My Comment on Andrew Draper's eNews Article

I'm in awe of what Andrew wrote, yet my comment is a little edgy in the CGGC context. I think it will be published, but in case,...

Thanks, Lance, for placing Andrew’s article on the CGGC blog.

What Andrew has written…WHO HE HAS BECOME…truly inspires me, and encourages me.

On Friday, a friend wrote to tell me that there was a guest article on your blog.

Early Saturday I read it and, in the moment, wrote, to my friend, my impressions of Andrew’s article.

As I’ve considered how I might comment on what Andrew has written and it occurs to me that I can’t recapture the honesty of that first moment.

I hope you’ll consider what I wrote then as a valid comment, suitable for the blog.

Here’s essentially what I wrote:

“I just read Andrew’s eNews article for what, I’m certain, will be the first of many times.

Amazing stuff!

I knew Andrew as a…teen. How he became the man who could think these things…and would WRITE them…is a testimony to the grace of God and to the power of a life given over to a walk in the Spirit.

Clearly, and most inspirationally, this man’s talk comes AFTER his walk.

What Andrew writes is not theory. Andrew is not writing aspirationally. He writes from the depth of his experience,…many years of experience.

I rejoice in his boldness. I can understand his pain.

As I read him, it strikes me that, in our body, Andrew has been born out of his time. His passion for racial justice would have been the norm in the Church of God’s movement days.

Oh, how we need to repent of who we are and what we have become. We need to value this sort passion.

We need to FOLLOW that.

A Facebook Post from our Nephew

I'm sitting here tonight with tears in my eyes and incredibly sad. 
Sad that a man died unjustly. 
Sad that a peaceful protest ended with violence and pepper spray
Sad that some of my friends feel like combat and riot gear are an appropriate FIRST response to protest
Sad that some of my friends will take another step towards hatred of police
Sad that some felt it necessary to destroy public property and throw bricks
Sad that some will miss the reason this all happened
Sad that some used this as an opportunity for a selfie
Sad that this probably is a once and done thing and minimal change will happen
Sad that what many in the crowd don't realize is that they really need Jesus.
Sad that many in the church won't take time this Sunday to talk about this or take any steps to begin reconciliation.

we don't need a revolution, we need a revival

Will CGGC Millennials Lead Us in the Struggle for Racial Justice?

One of my heroes is a nephew of ours (great-nephew, really), who, along with his wife and four young children, sold their home in a sleepy small town here in central Pennsylvania, to move to an impoverished,  dead steel town near Harrisburg, along the Susquehanna River, to live a missional life and join in the ministry of a mixed race church.

Joe and his wife, Debbie, love Jesus. They reached the point that they could not sleep peacefully until they were walking their Jesus talk.

While their example is extreme, they are like many Christians of their generation who yearn to see racial justice happen.

I've been following Joe's Facebook posts in recent days. They share the vision contained in Andrew Draper's eNews guest article. They reveal a heart for the oppressed and a commitment to "let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everlasting stream." (Amos 5:24)

My question...and it's not rhetorical...though I'm tempted to make it a rhetorical question, is, besides Andrew Draper and his ministry in Indiana,...

... how many of the vast number of millennials whose hearts beat with a passion for racial justice are there in the CGGC?

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What we know about the CGGC is that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing has not been blessing us.

We know that we have been in the midst of a time of spiritual decay and numerical decline that has lasted for generations.

We know that our congregations are getting older.

We know that we've, essentially, lost the millennial generation.

AND, the few millennials I know who remain in the CGGC have bought into the Shepherd Mafia vision of church in which the clergy provides religious products and services to be consumed by the laity...

...so that our few millennials, I suspect, are spiritually bloated religious consumers, members of a passive laity, consumers, takers...

...and certainly not the sort of Christians willing to raise their prophetic voices in shouts for justice, shouts accompanied by fierce, sacrificial acts,...

...shouts that will not be silenced until the dream of racial justice becomes reality.

Shouts like those of the founders of our body, in the Church of God days. Those shouts didn't become silent until some of those voices were silenced on the battlefields of the Civil War.

As I say, my question is not quite rhetorical.

And, I passionately hope that what I'm inclined to believe is wrong.

But, I'm afraid that our Shepherd Mafia's chickens are about to come home to roost.

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I began to pray for revival in our land more than 30 years ago.

It could just be that Andrew Draper and my nephew's family will be the sort of people who lead the Kingdom of God into a new age...

...and, that revival fills the land.

And, if that's the case, most likely, the CGGC will be left in the Spirit's dust.

We may very well be entering a day when mere vigorous, radical talk will be seen for the sad joke it is.

I hope there's a remnant in the CGGC. I hope even, as a new day dawns, that CGGC, uh, leaders will repent of their Talk-ism and begin a walk that matches their words...that people like Lance, for instance, will find more to do than search for the words to frame a lament and join the on-the-streets-fight for racial justice.

It is possible because with God all things are possible.

But,...

...we must repent.

We must repent.

Bill Shoemaker

You probably got the word by now that Bill Shoemaker passed away on Friday.

We were in Findlay when Bill came on General Conference staff, "hired" by Wayne Boyer, to be the Director of Church Planting.

My sense is that Bill brought a spirit of peace, grace and gentleness to his service for the King.

Bill was a good, nice man who oozed the fruit of the Spirit in every moment and whose love for the Lord was always obvious.

