about those same people:
If anything, they are more inward-focused as a group than they were when they were people who lived the values embodied in the CGGC Statistical Report.
They have busted to pieces my personal missional myth.
I believed that if they grew in personal righteousness that, as a result of that act of conversion they would, naturally, become people of the so-called Great Commission.
Very simply, they have not.
They do meet to encourage the others among us to grow in lives of mercy, grace, love and forgiveness. They confront each other over sin and help each other understand what the life lived and taught by Jesus looks like...
...but they actually resist bringing others into the koinonia they share.
They are as a group, more internally-focused than ever, though, oddly, as individuals, they are very kingdom-oriented.
Why?
I can't say for certain.
I'm playing with the idea that they have become what my own APEST equipping (which is extremely prophetic) produces.
Prophets lead repentance and preach righteousness--and that's what we do. We are unbalanced in the way shepherd-dominated, parish priest, pastor led congregations are. The specific abuses are different in the end, but they are abuses nonetheless.
I have hoped, for some time, that a genuinely apostolic person would take interest in us. But, if the Lord has called any to us, s/he has declined His leading.
At any rate, we are at a bit of an impasse. We've gotten to where our journey has led but not to the place we hoped to be.
Interestingly, we have asked the appropriate renewal people in the ERC and CGGC for assistance only to be told that they have nothing available that will assist us.
I am at a loss.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
The Whitewashing of the Story of Midwest Regional Conference Sessions
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness." (Jesus, Matthew 23:27)
----------------------------------
We are well into the CGGC's Yay God Tour 2014.
The eNews has reported on the goings on in the ERC, ARC, GLRC and MRC plus the California Eldership in a way that could make anyone want to add those accounts to the end of Acts 2.
Same old, same old.
About the time of the meeting of my own ERC this May, I picked up an old ERC Conference Journal from about five years ago and skimmed through that docket which projected the same tone of awe and praise for the Lord's amazing blessing on the Conference that we read this in this year's eNews articles. Interestingly, Conventional Wisdom today is that five years ago things were really not so grand, after all...
...but, of course, all is groovy now!
Because I could not attend ERC this year, I asked several others who did attend to give me their impressions.
After highlighting many of the reports by Commissions, staff people and one member of the Conference invited to give a testimonial to the effectiveness of a leadership program in transforming his congregation, one of my friends said with intense frustration, "I’m tired of the Hype..."
My sense is that many in the CGGC are tired of it, too.
----------------------------------
I was particularly struck by the totality of what I read about the Midwest Regional Conference gathering.
The first thing I read about it was not in the eNews. It from a blog posting of a CGGC friend who is a member of that Conference. Like me, my friend is no longer draws a salary from his calling. And, like me, his current job kept him away from his Conference's sessions.
In his post entitled "Missing Conference," he articulated much of what is in my heart but with a feeling and sensitivity that is beyond my gift and calling. His words are poignant to me. I feel them deeply. Because he also speaks for me, I quote him at length. Consider his words as coming from me, if I had his tender heart.
Among other things, he said:
"... like my friend [i.e., me] who wrote a similar post, I too wish I were there. . .There is that group of people (usually found at the top of the leadership structure) who have this total disdain for anyone with even a smidgen of prophet in them. They don't like to be challenged, don't want to hear truth, and mostly they probably just have a giant fear of conflict. . .Contrary to what many people think, people like me are not really angry at others, and we don't want to be troublemakers. We're actually trying to be helpful! There are things that we feel need to be said. Personally, I really WANT to fit into the group and be a part of discussions and help try to make things better. But it's frustrating. And I can't explain it very well. . . I'm tired of fighting the battle. I'm tired of caring. I'm tired of trying."
I, for one, think he explained it VERY well.
Can you feel the despair, the anxiety in those sentences--the yearning for a genuine fellowship that is in the Spirit, rooted in passion for commonly embraced truths. Can you feel the love for Jesus? Can you feel the pain of separation?
I can sense, in those words, similar moments when Elijah and Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul felt their own longing for fellowship in the Lord with the religious institutionalists in their own times and places.
Now, contrast the passions, sorrow and laments contained in my friend's sentences with the jubilant, gleeful account of Midwest Regional Conference sessions contain in Ed's eNews published on June 27.
