Would Lance Hire John Winebrenner?

The latest eNews announced the search for a new General Conference Director of Communications.

This job announcement interested me especially because, back in the day, Evie held the position of General Conference Director of Communications. This is, with some evolution in the job description, her old job.

Things have changed tons since Dave Draper hired Evie in the mid 1990s. We are not who we were even then.

Our decline and decay has advanced for more than two decades since then.

Since then, Wayne Boyer then Ed Rosenberry and now Lance Finley have assumed the institutional corner office.

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Anyway, I looked over the documents Lance attached to the announcement of the job opening, the last document being, Director General Expectations.

In recent years, as I do the, "to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow" part of my calling, I think about the tragic shift in our paradigm, from servant-based to leadership-obsessed, from primitive movement to polished institution, etc.,...

...and, initially, as I read the document, I thought about what Lance and today's "leaders" are looking for in the person who will sit behind the desk in that office.

At first, as a student of revivals, the question in my mind was, "Is this the sort of person who would be valued in a dynamic revival movement?"

Read the documents at the end of the eNews article. Read this particular document.

Clearly, the answer is, no.

Of course, movements don't have human Directors at all. Movements follow the Spirit.

Movements, from the human point of view, are erratic. Movements are rough and untidy. And, the people who rise to positions of influence in them are, often, unwashed and unsophisticated and grossly unacceptable to the humans who people and lead institutions...the sort of people the first apostles are described as being.

A moment of self-analysis, here. I've been a student of revivals since the mid 1970s, since I was a young man, since I was new in the faith.

I fell in love with the history of the Church of God in those days. Later, I studied revivalism at the school whose campus houses the United Methodist Archives. 

My training and orientation is from both perspectives. 

Curiously, when I think of revivalism in a general sense, I think of it in Methodist terms. When I think of it specifically, I think in Church of God terms. 

So my initial question:

Is this the sort of person who would be valued in a dynamic revival movement?,"...

...is a Methodist question, i.e., would John and Charles Wesley and the earliest Methodists have valued such a person?

After I asked and answered that general question, my mind immediately shifted into the specific, i.e., Church of God, realm and asked:

Would Lance (and the Search Committee) hire John Winebrenner?

There can be no question in my mind about it. The answer is no.

The person described in the Director General Expectations is not John Winebrenner.

John Winebrenner is not the person Lance has in mind...by a long shot.

If you could have extracted DNA from Winebrenner's corpse and cloned him so that he'd be of an appropriate age today, if he'd submit a CV for this position, he'd not even have a chance to survive the first cut. He wouldn't get an initial interview.

Think about who they want. Then, think  about who Winebrenner was.

From the introductory paragraph of the document, Winebrenner wouldn't possess the highly valued "administrative competencies."

Certainly, Winebrenner lacked the "Ability to create and articulate Vision and Strategy for ministry department." Vision? Perhaps, though his vision was precisely at odds withtoday's vision.

Strategy? Rotflol!

Could John Winebrenner, "Create systems which enable the work to be done in an efficient and timely manner?" Bahahahaha!

Read the, brief, document with a Spirit-empower person like John Winebrenner in mind. (Warning: Have a barf bag to hand.)

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I, sometimes, listen to a Philadelphia Sports Talk radio station on my drive to work. One of the members of broadcast team is, sometimes, described as having the ability to "polish a turd." And, that's what I thought when I read the General Expectations document.

Understand what is at stake here!

This document charts the future Lance and the other people holding institutional authority in the CGGC today have for us.

They want to raise up people who are gifted administrators...polished bureaucrats...to create our future.

Theirs is the value system that took hold more than 30 years ago when the framers of our current Constitution described the Executive Director of the CGGC as our CEO.

The people who possess institutional authority in the CGGC today love that way of thinking. They have no intention of turning from it.

Lance and his team are fixin to extend that vision into the 2020s, 30s and 40s.

And, the John Winebrenners of the Kingdom today need not seek a place of influence in the CGGC.

Woe is we!

We must repent.