Honestly, I hadn't spoken to him for several years but the last time I did was when I was beginning to enter my time of frustration with the, then, holders of institutional authority in the CGGC.

I was new to my embrace of my APEST gifting and beginning to care about the great distance between offical CGGC talk and the mountaintoppers' walk.

Bill caught wind of that and heard that, at the moment, I was thinking about leaving the CGGC. He, so sweetly and kindly, encouraged me not to leave.

I can't say that he's the reason I've stayed, but our brief conversation was a factor. When I thought about the "leaders'" talk-ism, from that moment, I always remembered that Bill was a part of that team. And, my angst always eased.

Ironically, it was a few years later, that the ERC turned from me so that the current unconsummated defrocking goes on.

We've lost one of brightest lights. My condolences to Candice.

A Church-es of God Congregation Resumes Holding Worship Services

I follow a number of our congregations on Facebook.

The other day I watched a very well produced video announcing how one of those congregations would proceed as gathering again becomes possible.

Clearly, a lot of planning has gone into the manner in which gathering will continue. In my opinion, much wisdom is being employed.

However, the part of the video that made the deepest and most long lasting impression on me is the emphasis that was placed on the fact that the congregation will resume gathering on the Sunday that high church, ecclesiastical calendar users call Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church.

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In our body, nothing even closely approaching community exists. We are a people in which, as was the case in dark times in the Old Testament, everyone did what is right in their own eyes.

The truth is that a key element in the existence and the continuation of community...fellowship...among a group of religious people, is a common understanding of what righteousness, or right living, is.

For community to exist, there must be a shared understanding of what the right way to DO is.

It is a fact of history that, in the German Reformed Church in the days when the Church of God movement was formed, there was an "evangelical" wing, which encouraged the coming of revival in the way Church of God people did. And, who made, as its first priority, "the conversion of sinners," precisely as the founders of the Church of God movement people did.

It is crucial, in the search for genuine community in our body today, to understand that:

What this Churches of God congregation, and others that fit into the Churches of God category, do in pursuing righteousness, in following the liturgical calendar...

... is precisely what Church of God people rejected to form themselves around commitment to the "New Testament plan."

They want permission to do one thing our fathers and mothers intentional rejected.

It's impossible for us to live in community if we tolerate ministry that promotes the precise behavior we rejected to gather together in ministry.

Churches of God people themselves tend to be bland, nice people who don't make trouble for anyone...and  don't seem to stir up trouble.

And, that's how they're dangerous.

That are, in fact, stealth spiritual terrorists. They oppose one very important definition of righteousness upon which our movement was founded.

By promoting one behavior our founders rejected, and by demanding the right to do it, they are subverting any chance that there will ever again be community for us...

...unless, of course, it is community rooted in the overturning of all that we once were.

I Received My First Social Security Payment

Can you say, "Geezer!" It's official.

I'm just glad it happened without the need to unravel any more red tape.

Racial Injustice: Church of God v. CGGC

You know that lately I've been highlighting the cultural differences among three eras in the history of our body:

1. The Church of God
2. The Churches of God
3. The CGGC

The differences in, as one of my off the blog correspondents described it, "ethos," are important and profound.

A few weeks ago, there was an outcry over the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. And, now, of course, riots are taking place in Minneapolis in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

As these stories develop, I can't help to note how much our body has changed. I'm noticing the difference at this point and not certain yet what to do with it.

If you know only a little about the Church of God, you know that it was passionately anti-slavery. You know that there are stories about Church of God involvement in the highly secretive "underground railroad." You may know that our early efforts to expand in the south failed because we were so radically involved in the struggle against slavery. You may know that, at a time when General Lee's army had advanced about as far north as it would advance, it's soldiers selected a Church of God "Bethel" to be burned down because the Church of God, as small as it was in those early days, was well-known for what it's people were doing in the cause of racial equality.

Back in the day, the people of the Church of God were, as the Epistle of James says, "Doers of the word." (Jas. 1:22)

I know no better way to contrast the Church of God from the CGGC than to note the eNews article Lance wrote in the aftermath of the Ahmaud Arbery shooting.

Lance began the article thusly,

I’ll be honest. There are many times I feel at a loss for the right words to speak or write. Today is one of those days.

Then, Lance began the final paragraph of the article saying,

Again, I struggle with the words to express what is stirring deep within me.

Please understand.

Trust me when I say that what comes next is not intended to be a personal attack on Lance.

My crosshairs are on the CGGC. The CGGC is in the midst of a long period of spiritual decay and numerical decline. The Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing has not blessed us for generations.

The Church of God was renowned for its actions in fighting for racial justice, even when it was puny and only beginning its ministry.

Lance is the quintessential man of the CGGC.

And, as the prominent person for the CGGC today, Lance struggles for "words."

Again, please, please understand what this post is about. It's absolutely not about Lance.

What it's about is how we have changed, about what we have become.

James 1:22 warns, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."

There would have been a time, in Church of God days, when our people would have, briefly, searched for the "right words to speak or write," on the way out the door to do the things they always did in situations like this."

Today, what we care about is finding words.

Read that eNews.  Lance struggles to feel all a disciple should feel and hopes to express his lament.

Our body has changed.

Once, we produced fruit. One, we were doers. Once, the connection between talk and walk was perfect.