As is the case with all of Ed's accounts of the gatherings of the institutional CGGC, Ed's account of MRC is absolutely pentecostal. According to Ed, the Word was preached with clarity. The Ordinances were celebrated with authenticity and power. Reports of God's blessing on renewal efforts were promising. Accounts shared regarding church planting and the growth of the seminary were exhilarating.
You'd think that if there are tears shed among the people of the MRC, they can only be tears of joy.
But, that is not the whole truth, as my friend's yearning, anxiety and despair make clear.
---------------------------------
One surprising characteristic of the CGGC Shepherd Mafia is that when members of our body are hurting--as my friend is--those people are not reached out to with compassion. They are not nurtured. They are not encouraged. They are not restored.
Their suffering is pretended away.
Their existence is whitewashed, expunged from the CGGC record.
I trust that there is much truth in Ed's account of the goings on at MRC sessions. But, as always, I know that Ed's truth is far from the entire truth.
It strikes me that, in Jesus' description of Judgment Day in which He likens that Day to the day that a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, Jesus says that it is not only what we do in His Name that will matter, it will also matter whom we do it.
He promises to say, "Whatever you did to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did to me."
Yet, in the eNews CGGC today, there are no least of these remaining among us. All is joy. All is blessing. All is peace. All is strength and growth and power.
The existence of those in despair has been covered over with whitewash that dazzles the eye.
Like my ERC friend, I am tired of the hype.
Like my MRC friend, "I really WANT to fit into the group and be a part of discussions and help try to make things better."
Awaiting the day that the CGGC feels the godly sorrow that produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret.
----------------------------------
We are well into the CGGC's Yay God Tour 2014.
The eNews has reported on the goings on in the ERC, ARC, GLRC and MRC plus the California Eldership in a way that could make anyone want to add those accounts to the end of Acts 2.
Same old, same old.
About the time of the meeting of my own ERC this May, I picked up an old ERC Conference Journal from about five years ago and skimmed through that docket which projected the same tone of awe and praise for the Lord's amazing blessing on the Conference that we read this in this year's eNews articles. Interestingly, Conventional Wisdom today is that five years ago things were really not so grand, after all...
...but, of course, all is groovy now!
Because I could not attend ERC this year, I asked several others who did attend to give me their impressions.
After highlighting many of the reports by Commissions, staff people and one member of the Conference invited to give a testimonial to the effectiveness of a leadership program in transforming his congregation, one of my friends said with intense frustration, "I’m tired of the Hype..."
My sense is that many in the CGGC are tired of it, too.
----------------------------------
I was particularly struck by the totality of what I read about the Midwest Regional Conference gathering.
The first thing I read about it was not in the eNews. It from a blog posting of a CGGC friend who is a member of that Conference. Like me, my friend is no longer draws a salary from his calling. And, like me, his current job kept him away from his Conference's sessions.
In his post entitled "Missing Conference," he articulated much of what is in my heart but with a feeling and sensitivity that is beyond my gift and calling. His words are poignant to me. I feel them deeply. Because he also speaks for me, I quote him at length. Consider his words as coming from me, if I had his tender heart.
Among other things, he said:
"... like my friend [i.e., me] who wrote a similar post, I too wish I were there. . .There is that group of people (usually found at the top of the leadership structure) who have this total disdain for anyone with even a smidgen of prophet in them. They don't like to be challenged, don't want to hear truth, and mostly they probably just have a giant fear of conflict. . .Contrary to what many people think, people like me are not really angry at others, and we don't want to be troublemakers. We're actually trying to be helpful! There are things that we feel need to be said. Personally, I really WANT to fit into the group and be a part of discussions and help try to make things better. But it's frustrating. And I can't explain it very well. . . I'm tired of fighting the battle. I'm tired of caring. I'm tired of trying."
I, for one, think he explained it VERY well.
Can you feel the despair, the anxiety in those sentences--the yearning for a genuine fellowship that is in the Spirit, rooted in passion for commonly embraced truths. Can you feel the love for Jesus? Can you feel the pain of separation?
I can sense, in those words, similar moments when Elijah and Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul felt their own longing for fellowship in the Lord with the religious institutionalists in their own times and places.
Now, contrast the passions, sorrow and laments contained in my friend's sentences with the jubilant, gleeful account of Midwest Regional Conference sessions contain in Ed's eNews published on June 27.
