Leadership is a Legitimate New Testament Concept

The current holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are confused. I love them, but they are certainly confused.

The holders of institutional authority in the CGGC certainly are sincere but they are as muddle-brained as ever.

They think of themselves as leaders hoping to expand the work of the Kingdom. They seek to raise up and develop more leaders.

Yet, when the disciples James and John asked Jesus to give them positions of authority, Jesus famously rebuked them and said to the disciples that whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

For years, I've been prophesying that this leadership kick our holders of institutional authority are on is wrong, anti-gospel, misguided, unblessed, un-blessable, failing and doomed to ultimate failure. That it absolutely will increase our numerical decline and, more importantly, our spiritual decay. 

I have said this many, many times. I never tire of blogging it...though, based on feedback, even some of the more enthusiastic readers of this blog may be getting tired. Still, I continue. 

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Having said that about the leadership folly, there's been something else, something related, that's been in my mind for a long time that I've never written or said and I don't know why because I think it's important. It's the title of this post:

Leadership is a legitimate New Testament concept. 

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Quite some time ago, in an eNews article, Lance quoted a New Testament verse mentioning church leaders: "Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you." (Heb. 13:7) There are two other verses in that chapter where the word for leader appears.

Leadership is, truly, a legitimate New Testament concept. 

But, there's an important distinction here. It's very similar to the reality that, in the Gospels, Jesus almost never mentions the church and that three of the four Gospels don't mention church at all, but references to the Kingdom fill the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus never describes humans as leaders. He never taught leadership. He did, though, implore His disciples to behave as servants, slaves even. Jesus defines greatness, in the Kingdom, not as leadership, but as slavery to others. 

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This is where the confusion rubber of the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC meets the road.

When thinking in Kingdom terms, greatness is a matter of a disciple being a servant...yearning to be a slave, even the slave of all.

When one thinks about church, however, the issue of human leadership is appropriate and necessary. 

It is,  therefore, only in the context of church that leadership is a legitimate New Testament concept. 

Read the first-ever CGGC Strategic Plan so recently developed by our holders of institutional authority and approved in the summer of 2019. 

Pop quiz: What is its new, second-ever, CGGC Mission Statement?

Hint: The notion of Kingdom is in the talk. 

(The way it's printed out is peculiar. I'll try to quote it in print accurately:)

Maximizing our collective potential for kingdom impact!

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For at least ten years, from the headquarters in Findlay at least, the talk has been that the CGGC must be Kingdom-oriented, not church-focused.

You see that in the second-ever Mission Statement. 

They talk about "kingdom impact."

Confusedly, though, human leadership, a church concept, is crucial to the plan for achieving the new statement of mission. 

Remember this from the Strategic Plan?

Contagious Awakening: By our 200th anniversary (2025), we will equip and release thousands of spiritually charged leaders  (emphasis mine) to every man, woman, and child to whom we are sent. This will happen by positioning ourselves for a movement of the Holy Spirit through repentance, reconciliation, and prayer.

That's the confusion. 

I believe that it can be, must be, understood to be theological corruption. 

The holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are attempting to put new wine in old wineskins. They are yearning to achieve Kingdom goals through church methods.

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Yet, understand the testimony of the Word:

Paul lived as a servant. (Romans 1:1) So did Peter. (2 Peter 1:1) James. (1:1) Jude, too. (1:1) So, ultimately, did John. (Rev. 1:1) 

Most crucially, so did Jesus who "came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many."

When Jesus called disciples, He didn't say, "Come, let me lead you..." He framed the call in terms of following, in terms of servanthood.

But, according to that Contagious Awakening thing, the current holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are, essentially, saying, "Come, let us lead you...."

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The confusion, the error, of the current holders of institutional authority in the CGGC is that they hope to share in expanding the Kingdom through their leadership, not joining Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, Jude and John in servanthood.

They want to raise up leaders, not servants,  not, hopefully, slaves.

Truly, leadership is a legitimate New Testament concept. 

But, it's church, not Kingdom, stuff. It's secondary. It's what comes later. 

The holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are wrong. They are hoping to use the ways of church to expand the Kingdom. That can't possibly work. 

We must repent. 

... to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This post is, more or less, a journal entry acknowledging recent events, with some musings on their significance.

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We just returned from picking up a young friend at the Newark, NJ airport. She is back from a two week long mission trip to Uganda.

Elizabeth has a powerful interest in the advancement of the gospel across the world. It seems clear to me that she's gifted to be an apostle. Her life presents clear fruit of apostleship, more clearly, I think, than anyone I've ever met.