We are not who we once were.

Take this to heart. We must begin to loathe what we have become.

The Word says that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. We need to grieve about ourselves.

We must repent.

Excerpts from Reggie McNeal's eNews Articles...with Comments

I'm convinced that Reggie McNeal has a lot to say to us that is important. Of course, we have to put it into practice. 

Here are three passages from his second eNews article. Good stuff:

Since our people are deployed in all domains (government, education, business, health care, etc.) a church scorecard that reflects some of what they encounter every day would be more congruent and meaningful to their lives than the current one which just measures their church participation and support.

This is my greatest point of anger and despair over CGGC Talk-ism. Admittedly, this is personal for me. Reggie is talking about the reality that our people are in the world most of their lives. What wonderful things might happen if our people were equipped to live in the world as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God?! And, how effective might our ministry be if we were to take our direction from what our people encounter as they live in the world as ambassadors!

I have devoted more than six years to this way.

The holders of institutional authority in the CGGC believe this, and talk it, too. But  there's no walk, much to my chagrin.

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A kingdom scorecard honors the lives and efforts of our people, supports the Great Commandment, and creates the culture for a missional church.

I added this quote as a nod to Nick and Dan's Bible Study podcast which places central emphasis on the importance of disciples of Jesus living out the love demanded by the Great Command, especially the "love your neighbor" part.

Again, of course, on the level of talk, the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC at the General Conference share the talk...

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Shifting to kingdom stewardship carries significant impact for church leadership. We currently recruit and train leaders to focus on skills that are demanded by a church-centric ministry agenda. By changing the scope of church stewardship, a different leadership paradigm is called for than the current one, which presumes that the church exists to enfold and care for the flock of believers, with shepherd as the predominant motif for pastoral leadership... (emphasis mine)

We would also build leadership teams with a different composition, driven by a different ministry agenda. After all, if you build an anteater it looks for ants. A church-centric stewardship calls for leaders who are drawn to support a church-centric agenda. Moving to a greater scope of stewardship for the community would probably result in an enhanced recruitment pool both in talent and quantity as leaders reflected a larger bandwidth of personal interests and community engagement on top of spiritual elements.

This is a revolutionary description of the absolute necessity of abandoning the pastor, parish priest as the provider of religious products and services to be consumed by the laity in favor of a Kingdom oriented APEST, uh, leadership team.

Of course, the holders of institutional authority in Findlay talk APEST, but Reggie's description of how it could work among people joining in the work of building the Kingdom makes it clear how the talk would be walked.

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It's my hope that, by inviting Reggie to cast vision in these two articles in the eNews, Lance is signaling that he is about to do.

We'll see. 

A Brief Off the Blog Conversation about Reggie's Articles

Me:

I just read Reggie McNeal, Part 2. There is something Medieval about Reggie's stuff, where the church impacts the world, not individual disciples. There's not the church gathering to spur one another on to love and good works. The church gathers to do the good works, or does the good works in community.

Still, if Lance and his crew begin to walk this talk, I'll elbow myself to the front of the line of followers, and follow.

This is all THE PRESENT FUTURE and Reggie's later book, MISSIONAL RENAISSANCE teaching that we received and promoted a long time ago, and we're still no closer to walking any of it in a meaningful way. The question is, when are we going to start DOING this!

The Nick and Dan Bible Study Podcast, here in the ERC, gives me hope because it's useful and important teaching from people who are already doing what they teach.


T'other Person:

Interesting observation about Reggie.    I think it has merit.   It seems to me like he envisions a church officially partnering with a school etc.

I do think collective ministry is among the most valuable on the love and good deeds but more often like 2 or 3 or a half dozen doing something spontaneous or organic to serve together.   I think there is a place in between ‘just me’ and programmed events etc.  but all three can have value.

At baseline though each of us has to understand all of life as kingdom service to others.

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I love Reggie and his books, especially those two. The Present Future truly did change what I believe and what I do.

But, about the time I started MLI, I began to fear that Reggie's Baptist Congregationalism and the CGGC's shepherd dominated "Flockism" could be a bad combination.

However, what danger there was there was eliminated by our Talk-ism. We haven't done any of it anyway...and our spiritual decay and numerical decline continues.

My eNews Comment on the Reggie McNeal Articles was Published

I don't know if Mike's still the Moderator of the blog, but this is the first time I remember that my comment was published on the day I submitted it.

I wasn't sure if it would be published at all. It describes To Talk is to Walk-ism and is a little feisty.

I'm going to try to keep Memorial Day 2021 in mind as a reference point for this to note if the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC are walking this talk. Somehow, I think, few people care.

Here it is, for those of you who don't read the CGGC blog:

Lance,

Thanks for including Reggie’s take on ministry these days in the eNews.

I must say, though, as insightful and inspiring as the articles are, there’s little new here.

This is THE PRESENT FUTURE and MISSIONAL RENAISSANCE, tweaked to fit the COVID crisis. We’ve known this for a long time.

Reading THE PRESENT FUTURE changed the way I do ministry. It reshaped what I think and, in the CGGC context, radicalized what I do.

In the CGGC we’ve known this stuff since Wayne Boyer began promoting it 15 years ago, yet, as enthusiastically as we talk it, still we don’t walk it.

I promise you that, as soon as you begin to lead us in this walk, that I will elbow myself to the front of the line of people who follow.