As is the case with all of Ed's accounts of the gatherings of the institutional CGGC, Ed's account of MRC is absolutely pentecostal. According to Ed, the Word was preached with clarity. The Ordinances were celebrated with authenticity and power. Reports of God's blessing on renewal efforts were promising. Accounts shared regarding church planting and the growth of the seminary were exhilarating.
You'd think that if there are tears shed among the people of the MRC, they can only be tears of joy.
But, that is not the whole truth, as my friend's yearning, anxiety and despair make clear.
---------------------------------
One surprising characteristic of the CGGC Shepherd Mafia is that when members of our body are hurting--as my friend is--those people are not reached out to with compassion. They are not nurtured. They are not encouraged. They are not restored.
Their suffering is pretended away.
Their existence is whitewashed, expunged from the CGGC record.
I trust that there is much truth in Ed's account of the goings on at MRC sessions. But, as always, I know that Ed's truth is far from the entire truth.
It strikes me that, in Jesus' description of Judgment Day in which He likens that Day to the day that a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, Jesus says that it is not only what we do in His Name that will matter, it will also matter whom we do it.
He promises to say, "Whatever you did to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did to me."
Yet, in the eNews CGGC today, there are no least of these remaining among us. All is joy. All is blessing. All is peace. All is strength and growth and power.
The existence of those in despair has been covered over with whitewash that dazzles the eye.
Like my ERC friend, I am tired of the hype.
Like my MRC friend, "I really WANT to fit into the group and be a part of discussions and help try to make things better."
Awaiting the day that the CGGC feels the godly sorrow that produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Ed Rosenberry Trashes the Thesis of Jim Moss' RETURNING TO OUR FIRST LOVE
FYI, I attempted weeks ago, privately, to engage Ed in conversation about what he has said. To this point, he has ignored that invitation.
--------------------------------------------
In my Same Sex Marriage thread, I passed on this comment by one of several people who responds to this blog under the radar and away from the gaze of the dons of the CGGC Shepherd Mafia:
"I would think with all those who have a Dr. degree in the conference there would be more Theological treatises coming out."
I agree entirely.
It is a historical reality that, when the Body of Christ is thriving, issues of theology, even philosophy, are discussed energetically, vibrantly. Consider, for instance, the philosophical and theological tones Paul strikes in Romans and Galatians, in which he explores the meaning of the Gospel in terms of secular Roman law and its concepts of condemnation and justification. Read Hebrews for theology and philosophy. Consider the many volumes that comprise the Works of Luther and of Calvin from the age of the Reformation.
Or, much closer to our theological home, read through the writings of John Winebrenner and C. H. Forney which, these days, are still mentioned in CGGC polity classes but which are deemed too deep today for any setting that is not academic. (And, note that we have to reach 100 to 150 years into our past in the CGGC to find important works with theological significance.)
The one person who is the exception to the death of serious thinking and writing in the CGGC in recent decades has been James Moss, Sr., who is now retired yet is still producing provocative works that attempt to keep thought alive in the CGGC.
There are two reasons very close to my heart that I consider Jim's book, Returning to our First Love to be his most important work.
First, the book is rooted in the study of CGGC history. It is a careful examination of "church planting" in the Church of God from our movement's first days up to the date of the books publication in 1995.
Second, the book is, the most rare of all rarities in the CGGC, a call to repentance--a call to change who and what the CGGC has become and to return to the spirituality, vitality and obedience that once were the core realities that drove the Church of God.
Because I love Moss' book so dearly for those reasons so important to me, when I read the recent issue of The Church Advocate I immediately noted that, in his brief article at the beginning of the issue, Ed Rosenberry--in a single sentence--thoroughly discounted and trashed the central idea in Jim Moss's great and important book.
Say what you might say in favor or in criticism of Ed Rosenberry, you must acknowledge that he is a powerful writer who possesses the ability to write, as he did here, in a single sentence, what requires others an entire book to write.
But then, uprooting and tearing down, destroying and overthrowing and more easily done than the building and planting Jim attempted.
The offending sentence (in its context):
"(John Winebrenner and other Church of God founders) wanted to see a Church committed to making disciples and establishing congregations in Jesus' name. [This sentence itself is a subtle, clever and, in my opinion, devious misrepresentation of the truth. (Now here is Ed's devastating sentence:)] That mission has remained the prime objective of the CGGC to the present day."