I'm certain she knows nothing about APEST and her gifting exists in a very primitive state. For that reason, the evidence of her apostolic calling is remarkably pure.

From the moment we first saw her upon her arrival, she talked at length about her experiences in Uganda, as you might imagine.

I formed a conclusion that gives me understanding of the fact that the Lord is blessing ministry in many places across the world, but not in the West.

As Elizabeth described the ministry she was involved in, the activities were very heavy in living out the Sheep and Goats teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25: I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, and so on. There are six activities Jesus describes there.

Of course, Jesus turns those six upside down to explain why He rejects people: I was hungry and you didn't feed me, etc..

My sense that ministry in Uganda is centered in two activities.

1. Living out Matthew 25:34-40 with deadly seriousness. (As one example, she visited several prisons in her two weeks in Uganda.)

2. The preaching of the pure and simple gospel that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that He appeared to many people.

The Matthew 25 stuff is done in an organized way by organized ministries and by churches but more importantly, I think, it's also done by followers of Jesus individually, as a lifestyle. That is, for those people, to be a Christian it a way of life.

It seems that, in the ministry Elizabeth was involved with, new converts are not instructed In discipleship. It is simply understood that a believer lives what, in our religious world, is considered to be a radical lifestyle.

As I say, that style of ministry is profoundly blessed.

That's not the way ministry is done in the West, particularly by the CGGC.

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Anyway,...

The title of this post is a quotation from part of Ephesians 2:10.

Those are words around which Evie and I center our walk in a very serious and intentional way.

I believe that Western Christians fail to realize that righteousness, i.e., right living, is crucial to the life Jesus commands. He told people listening to what we call The Sermon on the Mount that unless your righteousness surpasses that the scribes and Pharisees you will not see the kingdom of heaven. Ouch.

It is true that we are saved by grace through faith. We are not saved by works.

Yet, a faith that saves us is a living, active faith. Paul makes that clear, as does James. And, it seems to me, the whole body of the teaching of Jesus is all about a faith that is alive and active.

So, Evie and I take great care to live out our faith.

When a person believes what we believe they realize that there are so many good works to do. From our experience, a person cannot do all the good works that are possible. Much more is left undone than is done.

So, Evie and I take those words of Paul from Ephesians very seriously. We attempt to determine which acts of grace and mercy God has prepared in advance for us to do and, of course, which He hasn't.

At one point, some time ago, we wondered about taking Elizabeth to the airport. Doing so took more time and more money...and energy... than you might imagine. And, no one else was offering.

Having done it, we now know that taking Elizabeth to and from the Newark airport, clearly was a work God prepared for us to do.

Throughout the whole effort to meet Elizabeth at the airport, we were blessed and aided...by complete strangers...in a way that made a very difficult and nerve wracking task easier and, even, enjoyable.

The Lord paved the way amazingly!

It is the one time in my walk that the Lord made it most incredibly clear that this act is one that arranged ahead of time for us.

What a blessing.

In my work at the store as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God, one thing I am asked about...perhaps more than anything else...is how I decide if an action that involves sacrifice and the living out of grace or mercy is a good work God prepared in advance.

I always have a poor answer. I never know for certain until I've acted...and, even then...

But, I'm convinced that this one was.

Renaming the CGGC CONTAGIOUS Blog

I'm in a unique place in the CGGC. I consider myself to be a devoted member of the body yet, officially I'm treated as if I don't exist.

Living in the midst of a thriving community of Anabaptists, including several tens of thousands of Amish, I know what the ban is. I have knowledge of what it is to be shunned among people who formally and officially embrace that practice as part of their teaching and practice. In fact, one of our dearest friends is banned from a very conservative "horse and buggy" Mennonite Conference.

We, in the CGGC don't formally embrace that practice...

...interestingly, though, in a real sense, in terms of the people who hold institutional authority in the CGGC, we practice it in regards to me.

In his last email to me, written some time ago, Lance told me that I shouldn't bother replying to him because, if I did, he wouldn't read my note. I did. And, I'm certain that he didn't.

And, while I'm in conversation with a nice handful of CGGC people I've known over the years, that last communication I received from Lance vividly describes my status among those who people the CGGC institution.

All of that is an aside to give understanding to the reality that I'm both an intimate insider and a shunned outsider in the CGGC.

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I've been a regular and devoted reader of the CGGC CONTAGIOUS Blog.

In fact, in recent months, I believe, I'm the only person to have placed comments on it. That is, I am the one and only person to have joined in the call to community and to collaborate in the blog dubbed CONTAGIOUS COLLABORATION.

