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!