Blessings ,

bill

He Stopped Lovin Her Today

So, to listen to Nick and Dan's Bible Study podcast I signed up for Spotify.

For a while, I only used it for the podcast but, eventually I looked into the music part. I answered some questions about music and now it thinks it knows what I'd like to listen to.

It definitely got some stuff right. It gives me a lot of Eagles and Beatles and tons of Hank Williams.  How it got to Carole King and James Taylor, I don't know, but that's right. I'm listening to Peter Frampton now, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills & Nash, okay. Glen Campbell, Fleetwood Mac, some.

It gives me lots of Allman Brothers, Van Morrison, Steve Miller Band, not so much. Tom Petty, Badfinger, meh. The Grateful Dead is not a habit I acquired. Same with the Boss.

And, it gives me a lot of Country that I don't want, but, some I take. I've gotten some classics: Okie from Muskogee. Interesting.

And, I don't like George Jones but it gives me, his He Stopped Loving Her Today. Do you know it? Every time I hear it, my eyes, at the very least, get misty. It's. So. Darned. SAD! Often, I outright cry. I remember some time ago, it was on, maybe the radio, and Evie saw me and she said, incredulously, "ARE YOU CRYING??!!!!!" I was. If you don't know the song, YouTube it.

It could have been about my dad. It could be about me some day. The difference is the guy in the song's love was unrequited.

It's amazing what can make one feel thankful.

MIDSOMER MURDERS During the Quarantine

Midsomer Murders is a British mystery series that premiered 23 years ago. It's based on a series of novels by Caroline Graham. The earliest episodes aired on A & E. We don't watch American TV so, for all I know, everyone may know all about it. It may be prime time in America for all I know, but I doubt it.

The novels are interesting in that they're set in a mythical English county filled with one substantial town and many bucolic villages where life seems serene yet, under the surface, the most incredible depravity.

There's a whimsical quality to the telling of the stories. The combination of peaceful English beauty, the amazing depravity and the lighthearted telling of the tales makes for a unique sort of entertainment.

The first of the novels was produced in England by ITV in 1997. All of the novels published by that time were adapted into 100ish minute made for television movies, then, more shows were produced based on the main characters in the novels. To this point, 124 movies have been produced.

Picking them up on sales, as of yesterday, we now own all 124 on DVD or Blue ray.

There's a Midsomer Murders page on Facebook that we follow. It put together a count of the 50 favorite episodes by asking followers to vote for their top five. The Facebook page counts the episodes down, from 50 to 1, one each day. Yesterday, was number 27, Shot at Dawn, one of my more favorite, but not one of my top five.

Beginning in the high 30s, we started watching the episode of the day as a sort quarantine project...whatever you can do to bring structure to life, eh.

Anyway, neither of us got our lists of our five favorites in. I'm, of course, rooting for my fave, The Axeman Cometh, and my next fave, The Magician's Nephew (in which a  character, who doesn't get murdered, discovers pages of Tyndale's New Testament) and my third fave, Hidden Depths, which contains two of our favorite murders. (I suspect that this may come in at number 1 in the countdown.)

The show can be sort of plodding. I certainly don't recommend it for everyone but, we're geezers and its not too fast, or LOUD, for us.

And, for the next few weeks, we'll have something to do.

53.7 MPG

I've said that we bought a Toyota Corolla Hybrid in January.

It's been a nice, basic, little car, and, perfectly adequate for us so far.

Due to the quarantine, we don't drive much. It has less than 2,200 miles on it and we've had it more than 4 months.

It has a feature that tells you what your miles per gallon are. You can reset it, but we never have so we know our miles per gallon from the first mile.

For some reason, at the beginning it was only getting in the 20s. But, that number has been climbing.

Yesterday it inched up to 53.7, and stayed there.

That's good. The sticker said that it gets 53 in the city and 52 on the highway, so more than 53 beats the average.

Interestingly, I seem to do better on the highway than around town.

The rate at which the average has been increasing has been slow so I'm not sure how much higher that this we'll get.

But, it's a nice economical little car.

Going Back to the Store

Being as tightly quarantined as we are here in our Residential Living apartment at the home, I try not to leave campus more than once a week...and I've been successful until this week.

I have a condition in my left eye, no doubt someday to be in both eyes, called Pseudo Exfoliation. Mom and an aunt had it. Both, eventually had surgery. I have a very good optometrist who does very thorough health screenings on my eyes. She sees me for a check up every six months.

So, I had an appointment with her on Thursday and planned to drive ten more miles and go to Weaver's Market in Adamstown to pick up two payroll checks and do some shopping.

I didn't figure on getting drops in my eyes for this appointment, but I did, so I had to drive home after the eye doctor.

I did my grocery shopping and picked up my checks the next day, yesterday.

I have to say that, when I walked into the store, I felt like a returning war hero. My shopping took double the time it might have because coworkers accosted me to greet me and ask about Evie and me.

It was a nice feeling.

I do keep in touch with some of them through texts and emails and Facebook. But, not all...in all departments.

Looking back, I invested a lot of energy in defining myself as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God and I was never sure if it made a difference, but, clearly, it did.

I see the salt and light thing being a very real thing. And, I just wish that the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC would actually do something about discipling our people into the ambassador role.