I do wonder, from time to time, how they feel in our denominational headquarters building that:

1. Out of the entire CGGC body only one person has taken the call to community that is the blog seriously enough to be engaged in it, and

2. I, of all people, am that person.

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Anyway, I have a friend who faithfully makes certain that I receive the latest Newsletters, even though I've been removed from the mailing list...

...but, I know that I don't get all of the mailings and emailings.

So, perhaps you already know that...

...the CGGC's blog now has a new name.

It, originally was called CONTAGIOUS COLLABORATION. 

Recently, when I went on the blog, I had the sense that something was different and, for a while, I couldn't get to the root of the feeling.

Eventually, though, I looked to the top of my screen and read.

The blog's now, Contagious Awakening. 

A few thoughts.

1. The new masthead is very spiffy. Very Madison Avenue. In terms of glitz, it's an improvement.

It even contains the new, second ever, CGGC Mission Statement.

And, it has a subtitle: Together for more..

2. I don't think it's inappropriate to note that the first attempt to have a CGGC blog amounts to yet another failure in a long string of failures by CGGC institutionalists that makes the 1962 Mets seem like the 1927 Yankees.

In the spirit of uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow: I say, ask yourself what the track record of CONTAGIOUS COLLABORATION says about followership in the CGGC...

...and, what that commentary on followership in the CGGC says about the (in)ability of the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC to lead.

They call themselves leaders. They strive to lead...

...but who follows? Who, indeed.

Is it not world class irony to suggest that, in this case, if anyone followed, it was, well, me? ME. bill Sloat!!!! Bust a gut!

The leaders of the CGGC asked the body to let them lead us all into a conversation, and, these days, no one is conversing, collaborating, but me!

What a mess we all are.

One final note: I can't discuss the CGGC blog without adding a word of thanks to its Moderator, Mike Martin who has not only been tolerant of me, but has been gracious and even encouraging as I have collaborated in the CGGC conversation. Mike does read my emails...and answers them.

So, gang, enjoy the new blog!

My Comment on Lance's GLOBAL ADVOCATE Article on the Blog

There are many ways that the current holders of institutional authority in the CGGC have a faulty "baseline."

The one I illustrate in this comment is simple, yet crucial. They need to think differently, i.e., repent. 

Ironically, they need to think differently about thinking differently. 

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Lance,

Thanks for posting this GLOBAL ADVOCATE article on the blog and thank you for taking the CGGC body back to the insight Tod Bolsinger shares in, CANOEING THE MOUNTAINS:....

Clearly, Dr. Bolsinger gives us a helpful way of understanding the reasons for our current numerical decline and spiritual decay.

As was true with Lewis and Clark our CGGC "canoes," are not adequate to the challenge we face.

And, like Lewis and Clark, we'd be wise to focus on our mission and not the inability of our current methods to achieve the mission.

However, while I can praise Tod Bolsinger for his Lewis and Clark analogy, I'm concerned with the way you are applying it to the CGGC.

You say,

What was proven to work in growing a church yesterday is proving less effective today. We expected things in the church to always work a certain way: Faithfully build it and they will come. We’ve enjoyed a sense of “home field advantage” in ages past that appears to be eroding in our present day.

The truth about the Church of God is that we have a much brighter past than the one you describe.

In fact, I think that what was proven to work in growing a church in our original yesterday is still effective today.

There was a time that the Church of God was thriving in the power of the Spirit. In those days we didn't believe that if we "faithfully build it they will come." In those days, Church of God men and women gifted to be apostles, prophets and evangelists abhorred the idea that there'd be a "home field advantage." That was a time when our people lived as disciples in the world, inviting people to come to Jesus, not to attend church.

Certainly, you are correct that our recent past is dismal. Undoubtedly, we do need to turn our backs on our current traditions.

But, let's be honest with ourselves about ourselves.

Our current fallen ways are fairly recent CGGC traditions. But, our fallen ways are not our first ways. The truth is that the Church of God has a bright and blessed past.

In Luke's Gospel, the Great Commission is recorded in these words of Jesus:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

That, not, "if we faithfully build it they will come," is the Church of God's founding biblical vision.

That biblical vision was embraced by the men and women who were the first people to serve our body and the Lord.

On the day the Church of God was formed, we embraced a vision which had three goals.

1. The conversion of sinners.
2. The establishment of churches on the New Testament plan, and
3. The supplying of destitute places with the preaching of the gospel.

Throughout the history of the people of God, when God's people fell out of step with His blessing, His prophets called the unblessed to turn from their wicked ways...

