My Unkind Words in the "Legitimate New Testament Concept" Post

I began this post a few days after the Leadership is a Legitimate New Testament Concept post. But, obviously, I didn't publish it immediately. 

I have mixed feelings about the unkindness I displayed in its opening sentences. 

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

I rarely mince words here. But, I began that recent post with words that disturbed even me.

As I reread the post several times before publishing it, each time, I considered deleting the words, but, each time, I concluded that it was important that I let them stand. The words?

"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."

These are unkind words, but they come from me honestly. I think they're true.

I've made the point several times lately that I think the people who are holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are good people. They are nice. They believe in Jesus sincerely. They love the church.

Yet, they are on losing streak.

This current crew of holders of CGGC institutional authority, took over from several generations of CGGC institutional authorities who failed, yet were equally as nice and sincere as is the current crew.

(Has it occurred to anyone that the adjectives that describe John Winebrenner are not good person and nice? Winebrenner would have been known as a man who loves the Word before he was thought of as loving the church?)

Early in our losing streak, generations ago, our institutional authorities, created the value system that still drives CGGC spiritual decay and numerical decline.

It seems to me that it's accurate to say that they fought a high church-ish revolution in the Churches of God in North America. They executed a coup...but in the quiet and gentle way budding high church institutionalists fight a revolution and execute a coup.  In the end, they won a decisive victory.

What they did has become self-sustaining.

Our body now raises up, to positions of institutional authority, men and women in the emotional and temperamental image of the soldiers of that institutional revolution: the designers of our decay and decline.

Though I try to avoid using the term as much as possible these days, the CGGC is run by a Shepherd Mafia that was organized in the 1930s.

Recently, a kid I work with reminded me of the definition of insanity sometimes attributed to Einstein, i.e., doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That certainly fits us.

Until the Shepherd Mafia is broken up, the CGGC will experience nothing but the numerical decline and spiritual decay that is the fruit of shepherd domination.

What we need is a body that is not led by holders of institutional authority but served by men and women walking in mutual submission and in the New Command's love for one another as Jesus loved us...

...walking in the Spirit, living out their gifts to be apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers.

However, we'll never have that until the Shepherd Mafia is broken up.

Since the beginning of our demise, shepherds have ruled.

Where are the men and women in the CGGC who are producing the fruit of being apostles?

Where are the prophets?

The evangelists?

At best, these people are few and far between.

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

There are two reasons there is no APE presence in our body.

It is not that the Spirit doesn't call and empower APEs. He certainly does.

The CGGC has few APEs because either:

1. The Shepherds who run the institution force them to the fringe of the body and, sometimes, force them out of the body, or
2. The APEs become so impatient  and frustrated by the institution and its shepherd leaders that they leave us.

And so, we, in what we do, we are confused, muddle-brained...or, as the supposed Einstein quote suggests, insane.

We attempt, over and over again, the institution-based solutions that a shepherd- dominated leadership culture knows.

Always with failure.

Always with increased frustration across the body which heightens the grip of cynicism on the body.

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

I say all of that by way of introduction to the thought that prompted me to note that the current holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are confused and muddle-brained:

Their idea that we will expand the Kingdom by sending out leaders.

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.

Very simply and clearly, greatness in the Kingdom is achieved when Jesus followers go into the world as servants who aspire to be the slave of all.

Greatness in the church is accomplished by leaders.

In our first-ever CGGC Strategic Plan, our holders of institutional authority, well, plan to build the Kingdom using church methods.

Same old, same old.

Confused, muddle-brained, insane.

It's precisely what we've been doing, without the Lord's blessing, for generations.

In APEST terms, shepherds and teachers are gifts from the Spirit whose purpose is, primarily, to nurture and edify the Kingdom community...the church. Their role in the Kingdom is important, but it is secondary.

The Word is clear. To me, the language  is stunning:

The household of God is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets...

...with Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.

-----

Imagine what might have happened on the day when the shepherd/teacher holders of institutional authority in the CGGC came together in a Task Force meeting to consider the Contagious Awakening section of the Strategic Plan.

Imagine people living in their gifts as apostles and prophets, Kingdom-focused people, being in the room.

When I first read those words I was immediately disturbed by our generations old church/Kingdom, leader/servant error.

Had I been in the room, I would have been concerned at the very least, probably offended.

THE CGGC WILL NEVER SHARE IN A MOVEMENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT BY SENDING LEADERS ANYWHERE.

I suspect that men and women living in their gifts as apostles and prophets, the foundation of God's household, would have seen the CGGC's age old error:

Attempting to build the Kingdom using church methods.

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

To say that the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are confused and muddle-brained and acting insane makes even me uncomfortable.

Yet, I said it. I say it.

Until there is Spirit-empowered gift balance, mutual submission and New Commandment love among us, we will never participate in the building of the Kingdom.

Will the CGGC ever change course? Will we ever drop our church-is-the-center-of- God's-universe error?

Will we ever repent?

Will will ever become people of the Spirit and of the Kingdom?

We must repent.