As is so often the case, this is something they talk. But, like so much of their talk, it's something they don't walk.

Hebrews says that the purpose of disciples gathering is to spur each other...to provoke each other...to love and good works.

If we'd only do that...

How the Church of God/Churches of God/CGGC Reality Kills Genuine Community in our Body

According to Jesus, in Matthew 25, on the day the Son of Man comes in His glory, He will separate people from each other in the way a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats...

...based on what they do.

Certainly, "it is by grace we are saved  through faith." But, the sort of faith that saves is one that produces fruit in the way a believer lives. So, after Paul says the "saved by grace through faith" thing, he says, "For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works..." (Eph. 2:8 & 10)

Ultimately, it is the fruit our faith produces, our acts of righteousness, that prove that our faith is genuine...and creates the potential for genuine fellowship among disciples.

It has seemed to me for years that there are two reasons that the CGGC is experiencing spiritual decay and numerical decline. One of them has to do with our connection to God, the second has to do with our lack of community with each other.

As far as God is concerned, the holders of institutional authority in our body work hard, no one I know doubts that. Yet, without any doubt, the God of all authority and power and blessing is not blessing what the people who occupy the offices in our headquarters buildings do.

As far as CGGC community is concerned, based on the way I understand community among God's people in the Word, we don't have it.

And, I believe that the reason we lack community is because we don't share an understanding of what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus.

I see vast differences between the way Churches of God people, CGGC people and the sort of people who are around today who can be thought of as Church of God people, understand righteousness.

Churches of God people tend to have a, in the context of our body, rather high church... certainly very Protestant...understanding of what it means to live a life of faith. They "go to church" and they like to hear a good sermon. They emphasize the ordinances...though, in many cases, they value the belief in three ordinances more than they practice them. They, often, also, at times, flirt with real high church activities, such as the practice of Advent and Lent, sometimes valuing the high church and its ecclessiastical calendar.

CGGC people, on the other hand, tend to connect living as a disciple of Jesus with involvement in the CGGC institution. There are many of these people, but, try as I might, it's been hard for me to discern how they define right living. These are the people who produce the radical talk that comes from the General Conference. They are also the people in the body who are content to know that the radical talk is talked, but not walked, by holders of institutional authority in the body...and who don't care or object.

Besides these two groups, I hope that I see a new faction forming.

Because I like to invent words, I will. Call them Neo-Church of God people. These are people, like the Church of God people from our founding generation, who seek Jesus first and build the church second. Clearly, John Winebrenner and all of his colleagues are long gone, but I see something like their desire to obey Jesus first, to connect talk and walk, and to "produce fruit in keeping with repentance"...

...in the Nick and Dan podcast, and the small, but, hopefully, growing community forming around their teaching.

It's too early to know, for me, at least, but I think I'm seeing a return to the spirit of Church of God days in what Nick and Dan, are attempting.

What I hope for is the forming of genuine community connection among us, rooted in a new/old way of talk-walking...

...talk-walking that makes Jesus, not church, the end all be all of who we are and what we do.

We'll see about the Nick and Dan thing.

But, for now, there's no meaningful community in our body.

Church of God vs. Churches of God vs. CGGC

Obviously, the idea that there have been three eras of the history of today's religious institution that began as a spiritually empowered movement in the time of John Winebrenner, is an old idea for me.

I've been using the Church of God, Churches of God, CGGC terminology since back in the days of Brian Miller's blog.

But, spelling it out, as I did a few days ago, has unleashed some fresh thinking in my mind.

It strikes me that we have a type of chaos...and lack the sort of unity that Jesus prays for His disciples to have...because, in our body today, there are:

Churches of God people convinced that their's is the true way and we have many

CGGC people who can't embrace any reality for us apart from the current institutionalized system of "leadership" by a hierarchy of Executive Directors, Directors and Councils and Commissions and Task Forces.

Obviously, I'm for a return to the spirit of our early days when the Lord of all authority and power and blessing, blessed us i.e., the Church of God.

The question that I see for our next few years is: Will a sort of Neo-Church of God faction, movement? arise.

I think that that may happen, but it may be that I think that because I want it to happen.

Why I was Seething as I Read Reggie McNeal in the eNews

In yesterday's post, I noted that reading Reggie McNeal's guest article in this week's eNews "inspired and thrilled me," but, as I read it, I was seething and continued to seethe after I read it.

And, I asked readers if they could guess why I seethed.

Off the blog, one of you described the reason I seethed as if I'd written the description myself.

I won't detail that person's description.

What I will say is that I felt, well, affirmed, to the extent that someone understood me so well that they could put my own thoughts into words with precision without my doing it myself.

One of my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand is Fadism.

As a body, we have no core. There's nothing about us that is true about us beyond our consistent willingness to be tossed back and forth by every wind...so we eagerly jump on every bandwagon.

Clearly, one person, at least, sees something consistent in me so that, right or wrong, I'm known actually to stand for something.

I'll take that.

Reggie McNeal as Guest Contributor to the eNews

Lance turned the eNews over to Reggie McNeal for this week and next.

Among the things Reggie says is this concept I learned from him and repeat here ad nauseam:

Kingdom spirituality has much more to do with this life than the next. In a kingdom narrative, church becomes more a verb – a way of being in this world, rather than religious goods and services we consume in terms of institutional activities and programs.

Please read this eNews.