...and to turn to the Lord.

Very often, the call to turn to the Lord was a call to walk in the ways of the faithful men and women of the past. (Read Acts 7:2-53.)

So, yes, Lance. We must turn from the fallen ways of recent generations.

But, in our body, we have something positive to turn to.

Let's be truly biblical. Let us remember, as you say,

We believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

But, while we are remembering our commitment to the Word in general, let's not forget that the Church of God was built on a passion to establish our churches themselves on the New Testament Plan.

Let's remember the fathers and mothers of our way who experienced explosive numerical growth and spiritual blessing.

Certainly, let's study mission as it is described in the Word. But, let's be people of the Word who are guided and inspired by the faithfulness of our flesh and blood mothers and fathers in the Lord.

2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid

We're entering our version of geezer mode.

Yesterday, we met with the home's Case Worker who's involved with Independent Living residents. Apparently, they gather information about all of the residents to use later on when those residents require a higher level of care, and this was our interview.

Two interesting notes.

First, Katie, the Social Worker, asked, "Did you come here voluntarily?"

Clearly, some people who moved into our building felt either pressured, or forced, to make this move by their family.

We didn't.

My response to the question was that we were beating the door down to get in here. I thought I noticed Katie blink. I think she suspected that I was joking, but she'd just met me....

Second, as the interview was ending, Katie said, sort of in passing, "You two are very independent."

And, we are. We sleep in our apartment and we cook our own meals in our very adequate kitchen. (Many people, I think, go to the dining room or the "café.") Other than that, our lives, for the moment, are off campus. Evie still works part time. I work full time. And, we have a life with friends and family off campus.

In that way, for now, we are unusual. When our health fades, of course, the home will be here for us.

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We are, however, entering "last years of our lives" mode.

We bought a car yesterday which we expect to be our last car if things go normally.

Recently, I happened upon a list of the top 15 cars original owners keep for 15 years or more. One, incidentally, is the Honda Civic. And, we have a 2008, on its way to being ours for 15. It's a second car and will be until we give it up, or....

But, more than half of models on the list were Toyotas.

We shopped around on line for quite some time and, ultimately, tried to make a deal on the new Toyota Corolla Hybrid.

The hybrid part of the car is essentially what's in the Prius but the Corolla is much less expensive and is scaled down.

Reviews we've read say that it's frugal and basic and very unexciting. That, pretty much, is me in a nutshell. We should be a good match.

Though this is its first year, it's expected to be very reliable. After shopping around, the dealer 4 miles from us agreed to match the best price we were offered. So we signed the offer and put down a deposit.

The actual car is still in transit. We should  have it in a week or a week and a half.

There's a touch about this last car thing that's sad. But, I'm fine with the concept.

We are entering geezerdom. But, doing it our way. And, I'm content with that.

2019 CGGC Strategic Plan. The Clock is Ticking.

The following are unusually specific statements from the CGGC Strategic Plan:

Contagious Awakening: By our 200th anniversary (2025), we will equip and release thousands of spiritually charged leaders to every man, woman, and child to whom we are sent. This will happen by positioning ourselves for a movement of the Holy Spirit through repentance, reconciliation, and prayer.

I post this as a simple reminder that the 2019 CGGC Strategic Plan is a call to action...

...and, considering the (capital V) Vision,  time has already passed since the plan was adopted. Considering the Vision, quite a lot of time has passed.

The clock is ticking...

(A note about the Vision itself: Do you know what oxymoronic means? Suggesting that we are positioning ourselves for a movement of the Spirit by announcing, beforehand, what the Spirit will do...and when He will do it,...is, in my  opinion, the very definition of oxymoronic.)

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Giving our possessors of institutional authority as much wiggle room as they can expect, they have until December 31, 2025 to,

4. Equip, 

5. Release and 

3. Spiritually charge up

a minimum of 2,000 leaders, after having 

2. Positioned ourselves for a movement of the Holy Spirit 

1. Through repentance, reconciliation and prayer.

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There's a lot of baby stepping packed into the Plan's Vision.

As I understand the Vision, the first step, an action which would continue throughout, I suppose, is prayer. 

But,...Who is to be praying? Is only Lance and his staff in Findlay to be praying? Or, are all CGGCers to be in prayer? If all CGGCers are to be joining in prayer, I'm not seeing signs that, as a body, we are all being called to prayer. As far as I know, the call to prayer is still to be announced. (I, of course, don't get all the mailings, so I could be wrong. If so, my bad.)

The clock is ticking. 

