In his latest eNews, Lance made the following statement. (I think that when institutionalists use the verb, 'do' with the noun 'church,' they think they're being cutting edge, you know, keen, cool, groovy...rad! In truth, I think they're exposing their sin of Ecclesiolatry.)
Lance says, innocently, honestly and sincerely:
Whether we want to believe it or not, this pandemic is going to have long reaching effects on how we “do” church.
If you're a regular reader here, you know that I think about these things in reference to great movements in the history of the Kingdom in which God has poured out His blessing and through which the Kingdom has expanded.
'Do church.'
Is this something John Winebrenner would think about? John Wesley? Even Francis of Assisi?
Certainly, in those moments, when the Kingdom has advanced, church: the nature of the gathering of Jesus followers underwent change.
Certainly, at those times, what was thought of as 'church' took a different shape and came to be understood in different ways.
Yet, here's why I think that people like the current holders of institutional authority in the CGGC will never be a part of a movement forward for the Kingdom:
Church was never, ever the first thing in the minds of people who were used by the Lord to advance the Kingdom.
Taking the Church of God movement of John Winebrenner and his colleagues as an example. (It would not be accurate to number the Church of God as one of those "great" movements in the history of the Kingdom. I think, though, that the Church of God possesses much in common with those movements. And, it is familiar to most of us.)
Like the notable Kingdom expansion movements, the Church of God did think about church. It thought seriously about church...
....but the place of church, that is, thinking about the gathering of disciples and of the organization of the body of disciples...was distantly second in importance to the one concern that was central.
In the Church of God, the first, the primary, focus of the movement was, The Conversion of Sinners.
For all of these Kingdom expansion movements, this was what always came first.
The first concern, by many miles, was righteousness...
...getting people whose way of life defied, as Paul calls it in Galatians 6, the Law of Christ, to live according to that Law...
...through faith in Jesus...
...as fruit of faith in Jesus.
Were the people of those Kingdom expansion movements to try to be funky, or cosmic or groovy, or rad in their use of the verb, 'do,'...
...they wouldn't have ever thought, for a micro-moment, about the effects of events on the way they "'do' 'church.'"
Were they see the need to be hip, or is hep, their minds would have focused on what is primary in the red letters of the Bible.
They'd have talked about the effects of how we, what?...
...do discipleship?
...do righteousness?
...do obedience?
...do Jesus.
But, 'do church'? No.
And, and this is essential to what the holders of institutional authority in the Western church today get completely wrong.
Church is, indeed, important but it is entirely secondary, distantly secondary, to what is truly important.
Certainly, when people who get righteousness right live in community, the way they 'do church' will be very different from what goes on in the highly institutionalized provider/consumer mess that is the numerically declining and spiritually decaying CGGC of our day.
But, those people never think that the way to move forward is about church. Those people have always thought in terms of Jesus and connection to Jesus...
...in terms of righteousness,
...in terms of obedience,
...in terms of discipleship.
The right way to 'do church' is fruit of the way the individuals in church connect to Jesus.
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After Paul challenged the disciples in Corinth to repent...and after they accepted the challenge, after they did repent, Paul explained a universal spiritual principle:
Godly sorrow brings a repentance that leads to salvation.
He adds to that a dark side corollary to that truth. (2 Corinthians 7:10)
Worldly sorrow brings death.
Worldly sorrow is what I'm afraid is being demonstrated by the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC.
They continue to think church.
They continue to think:
Not righteousness.
Not obedience.
Not discipleship.
NOT JESUS!
They are doing what people who commit the sin of Ecclesiolatry do. They worship the church, not the Lord of the church.
They are doing what Churches of God people did, beginning about 90 years ago, when our slide into spiritual decay, followed eventually by numerical decline began.
Oh! We must repent. We must focus on Jesus and experience godly sorrow that brings salvation, not on the church to know the worldly sorrow that brings death.
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