Reading Reggie's, The Present Future, changed my walk with Jesus forever. His eNews article inspired and thrilled me, as his writing always does.

Yet, as I read the article, I was seething...and am still.

Can you guess why?

Did it irritate you?

Nick and Dan: The Church of God vs. the CGGC on Righteousness

There's terminology that I use on this blog that I've never explained. Some who read carefully may have picked up on it.

I use three different terms to refer to the denominational body of which I am a member.

1. Church of God. This is the name our founders, our thriving movement people, believed was the biblical name for a community of followers of Jesus. It's the name I give to us in our movement days.

2. Churches of God. This is the name that members of the body determined was biblically more accurate to describe a community of numerous congregations of the Church of God. The General Eldership actually changed the name, some time in the late 1800s. Ed Rosenberry or Mike Walker, I'm certain, know the precise date off the top of their heads. They know our history better than I do.

I use this term to describe us during the time we were no longer a vital movement, but increasingly organized and, eventually, institutionalized...and when we stopped seeking to be a part of, as Winebrenner called it, "another great Reformation," happily settling into being just another small Protestant group.

3. CGGC. This term was invented by Wayne Boyer and used by us beginning with his tenure as CGGC E. D.. I myself use it to describe our body from the time we launched 35,000 X 2000 (before Wayne became E. D.)--when we reorganized and rewrote our constitution, describing our Executive Director as our "Chief Executive Officer."

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The Church of God was a thriving and blessed spiritual movement that formed in 1830 which, by the time it was superseded by the Churches of God, had expanded to about 800 congregations in approximately 60 years.

The Churches of God organized and institutionalized itself and drained the once thriving movement until it had decayed spiritually and declined numerically to the point that, in the late 1900s, its defeated and overwhelmed hierarchy sought to reorganize.

Sadly, it reorganized by multiplying the number of paid institutional staff positions and increasing the size and power of its institutional hierarchy, substantially increasing the number of Councils, Commissions, Committees and Task Forces to become the CGGC.

Virtually everyone, including today's paid staff of the CGGC, understands that the CGGC has been a disaster. Hence, the attempts to create two Mission Statements in ten years' times, the constant casting and recasting of vision and, now the creation of a first-ever Strategic Plan.

Still, in spite of vigorous efforts to plant and adopt and renew churches, spiritual decay and numerical decline continues, as recent General Conference sessions statistics reveal.

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In the passage of Scripture known as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. (Mt. 5:20)

Among people who believe in Jesus,  righteousness is the center of life. In each of the three eras of our history we've had distinct notions of what right living is.

People are very serious about what righteousness is.  All of us are.

Church of God people were so serious about what they understood righteousness to be that John Winebrenner wrote righteousness into his 27 points of The Faith and Practice of the Church of God, which was far more than a doctrinal statement. It described what we do.

CGGC institutional leaders today are also very serious about what they think righteousness is. They are every bit as serious as were the Church of God people in our thriving, movement days.

CGGC righteousness is rooted in the business model, church-focused, theology that launched 35,000 X 2000. It understands righteousness taking place with local churches and the denomination as the center of the Christian's universe.

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That's all historical background. Here's the point of this post:

I'm beginning to suspect that war has been declared.

The Nick and Dan Bible Study Podcast...

...the product of the passion of the new ERC E. D., along with a member of the ERC Ad Council who is also a member of the General Conference Ad Council,...

...is clear that it defines righteousness very differently than does the CGGC.

And, both guys are not afraid, in their own words, to be controversial, even, occasionally, offensive and to call the CGGC to repent.

Understand: The episodes are always positive and upbeat and constructive but, also, always focused and forceful.

Through four episodes, it appears that the podcast's purpose is to call CGGC people to repent of their understanding of what righteous is.

From  the standpoint of history, in my opinion, the podcast calls CGGC people live in the way Church of God people lived in our vital, thriving, blessed movement days, understanding that this is a different time. 

Nick and Dan frequently talk about our "culture." They seem to want us to rediscover Church of God culture.

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Here's only one way to appreciate the difference between Nick and Dan and the CGGC on righteousness:

Nick and Dan see going to church as a way to spur disciples on to righteousness, i.e., to a life of "love and good deeds" (Heb. 10)...

...but the CGGC believes that going to church is righteousness itself.

As I see it, the Nick and Dan Podcast is
pitting the spirit of the Church of God movement against practice of the institution that is the CGGC.

This is a real conflict in deeply rooted convictions about what it means to follow Jesus.

Nick and Dan call the CGGC to repentance.

And, they just may not back down.

What will happen about this, I don't know.  But, I don't think that the CGGC way is going to win Nick and Dan over. Will Nick and  Dan win you over?

I say to Nick and Dan: Fight the good fight.

It's time to pray that we let the Lord have a hand in what we do with this.

Nick and Dan's Bible Study Podcast #4

Great, great stuff. I listened to it twice and liked it better the second time.

As with the previous three episodes, I highly recommend it.

Two comments:

1. They start out with a brief comment connecting what they're doing with John Winebrenner and the years even before the Church of God was formed.

2. They talk repeatedly, in earlier episodes, but in this episode more than ever, about being intentionally offensive and controversial and radical.

They've been saying all along that their podcast is for the study and application of the Bible.

So, the application of what they consider to be offensive, controversial and radical. Hmmm.