Then, as I understand how things work among God and His people, the next action to happen to fulfill the Vision would be repentance. Certainly, reconciliation can't take place until after we have repented. 

Speaking as a prophet and as a student of the history of the Kingdom and as a reader of the New Testament, repentance only takes place after an aggressive, intentional, focused and continuing call for people to repent. Based on what I'm reading and hearing, we're not, as of now, being called to repentance.

Regarding repentance. The call for people to repent, by the grace of God, comes from three spiritual giftings: apostles, prophets and evangelists.

Before we repent, there will need to be an energetic, and spiritually gifted, call to repentance.

Are the possessors of institutional authority in the CGGC raising up, from our ranks, our apostles, prophets and evangelists to make the call to repent a vital part of the CGGC conversation?

Surely, they're not thinking that if Lance uses some form of the word repent in an eNews article once or twice a year that the people of the CGGC will repent.

The clock is ticking. 

The hoped for reconciliation could be one of the fruit of repentance. That is, most likely, the act of personal repentance by many individuals in the CGGC may, over a period of time, mature and produce reconciliation within the body. 

Then, reconciliation will be in place for getting the "thousands" spiritually charged up. 

Only then, can equipping take place.

Only then might the "thousands" be released.

As a frame of reference, Jesus invested three years in His equipping of the Twelve. I hope the possessors of institutional authority in the CGGC aren't taking for granted that they will be more efficient equippers than was Jesus.

The clock is ticking.

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1. I understand that, in the providence of God, all of those baby steps envisioned in the Vision can take place in the twinkling of an eye. In the history of the Kingdom, however, the twinkling of an eye thing has not happened often.

2. If the Vision truly is to become our vision, the possessors of institutional authority in the CGGC, who think of themselves as leaders, should be openly, unashamedly and passionately living the Vision that they created and announced, providing the body with an example to follow because, for many generations in the CGGC, followership has been lacking.

Honestly, and I think this is bizarre. I can't even accuse the possessors of institutional authority in the CGGC of To Talk is to Walk-ism. in regard to the Vision. Certainly, they're not walking the Vision. That's SOP. It's par for the course. It's what always happens.

What is extraordinary, though, is that,...

...apart from a few eNews articles published immediately after General Conference sessions, the possessors of institutional authority in the CGGC are not even TALKING the Vision these days.

And, the last of those articles appeared months ago.

3. I do hear that there may be some people who are connected to General Conference, uh, leadership, who have a commitment to seeing the Strategic Plan walked. To those people I say:

The clock is ticking.


***It occurs to me that I might not understand at all and that the possessors of institutional authority in the CGGC don't really, well, envision the Vision happening in a real world way. If so, I apologize for pointing out that the clock is ticking. If that's the case there is no clock and it isn't ticking.

But, then, we have other, more serious problems.

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One final, personal, note.

This post is of the "to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow" type. It's profoundly counter-culture. It attacks Conventional Wisdom among many people in the CGGC whom I like and love.

The time has long since passed that I've found any joy in transmitting this stuff.

There used to be, well, joy, in the belief that, even though what I write or say will make people angry and probably will be ignored, I was doing what I was being called to do, as faithfully as I was able at the time. I knew that, after enough of it, I'd lose friends, yet the belief that I was being faithful was some compensation.

Now, I'm simply convinced that, while there's truth here, the message will almost  certainly simply fall on deaf ears.

Nothing will change.

Repentance will not happen.

The clock is ticking.

We must repent. 

My Belated Comment on Lance's Latest eNews Article

I, just moments ago, submitted a comment in reply to Lance's January 3, 2020 eNews. 

I'm printing it here because the next eNews will certainly be published before my comment passes moderation and, even if you follow the CGGC blog faithfully, you probably won't see it. 

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Yours is an interesting article, Lance.

It prompted me to think that, for the first time in my life, as people think in 10 year chunks about what’s in the future, I can realistically put myself in your, “Some of us may not have ten years,” category.

That possibility is actually a hopeful one for me. With the apostle Paul, I’m understanding, more and more, his preference “to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8)

Anyway, I did download the Doug Paul ebook.

I did it because I was intrigued by Paul’s predictions numbers 4, 8 and 10 because increases in evangelism, discipleship and moments of innovation are three fruits produced in a time of revival.

As I’ve said and written many times, about 30 years ago now, I began to pray that the Lord would bring revival to our land.

Sadly, Doug Paul’s imagining gives me no hope. He seems to be more of a generic futurist than a specifically CHRISTIAN futurist.