The very title of Moss' book, which argues that what once was the prime objective of the Church of God is something that must be returned to, reveals what Jim attempted to build and what Ed is dismantling.
Moss' book is clear in demonstrating that our body had lost its founding vision/first love/prime objective and, for a time, completely abandoned all attempts to establish churches in Jesus' name or for any other reason.
Moss includes one chapter explaining, with great insight, twelve reasons why so many CGGC churches have closed and another chapter offering twelve additional reasons why our body stopped planting churches. Included in this list is, "A turning aside from our first love" (p.113), something Ed Rosenberry now asserts the CGGC never did!
Everyone who has even a modest knowledge of CGGC history knows that Jim Moss is correct. And, the truth is that, if any person living today knows CGGC history better than Jim Moss, it is Ed Rosenberry.
----------------------------------------
Oddly...
...I vividly recall a conversation that Ed and I had about CGGC history during the days when we still held two-sided conversations.
I had just led a break-out session on Church of God history during the annual sessions of ERC several years ago and Ed, Linda and I chatted casually after long everyone else moved on.
Ed told me that he had, by that time, put together an outline for a History of the Churches of God.
I told him to his face that the outline he described was impressive and timely and I strongly encouraged him to write the book because I am, to this day, convinced that our body could benefit from his insight.
His outline is simple: The Church of God began as a movement; it changed and became an organization and that it has ultimately become an institution.
Ed described his purpose in writing such a history of our body as a call to return to our movement days.
Implicit in his outline is the very argument Jim Moss makes in Returning to our First Love, that is, the CGGC did really lose its first love and that it must become what it used to be.
That being the case, clearly, there was a time that Ed rejected his recent assertion, "That mission has remained the prime objective of the CGGC to the present day."
--------------------------------------
I think it is time that I be clear about what is implied in much of what I write here: Ed Rosenberry is a problem for the CGGC but Ed is not our most serious problem.
Ed is a problem because he has, for instance, stated that he (now apparently) believes that the church is an institution and that leading the institution of the church is very similar to leading an institution like a bank!
Ed pushed for nearly six years for a revised We Believe which affirms that the Bible is our "only" "rule" and then advocated the observance of Lent, something foreign to the pages of the Bible.
Last December, he donned a priestly collar and to lead a high church Advent Mass from the Episcopal tradition at Winebrenner Seminary.
Ed regularly flaunts his opposition to long-established and to recently affirmed teachings and practices of the CGGC and he does it, apparently, without shame or guilt.
But, the real problem in the CGGC today is that the CGGC body, as a whole, allows Ed to make these theologically corrupt and inconsistent statements and take these actions without a word of admonition.
Ed incarnates To Talk is to Walk-ism. But, he does it with permission. And, not only permission. He does it with support. Everyone who reads this and is a part of the CGGC, apart from me, is Ed's accomplice.
Our problem is with Ed only to the extent that he incarnates the dysfunctional CGGC culture. But, truly, our greatest spiritual issue is with the lack of love for--and obedience to--truth.
--------------------------------------------
In my Same Sex Marriage thread, I passed on this comment by one of several people who responds to this blog under the radar and away from the gaze of the dons of the CGGC Shepherd Mafia:
"I would think with all those who have a Dr. degree in the conference there would be more Theological treatises coming out."
I agree entirely.
It is a historical reality that, when the Body of Christ is thriving, issues of theology, even philosophy, are discussed energetically, vibrantly. Consider, for instance, the philosophical and theological tones Paul strikes in Romans and Galatians, in which he explores the meaning of the Gospel in terms of secular Roman law and its concepts of condemnation and justification. Read Hebrews for theology and philosophy. Consider the many volumes that comprise the Works of Luther and of Calvin from the age of the Reformation.
Or, much closer to our theological home, read through the writings of John Winebrenner and C. H. Forney which, these days, are still mentioned in CGGC polity classes but which are deemed too deep today for any setting that is not academic. (And, note that we have to reach 100 to 150 years into our past in the CGGC to find important works with theological significance.)
The one person who is the exception to the death of serious thinking and writing in the CGGC in recent decades has been James Moss, Sr., who is now retired yet is still producing provocative works that attempt to keep thought alive in the CGGC.