It certainly doesn't offend me personally. It's  what I've been saying for a long time. 

But I'll say to ERC people who don't simply "do what is right in their own eyes," but who have been satisfied with CGGC walk in recent decades, this has to be controversial and seem uncomfortably radical.

These guys focus on Jesus first. They talk about church and, obviously, they love the community of disciples of Jesus. But, they are about Jesus first.

When they are offensive and controversial, it's in connection to church habits and traditions divorced from what Jesus taught and did.

I sense that these guys are genuinely serious about connecting talk to walk.

I often talk about followership. I wonder if followership will take place based on what they are teaching and the application they seem to expect.

Over my many years in the CGGC, it seems that we have a culture that loves to listen to radical talk and are happy with it, so long as we don't have to do it. We never do it.

I could very well be wrong about these guys connecting talk and walk, but I don't think so.

We'll see.

Fireworks?

A "Postmodern" Family?

I've been thinking about my cousin and his favorable description of mom's graveside service, and of mom. And, I think it's a description of our family, at least at our best.

...personal, cordial  humorous, thoughtful, reflective, spiritual, joyful, connected...

And, it strikes me that many of those adjectives, as well as those adjectives lumped together as a whole, describe the values of what, a decade ago, we were calling the Postmodern worldview.

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We've stopped talking about postmodernism in the CGGC. We haven't talked it since the days of Brian Miller's Emerging CGGC blog.

As far as it concerns me, postmodernism awareness came into our dialogue through Reggie McNeal, when he was the keynote speaker at IMPACT, what?, 15?, 20? years ago.

In those days, a few of us in the CGGC were hyped about the reality that younger people lived with a different understanding of the world, and of right and wrong, and good and bad, than even the Gen Xers,...

...and those few of us were exploring the need to make the timeless gospel relevant and attractive...believable...to people with a postmodern worldview.

That conversation has long since fizzled in the CGGC and the spiritual decay and numerical decline of the CGGC has continued...

...and we are getting older. We are dangerously old.

And, we're no longer, as far as I can see, from my place out here in the wilderness, concerned about preaching the eternal truths of the gospel in a way that will engage millennials and the people who are younger than they.

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How did we come to this place?

Here's what I think. It's what I've been saying about this since I was haranguing on Brian's blog:

APEST APEs are the disciples who would, easily and naturally, engage a different culture, in this case, postmodern people.

We have forced our APEST APEs to continue to be subjugated to the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC who are slavish pawns of the Shepherd Mafia.

Churchly institutions and Shepherd Mafias are all about coddling the old and established and creating and sustaining moldy traditions...to placate geezers.

They say, in this  case, to postmoderns, "Take it, or leave it!"

And, the fruit of CGGC ministry say, since the grand debacle of the 35,000 X 2000 fiasco is that postmodern people, people younger than Gen X, have taken the offer...

...they've left...

...and they're gone.

There are many ways we suffer because the CGGC Shepherd Mafia insists on being submitted to. But, this is one of the most consequential.

There is no APE quality to our ministry. There's no openness to the different, to the future.

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My afinity to postmoderns...to millennials and those who are younger...comes from two sources.

1. My spiritual gifting.
2. My family and its natural openness to things that are new. "Raise up a child in the way they should go..."

My cousin who used those postmodern adjectives to praise mom's service, is 66 years old. It would be a slight stretch to call him a postmodernist. But, it shows that there are geezers who can see the good in that way of being.

He's lived in the Harrisburg area, a CGGC hotbed, since his teens, but he's not the sort of person who could ever have enjoyed or thrived in the crotchety, stodgy, increasingly hierarchical, institutional CGGC.

He's a picture of why we, in the CGGC, continue in our spiritual decay and numerical decline. A generation ago, we couldn't connect to him so, now, we can't connect to postmoderns.

He's something apostolic or evangelistic. He's a rather typical geezer, but one who still has a fresh and open mind...and heart.

And, sadly, he could never have been one of us...nor, more tragically, over the years of his lifetime would we have wanted him...

...because we are pathetically moldy and modern, at a time when modernism is dying, as we, too, die.

And, knowing what he sees as being a good thing, helps me understand why I'm, so often, out of step with so many of the rest of you.

I'll take "personal, cordial, humorous, thoughtful, reflective, spiritual, joyful, connected."

You can have yours.

A Sweet and Fitting Tribute to Mom

I received this from a cousin as part of an email yesterday evening.

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Bill, 

I thought today's gathering was exceptional. Very personal, cordial, humorous, thoughtful, reflective, spiritual, joyful, connected....all the things your mom was. I always admired Theda, sometimes wished she was my mom.

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This is, perhaps, a little more eloquent than other things I've heard in recent days, but it's typical. It's helps me to appreciate how profoundly I was blessed.

The "sometimes wished she was my mom" comment stuns me.

The cousin who wrote this is my age. Our families were close during our childhood. His mother was not abusive. She was responsible. She was a devoted mother. She did her best. My cousin thrived in his childhood and has had a good, successful life.

And, he doesn't know what it was like to be mom's son. I only exaggerate slightly when I say that my mom grounded me starting at age 12 until I left for college.

Still, I'm certain that my cousin is sincere in relating that there were times he'd have traded his mother for mine.

This serves to remind me that I, at least, have no idea how profoundly I am blessed.