Paul’s reasoning appears to be based essentially in the natural world. For example, in the prediction of a coming wave of innovation (Prediction 10), he says,

“The idea that when people get desperate enough they will try new things is one of the most predictable patterns of human behavior. And if enough people start to try new things, by the law of averages, something will work. And if enough people try enough things, with the Spirit working in and through them, there’s going to be a wave innovation on its’ way.”

Rev. Paul does work in the Spirit in at the very end of that train, but almost as an afterthought, don’t you think?

Even after all my years of study, I still believe that what we sometimes call revival is a God thing. It’s the result of the movement of the Spirit and human obedience….of the Spirit moving first, with faithful men and women following Him and living in His power.

I still pray for that to happen here,…in and through our body, even…in the same way that it is taking place in other places in the world.

I can pray that, through His grace and mercy, the Lord may bless us with an outpouring of the power of His Spirit.

But, I have no hope in Rev. Paul’s change prompted by human desperation.

A Chat with a Former Amish Christian...about Church

Yesterday, Evie and I had the privilege of driving two people from our area to the Newark airport.

They were flying off to Uganda to participate in a mission trip.

One of the two is a coworker of mine at the store. The other we only met when we drove him to the airport.

As we introduced ourselves to each other, our new friend revealed that his wife and he had been raised Amish but they'd left the church eight years ago.

Eventually, we asked him why he left the Amish and his answer was simple, bold and direct:

"Because we wanted to have a relationship with Jesus."

We chatted about that for a few minutes. He said that his wife and he came to believe,  on their own, that there's something lacking in the Amish way and that they reached that conclusion by reading the Bible.

Eventually, he said that his wife and he realized that, to be Amish, is to focus on the church and that there is so much emphasis on church and community among the Amish that there's really no room for a man or woman to know and to live in relationship with Jesus.

So, for them, to seek a relationship with Jesus meant turning their backs on family and the, very powerful, Amish sense of community. And, ultimately, to be excommunicated and shunned.

Leaving all of that behind was difficult for them, but their desire to have a relationship with Jesus made that decision possible...even necessary.

What a testimony!

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As I listened to this gut-wrenching testimony, I could hear our new friend saying, in his words certainly, and from the perspective of the Amish, what I've been saying about my CGGC brand characteristic, Ecclesiolatry.

3. Ecclesiolatry.  Ecclesiolatry is the creation and veneration of the church as an idol, as opposed to love of and obedience to Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Church.  Idolatry is creating objects of worship and adoration to suit our own passions and prejudices.  The CGGC substitutes love for the church for love for the church's Lord.  Hence the obsession with planting, transformationalizing, adopting and renewing local churches while the Church's Lord's talk was about and His prayer and passion was to establish a His Father's Kingdom.  The church is the CGGC's Golden Calf

The first half of that description of CGGC ecclesiolatry matches that man's testimony. He stopped being Amish so he could know Jesus, no matter what the cost.

What he said made my heart flutter. It inspired me.

He told us that his wife and he are not entirely alone and that there are others among the former Amish whose stories are similar.

He said that some like them actually stay Amish, that is, that there are some, to use his term, "born again" Amish.

I was absolutely stunned to note the similarities between the Amish and the CGGC.

In the CGGC, more than ever, in my opinion, we are more focused on church and less on Jesus than we have ever been.

The most blatant and horrific illustration of that reality with which I am personally familiar is the ERC's 2017 new New Strategic Plan...

...which appalled and offended me from the beginning for reasons of Ecclesiolatry.

ONE OF THE THREE FOCUSES OF THE ERC STRATEGIC PLAN IS: HEALTHY, LIFE-GIVING CHURCHES.

Of course, the Plan is not all about church. It's worse than that, really. It's also about PASTORS and CONFERENCE LEADERSHIP,neither of which are in the Bible and, most atrociously...

...nothing there is about Jesus at all.

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The Amish "church" is today growing because the Amish have a lot of babies. Many who are raised Amish leave, for a variety of reasons. But, there are so many young Amish that the community is expanding, rapidly even.

The CGGC is very much like the Amish in its sin of ecclesiolatry but the CGGC lacks two things the Amish have in abundance.

1. A strong sense of community, and
2. Boatloads of babies.

Like the Amish, many of our young people leave. We don't have the large number of babies to make up the difference and, certainly, we are not bound together in community like the Amish are. So, we are experiencing dangerous numerical decline.

As is the case with the Amish, there is reason for some among our young to leave because we focus on church and not on Jesus.

Oh, how I wish for more Jesus in the CGGC!