There are two reasons very close to my heart that I consider Jim's book, Returning to our First Love to be his most important work.
First, the book is rooted in the study of CGGC history. It is a careful examination of "church planting" in the Church of God from our movement's first days up to the date of the books publication in 1995.
Second, the book is, the most rare of all rarities in the CGGC, a call to repentance--a call to change who and what the CGGC has become and to return to the spirituality, vitality and obedience that once were the core realities that drove the Church of God.
Because I love Moss' book so dearly for those reasons so important to me, when I read the recent issue of The Church Advocate I immediately noted that, in his brief article at the beginning of the issue, Ed Rosenberry--in a single sentence--thoroughly discounted and trashed the central idea in Jim Moss's great and important book.
Say what you might say in favor or in criticism of Ed Rosenberry, you must acknowledge that he is a powerful writer who possesses the ability to write, as he did here, in a single sentence, what requires others an entire book to write.
But then, uprooting and tearing down, destroying and overthrowing and more easily done than the building and planting Jim attempted.
The offending sentence (in its context):
"(John Winebrenner and other Church of God founders) wanted to see a Church committed to making disciples and establishing congregations in Jesus' name. [This sentence itself is a subtle, clever and, in my opinion, devious misrepresentation of the truth. (Now here is Ed's devastating sentence:)] That mission has remained the prime objective of the CGGC to the present day."
The very title of Moss' book, which argues that what once was the prime objective of the Church of God is something that must be returned to, reveals what Jim attempted to build and what Ed is dismantling.
Moss' book is clear in demonstrating that our body had lost its founding vision/first love/prime objective and, for a time, completely abandoned all attempts to establish churches in Jesus' name or for any other reason.
Moss includes one chapter explaining, with great insight, twelve reasons why so many CGGC churches have closed and another chapter offering twelve additional reasons why our body stopped planting churches. Included in this list is, "A turning aside from our first love" (p.113), something Ed Rosenberry now asserts the CGGC never did!
Everyone who has even a modest knowledge of CGGC history knows that Jim Moss is correct. And, the truth is that, if any person living today knows CGGC history better than Jim Moss, it is Ed Rosenberry.
----------------------------------------
Oddly...
...I vividly recall a conversation that Ed and I had about CGGC history during the days when we still held two-sided conversations.
I had just led a break-out session on Church of God history during the annual sessions of ERC several years ago and Ed, Linda and I chatted casually after long everyone else moved on.
Ed told me that he had, by that time, put together an outline for a History of the Churches of God.
I told him to his face that the outline he described was impressive and timely and I strongly encouraged him to write the book because I am, to this day, convinced that our body could benefit from his insight.
His outline is simple: The Church of God began as a movement; it changed and became an organization and that it has ultimately become an institution.
Ed described his purpose in writing such a history of our body as a call to return to our movement days.
Implicit in his outline is the very argument Jim Moss makes in Returning to our First Love, that is, the CGGC did really lose its first love and that it must become what it used to be.
That being the case, clearly, there was a time that Ed rejected his recent assertion, "That mission has remained the prime objective of the CGGC to the present day."
--------------------------------------
I think it is time that I be clear about what is implied in much of what I write here: Ed Rosenberry is a problem for the CGGC but Ed is not our most serious problem.
Ed is a problem because he has, for instance, stated that he (now apparently) believes that the church is an institution and that leading the institution of the church is very similar to leading an institution like a bank!
Ed pushed for nearly six years for a revised We Believe which affirms that the Bible is our "only" "rule" and then advocated the observance of Lent, something foreign to the pages of the Bible.
Last December, he donned a priestly collar and to lead a high church Advent Mass from the Episcopal tradition at Winebrenner Seminary.
Ed regularly flaunts his opposition to long-established and to recently affirmed teachings and practices of the CGGC and he does it, apparently, without shame or guilt.
But, the real problem in the CGGC today is that the CGGC body, as a whole, allows Ed to make these theologically corrupt and inconsistent statements and take these actions without a word of admonition.
Ed incarnates To Talk is to Walk-ism. But, he does it with permission. And, not only permission. He does it with support. Everyone who reads this and is a part of the CGGC, apart from me, is Ed's accomplice.
Our problem is with Ed only to the extent that he incarnates the dysfunctional CGGC culture. But, truly, our greatest spiritual issue is with the lack of love for--and obedience to--truth.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Seeking 35,000 by 2000. Celebrating 28,000 in 2013.
