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. 

---------------

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.