(Fortunately, this is a place where CGGC Talk-ism actually helps us. From time to time, I ask people who are still in touch with me, and are connected, what's happening with the Strategic Plan. The usual answer is that, apart from me asking, they're hearing nothing about it at all. We talked, but there's no walk.)

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Believe it or not, it was 25 years ago that André Crouch released his song, Jesus is the Answer for the world today. 

The time has come to amend those lyrics.

These days, it's: Jesus is the answer for the church today.

What we need today is some "born again" CGGCers.

Self-Analysis: Jesus as Savior and Lord

I have often heard people suggest that an issue for the church today is that too many of its people have accepted Jesus as their savior but that they have not made Him their lord.

Accepting Jesus as savior can mean very little. In its extreme, it can mean as little as having once prayed the sinner's prayer with no change in lifestyle at all.

But, probably more commonly, it means following up a spiritual commitment with some sort of church related piety. For most, that means a level of involvement in a local church. That involvement normally entails worship service attendance and, probably also, at least minimal financial support. It, of course, could also mean small group participation and membership in committees and councils and commissions of the local church, and, perhaps, even the church's denomination, if that is applicable.

Making Jesus lord, for some, may include any level of church involvement beyond worship service attendance.

But, for the purposes of this blog entry, I'm defining the Jesus as Lord thing as a more radical commitment to obedience to the teachings of the Bible, and, particularly, the hard teachings, such as those contained in the Sermon on the Mount.

So, accepting Jesus as savior means to believe in Jesus and to go to church, and all that going to church may entail.

Making Jesus lord means a serious and intentional effort to live the life Jesus Himself lived and taught.

It's conventional wisdom that too many church people are in the first group and not in the second.

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Not so long ago, as the old year was ending, I was awake at night and doing some reflection. And, I had a disturbing moment of self-awareness.

I know that, in so many ways I'm unlike other people.

I grew up in the 60s, in 1967, the summer of love, in 68 the year of the hippie riots at the Democratic National Convention, in 69 the year of Woodstock, though I didn't attend. And, I embraced the spirit of that age...

...I was like everyone else who wanted to be different than everyone else.

I am, by nature, different than most people...

...and, eventually, I realized that I liked that about myself, and even in a sinful way, I believe, took pride in it.

I am, honestly, different...as people gifted prophetically...probably must be.

So, as I lay awake that night, reflecting, I was disturbed by the sudden realization that my life of faith is out of balance, that, unlike the more typical person, if anything...

I have made Jesus my lord so much so that I've, at the very least, undervalued the truth that I must also live with Him as my savior. 

The disturbing truth is that I look down on people who've merely accepted Jesus without living under His lordship, that I too rarely do important things people do when they embrace Jesus as savior.

The truth is that Jesus is both savior and lord.

A balanced life of discipleship involves living as a person who has been saved by Him AND submitting to His teaching and example, because submitting to Him is what His lordship demands.

I could easily write a hundred justifications for not respecting people who do only the savior thing, and many would be legitimate on a basic level, but the truth is that I invest far too little energy in living the life of a man Jesus saved.

My life is out of balance.

I must repent.

In one sense, of course, by writing this, I have repented. I have begun the process of re-thinking.

What lies ahead for me is the walking of the insight that my walk in Him is seriously out of balance.

For me, of all people, to talk this insight without striving to walk it would be the most atrocious hypocrisy.

Attaining that balance will be tricky but I need to do it.

I need to change the direction of my walk.

The "Oneness" of the Father and the Son

The first time I recall being, well, confronted, by a quotation of John 17:20-21 was back in the glory days of Brian Miller's The CGGC in an Emerging World blog.

Jesus prayed,

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

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As I recall, the first time I was reminded of those verses, I was new to the belief that APEST matters for today and I beginning to walk my conviction that I have been gifted to be a prophet.

It was also early in my contention that, in the CGGC, we talk really big but walk small.

And, especially in those days, I confess with sadness that, at times, I was belligerent, more than merely bold.

At the time, I took the message to be that I should quietly and gently submit to our denominational leadership...

...so that, in the CGGC, we can be an answer to the prayer Jesus prayed.

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Even then, all those years ago, my brother's understanding of the prayer felt wrong to me.

It seemed polluted by shepherd heresy, and, excuse the big word, shepherd heteropraxy,...

...that is, the false faith and false works that are the fruit of the dominance of people with the gift of shepherding.

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"...that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you..."

...Just as you are in me and I in you.

I'm struggling against feelings of pride to say that,...

...even then, in my early, belligerent, APEST, prophet days,...