One of the people who regularly responds to my blogs under the radar, i.e., in personal emails away from the gaze of CGGC leadership, repeatedly makes the claim that CGGC leaders--especially in Findlay--do what they do in order to justify the jobs they hold, the cushy offices they sit in and the juicy salaries they draw on the tithes and offerings of the CGGC faithful.
I have resisted reaching that conclusion--and I still resist it--because I know most of those people fairly well and it's hard for me to be that cynical about them.
However, there are times that it is difficult to defend the Findlay gang. This is one of those occasions.
Have you looked over the latest issue of The Church Advocate yet?
It's first article is a very clever piece of writing by Ed Rosenberry which begins, "This issue of The Church Advocate is devoted to celebrating what the Lord is doing in and through the Churches of God, General Conference (CGGC)."
The article concludes:
"So, while celebrating what the Lord is doing as revealed in these pages, be bold to ask Him what part you might play in the work. May next year reveal even greater forward progress in and through the CGGC because we all stepped up."
The article prepares the reader to see CGGC statistics for 2013, which appear near the end of the issue. In spite of Ed's tone, it seems to me that the numbers don't add up to the conclusion that we should be thanking the Lord for pouring out amazing blessing "in and through the Churches of God, General Conference."
Two statistics are suggestive of CGGC reality in 2013.
1. I recall that, during the 35,000 by 2000 campaign, that was taking place 20 years ago, there were just slightly more than 350 CGGC American congregations. in 2013, the total in the U. S. is 336.
And, that decline of about five percent includes a pretty substantial mountain of congregations added by the process of what the folks in Findlay dub "adoption," or the recruiting of already established churches or non-CGGC church planters who decide to join the CGGC and are adopted by a "judicatory" in the CGGC.
I don't know what the number of adopted congregations were as of 2013 but I do know that most of the boasting ERC church planting does is of what has been added to ERC numbers through adoption and not as a result of the Lord blessing existing ERC ministries.
2. As the title of this post suggests, Ed is celebrating an average worship attendance far below the goal we established in the 90s for the year 2000.
The reported worship attendance of CGGC churches in 2013 is 28,072.
Two of my characteristics of the CGGC brand are Cynicism and To Talk is to Walk-ism. Both characteristics are in play in the latest issue of The Church Advocate.
There are many hundreds in the CGGC today who are cynical about everything that comes out of Findlay. They are predisposed to see this invitation to celebrate "what the Lord is doing" as phony. And, based on this issue of The Church Advocate they seem to be justified. Issues of The Church Advocate such as this justify the widespread cynicism among our pastors and people. This attempt to declare what is going on in the CGGC as worthy of celebration is classic to talk is to walk-ism.
The reality that CGGC worship attendance will have to increase by 25% in order for our body to achieve what it hoped for when it began 35,000 by 2000 in the mid 90s.
I don't see the rosy picture that Ed attempts to convince us is present to be seen.
We must repent and begin to care about is true and what is false.
I have resisted reaching that conclusion--and I still resist it--because I know most of those people fairly well and it's hard for me to be that cynical about them.
However, there are times that it is difficult to defend the Findlay gang. This is one of those occasions.
Have you looked over the latest issue of The Church Advocate yet?
It's first article is a very clever piece of writing by Ed Rosenberry which begins, "This issue of The Church Advocate is devoted to celebrating what the Lord is doing in and through the Churches of God, General Conference (CGGC)."
The article concludes:
"So, while celebrating what the Lord is doing as revealed in these pages, be bold to ask Him what part you might play in the work. May next year reveal even greater forward progress in and through the CGGC because we all stepped up."
The article prepares the reader to see CGGC statistics for 2013, which appear near the end of the issue. In spite of Ed's tone, it seems to me that the numbers don't add up to the conclusion that we should be thanking the Lord for pouring out amazing blessing "in and through the Churches of God, General Conference."
Two statistics are suggestive of CGGC reality in 2013.
1. I recall that, during the 35,000 by 2000 campaign, that was taking place 20 years ago, there were just slightly more than 350 CGGC American congregations. in 2013, the total in the U. S. is 336.
And, that decline of about five percent includes a pretty substantial mountain of congregations added by the process of what the folks in Findlay dub "adoption," or the recruiting of already established churches or non-CGGC church planters who decide to join the CGGC and are adopted by a "judicatory" in the CGGC.
I don't know what the number of adopted congregations were as of 2013 but I do know that most of the boasting ERC church planting does is of what has been added to ERC numbers through adoption and not as a result of the Lord blessing existing ERC ministries.
2. As the title of this post suggests, Ed is celebrating an average worship attendance far below the goal we established in the 90s for the year 2000.
The reported worship attendance of CGGC churches in 2013 is 28,072.
Two of my characteristics of the CGGC brand are Cynicism and To Talk is to Walk-ism. Both characteristics are in play in the latest issue of The Church Advocate.
There are many hundreds in the CGGC today who are cynical about everything that comes out of Findlay. They are predisposed to see this invitation to celebrate "what the Lord is doing" as phony. And, based on this issue of The Church Advocate they seem to be justified. Issues of The Church Advocate such as this justify the widespread cynicism among our pastors and people. This attempt to declare what is going on in the CGGC as worthy of celebration is classic to talk is to walk-ism.
The reality that CGGC worship attendance will have to increase by 25% in order for our body to achieve what it hoped for when it began 35,000 by 2000 in the mid 90s.
I don't see the rosy picture that Ed attempts to convince us is present to be seen.
We must repent and begin to care about is true and what is false.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Same Sex Marriage. What Comes Next? Implications for Christian Leadership!
Many of us in Pennsylvania were startled when, a few weeks ago, a Federal Judge struck down our state's law defining marriage as being between one man and one woman and we were discouraged by the decision, the next day, by our Roman Catholic governor, not to appeal the decision.
Please understand: I like all of the guys who sit at the top of all the CGGC pyramids.
I know them and consider them all to be perfectly sincere and entirely well-intentioned. I accept the reality that most, if not all of them, genuinely believe that the best future for the CGGC is one in which we all think about how we spent Eastertide and that we all entered Eastertide after a sincere celebration of Lent and a pious observation of Holy Week--i.e., that we do all what the best Christians did in the year A.D. 800.
But, times have changed.
Times are changing more rapidly with each passing decade.
And the world in which the Son of God became flesh and lived is not calling for the witness of the church that existed a thousand or more years ago.
We need to change what's at the top of our pyramid--if we are to have any future.
With that in mind, then, you may consider the leadership of the ERC to have been prescient because it had, during Conference sessions just two weeks earlier, suggested that ERC churches include language in their official documents declaring that the "___________________ Church of God" only performs weddings between one man and one woman.
Three thoughts:
1. As always, ERC (and the entire CGGC) leadership seeks an institutional remedy to a spiritual problem in the culture.
What difference is it going to make on the Day that the Son of Man appears in His glory, along with the angels, and sits on His glorious throne and separates the people of the world as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats that the ____________________ Church of God has language in its legal documents protecting itself, on an institutional level, from the need to allow a same sex wedding on its premises?
The issue the church faces is one of righteousness and sin, not of institutional insulation.
2. Consider the exponential rate at which institutional (especially Evangelical) Christianity is being insulated from mainstream American culture.
At this moment, history is changing in a way that it does only once in every thousand years or more. What the Roman Emperor Constantine began to put in place 1,700 years ago is finally and suddenly collapsing--as we read the daily headlines.
To me, though, what is truly timely in all of this, is not the sudden acceptance of same sex marriage.
Even more significant is the recent Time Magazine cover which identifies the struggle for transgender equality as the next Civil Rights movement saying, "Nearly a year after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, another social movement is poised to challenge deeply held cultural beliefs" and identifying that movement as the struggle for transgender acceptance.
To me, though, what is truly timely in all of this, is not the sudden acceptance of same sex marriage.
Even more significant is the recent Time Magazine cover which identifies the struggle for transgender equality as the next Civil Rights movement saying, "Nearly a year after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, another social movement is poised to challenge deeply held cultural beliefs" and identifying that movement as the struggle for transgender acceptance.
The institutional Evangelical American church is now on the defensive--as the ERC's move to protect its churches makes clear.
Institutional Evangelical Christianity is, suddenly, the dinosaur on the American landscape. The world in which it was fit to exist has evaporated away more rapidly than we could have dreamed--and the rate of change is quickening.