...in spite of my harsh criticism of CGGC leadership,...

...I thought I was closer to living out the prayer of Jesus than our shepherd dominators were.

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Here's the question: In real life, how were Jesus and the Father one?

More to the point:

How, today, are believers in Jesus one if their unity is to be the oneness of the Father and the Son?

I'm convinced that the doctrine of oneness preached by the people who hold institutional authority in the organized church...

...is false,
...is dangerous,
...and is a reason that Western Christianity,  specifically, as George Jensen points out, evangelicalism, is dying.

From the perspective of my prophetic gifting:

Unity, for them, is understood to be spiritually lobotomized compliance. 

Unity, for them, is intellectually dull. It possesses no (small s) spirit....

...It is void of passion...

It is neither honored nor blessed by the Lord.

It is spiritually bankrupt and corrupt.

It ignores the testimony of Scripture.

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There's a very serious challenge for believers who attempt to live out Jesus' prayer.

In the prayer, Jesus compared the unity of believers to the manner in which the Father and He were one.

It's natural for humans to impulsively make a Rhorschach test out of His prayer.

So, if, for instance, you are a shepherd, you'll understand oneness as a shepherd would. Because I am a prophet, when I begin, I take my prophetic self to my understanding of unity.

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How, in fact, were Jesus and the Father one?

As a starter? Certainly, not in a spiritually lobotomized, compliant, intellectually dull way.

As I noted in the Facebook post,...

...in the garden, Jesus BEGGED the Father to take that cup from Him. His sweat was as drops of blood.

Early on in His ministry, the Spirit drove Jesus...in Greek, ekballo, a very strong word,...into the desert to be tempted by Satan.

Jesus prayed that believers will be one in a way that must take into account those dynamics of the oneness that He and the Father shared.

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I have been a student of revivalism for many years.

Very shortly after I began to believe that APEST matters for today, I had a sort of theological born-again moment when I began to apply what I learned about revivals to life in the Kingdom.

I began to ask myself, for example, what oneness among believers has looked like in times of spiritual and numerical growth.

We, in the CGGC today, know, from experience what an understanding of oneness looks like at a time of spiritual and numerical decline and decay. Spiritual and numerical decline and decay is our reality these days.

It was because I often think about better days that I challenged George Jensen on Facebook.

George's argument is that when people of the church are at odds with each other, evangelism and discipleship don't take place.

The truth can't be denied: The hay day of evangelism and discipleship in the Church of God happened when our body was in the very center of what George calls the squibble squabbles of the day, precisely when people of the church were at odds with each other.

The lesson of history is clear: When believers are one as Jesus and the Father were one...are one,...their connection will be spirited, tense even.

The oneness of Jesus and the Father was perfect. There was no sin it.

Yet, in that oneness, there was the moment when Jesus was begging the Father to change His mind, when His emotion was so powerful that His sweat was as drops of blood.

There was that amazing moment when the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert,...when Jesus didn't follow the Spirit, when Jesus wasn't led by the Spirit...that the Spirit drove Him.

The oneness of believers must contain that honesty, that passion!

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The oneness that believers sought to achieve in the years of the founding of the Church of God possessed that honesty and passion.

In those days, Church of God evangelism and discipleship were effective, ...empowered and blessed by the Spirit.

As far as George Jensen's condemnation of today's evangelicals being at cross purposes over Donald Trump?

So far, to my knowledge no one has begun to sweat drops of blood in expressing their beliefs or desires.

What is going on now among evangelicals is closer to the unity shared by Jesus and the Father than the vision of unity so common today among the people of the institutionalized church. 

Rather than condemn it, I thank God for it. I find hope in it.

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Three final thoughts.

1. Can there be sin when believers seek oneness in the honest and passionate way that reflects Jesus in the Garden or the Spirit driving Jesus into the desert? Of course there can be sin. Certainly, there is.

Is there sin today in this Trump thing as believers face the temptation to give into the excess that passion produces? No doubt there is some.

But, the tepid, spiritually lobotomized, compliant, passionless notion of oneness of the shepherds and of the institution is always, always sin.

2. In raising this issue with George, I am attempting to walk my talk...to engage the search for honest, spirited oneness shared by Jesus and the Father and, also, pursued by believers throughout the history of the Kingdom in times of revival...similar to what the first men and women of the Church of God lived.

3. I believe that this is a big deal. We don't have the oneness that Jesus and the Father shared. I'm convinced that most of us misunderstand their oneness and, until we rethink...repent,...we'll never be one as Jesus and the Father are one.