Institutional Evangelical Christianity is, suddenly, the dinosaur on the American landscape. The world in which it was fit to exist has evaporated away more rapidly than we could have dreamed--and the rate of change is quickening.
Think for a moment: Because the CGGC has become thoroughly institutionized, what defensive, institutional remedy will CGGC leadership now concoct to preserve the sanctity of, for example, its churches' bathrooms in anticipation of the day that a person who is biologically a man sues the XYZ Church of God because it discriminates against his spiritual need to use the women's potty?
What bylaw might it suggest to preserve the purity of its nurseries and children's Sunday School class rooms when a transvestite sues in court to serve there?
And, what unrighteous, yet culturally-accepted, movement will come after this one? And, how quickly will that movement gain momentum?
What bylaw might it suggest to preserve the purity of its nurseries and children's Sunday School class rooms when a transvestite sues in court to serve there?
And, what unrighteous, yet culturally-accepted, movement will come after this one? And, how quickly will that movement gain momentum?
Can anyone else see how quickly the institutional American church is becoming a laughingstock in mainstream American culture?
The truth to which the institutional Evangelical church must adapt is that institutional Christianity has, from the days of Constantine, required the existence of a culture that looks to it as the institution which upholds its moral values.
The relationship between church and culture that makes institutional Evangelical Christianity viable is broken and it is not likely to be repaired.
The church as an institution is no longer viable in the United States.
Suddenly, institutional Christianity is the Edsel.
The truth to which the institutional Evangelical church must adapt is that institutional Christianity has, from the days of Constantine, required the existence of a culture that looks to it as the institution which upholds its moral values.
The relationship between church and culture that makes institutional Evangelical Christianity viable is broken and it is not likely to be repaired.
The church as an institution is no longer viable in the United States.
Suddenly, institutional Christianity is the Edsel.
3. American Christians need, immediately, to refashion their understanding of what kind of person is spiritually fit to provide them what they call leadership.
It may already be too late for this to make a difference for Evangelical denominational Christianity in America.
In the CGGC, specifically, we need to take stock of the fact that the people who lead us are not taking us into the future. They produce fruit of wanting to take the CGGC back into the Middle Ages.
Right now the eNews articles are about how Ed spent his EASTERTIDE.
Eastertide?
Eastertide!
The second to last edition of The Church Advocate strongly recommended the celebration of Lent--which was all the rage in Middle Ages Catholicism a thousand years ago--in the CGGC.
In the ERC, we were recently favored by articles written by the Executive Director and his wife on the spiritual value and importance of the observance of Holy Week.
Those who sit in CGGC staff offices are promoting a Medieval version of the church at the very moment when the culture is saying that the intimate connection between culture and Christianity that gave birth to Medieval Christianity is precisely what it neither wants nor needs! Oh, how John Winebrenner would have cringed!
-------------------------------
In the CGGC, specifically, we need to take stock of the fact that the people who lead us are not taking us into the future. They produce fruit of wanting to take the CGGC back into the Middle Ages.
Right now the eNews articles are about how Ed spent his EASTERTIDE.
Eastertide?
Eastertide!
The second to last edition of The Church Advocate strongly recommended the celebration of Lent--which was all the rage in Middle Ages Catholicism a thousand years ago--in the CGGC.
In the ERC, we were recently favored by articles written by the Executive Director and his wife on the spiritual value and importance of the observance of Holy Week.
Those who sit in CGGC staff offices are promoting a Medieval version of the church at the very moment when the culture is saying that the intimate connection between culture and Christianity that gave birth to Medieval Christianity is precisely what it neither wants nor needs! Oh, how John Winebrenner would have cringed!
-------------------------------
Please understand: I like all of the guys who sit at the top of all the CGGC pyramids.
I know them and consider them all to be perfectly sincere and entirely well-intentioned. I accept the reality that most, if not all of them, genuinely believe that the best future for the CGGC is one in which we all think about how we spent Eastertide and that we all entered Eastertide after a sincere celebration of Lent and a pious observation of Holy Week--i.e., that we do all what the best Christians did in the year A.D. 800.
But, times have changed.
Times are changing more rapidly with each passing decade.
And the world in which the Son of God became flesh and lived is not calling for the witness of the church that existed a thousand or more years ago.
We need to change what's at the top of our pyramid--if we are to have any future.
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