You've been to funerals where the parish priest, or others, were exaggerating the good qualities, perhaps outright lying, about the deceased.

As I was participating in that "very personal, cordial  humorous, thoughtful, reflective, spiritual, joyful, connected" gathering in mom's honor yesterday, I thought, "You know, no one's lying. All of this is true."

Actually, much that was said was, if anything, understated.

What a blessed man I am.

Mom's Graveside Service

We had mom's graveside service this morning.

When death came for mom, it came quickly. I surprised when we got the call. Just the previous day, she seemed to be rebounding, then, as is often the case, she seemed just to have given up.

In a Priesthood of all Believers way, her two surviving sisters called her what turns out to be very shortly before she died. A nurse held the phone up to her ear and they both prayed for her. How wonderful. How sweet!

Because she was COVID positive, there were many restrictions on what we could do by way of memorizing her.

We asked her favorite chaplain from the home to take charge of the graveside service and he agreed.

We actually discouraged everyone older than my generation from attending the service and, after several people twisted the arm of my dad's 92 year old brother, they all stayed away.

There was a small turn out, but the moment was sweet and appropriate.

Nearly everyone shared a memory of mom, and they were all apropos.

People talked about her smile and her easy laughter, that she forced my very staid father to lighten up, that mom and dad were very deeply in love. It was wonderful. There were no tears, though, no doubt, the tears will come.

One observation and one impression:

All of the people who attended were from dad's side of the family. That surprised me. There are many good reasons that people on mom's side couldn't be there...health...distance. But that cousins from the other side came suggests to me that mom stood out as a source of joy on dad's side. I described dad as staid. They all were. Mom stood out in that crowd.

As far as the chaplain is concerned. He's a nice guy and it's very understanding that mom liked him as much as she did...

...but, I came away questioning his theology.

He asked for Scriptures and, off the top, I gave him Psalm 23, which he read, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, (to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord). He read that one, too.

But, I also asked for 2 Thessalonians 4:13-18 which he edited and left out, "the dead in Christ will rise first..." and, John 14:1-6, from which he left out everything but Thomas's question, paraphrased, "How do we get there?," and he ignored, "...no one gets to the Father except through me."

He seems a little light on the immense eschatological joy that is ours through Jesus.

Now, everyone present knew those words were there, so, no big deal except that, for us, that's where the profound comfort is.

Anyway, besides that, it was a nice day, and a lovely way to say goodbye to mom.

Mom's Body as Toxic Waste...and, More Tender Thoughts

We met with the funeral director last evening to discuss what happens as far as the things he's involved in are concerned.

Mom's arrangements were preplanned and so some of this was already settled, but much wasn't because of the governor's stay at home order and, beyond that, the fact that mom was COVID positive.

Not that we're planning to object, but we think we're being taken advantage of with the fees. Many of the services that were prepaid can't be performed. There can't be what they call around here, a viewing. And  there can't be a funeral, apart from the graveside service. And, embalming can't take place.

The funeral director figures that he'll have to refund a few hundred dollars because his services are reduced. Mom's plan, with many bells and whistles engineered by dad cost many thousands of dollars. This small refund can't possibly be right.

For us, in the midst of the crushing emotion, this will be a "turn the other cheek" moment. It's not worth the trouble.

But, if anyone ever asks, I won't recommend this funeral home to anyone.

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Apart from that, the funeral director went into excruciating detail in explaining how he was required to handle mom's remains.

I'm guessing that this was the first COVID-19 positive body he'd personally had to deal with. The state regulations are very precise but the way he detailed what he'd gone through, it seemed to me as if this was the first time that he, personally, had to carry them out.

His explanation was under the guise of explaining why there could be no embalming or dressing of the body, but  really!

Mom's body will, for all time, be treated as highly toxic waste. Her remains can be placed in the cemetery, but only because many precautions are taken.

These are unusual times and, certainly, the ongoing immense threat of the spread of the Coronavirus is a legitimate concern.

But, none of us were permitted to be with mom as she was passing. Normally, the funeral process is one in which people who are grieving are given aid and comfort. That has not been the case here.

I can only imagine what the emotional aftermath will be.

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It's a comfort to be confident that mom is with the Lord. She had an unbelievably difficult life into early adulthood. I know that from horrible and bizarre stories from aunts, uncles and cousins.

Mom deeply loved the Lord. My most distinct memories of her from my childhood are of the time she spent in the Word and in prayer. She was a loving and faithful witness to me in my wayward teen years.

As much as anyone I know, she produced genuine and sweet fruit in keeping with repentance.

It goes without saying, that there's an emptiness in my life that can never be filled.

Mom Passed Away this Morning

Thanks for the many expressions of affection and concern. Most of all, thanks for your continuing prayers.

We're learning that, because she was COVID positive, there will be many complications with the arrangements for her burial. Dad planned their services and burials meticulously, as it turns out, all for naught.

APEST Envy

That's what I'm picking up from most of the eNews articles since the quarantine took hold.

Have you noticed the yearning for openness to change?

Have you noticed the frequent questions about what we have to repent of?

And, the desire that we be people who reach beyond ourselves. From the latest:

Have you noticed the openness that people have to their unknown neighbors or even strangers (at a safe distance, of course)? Have you noticed that people are more open to questions about the meaning of life and spiritual things? Have you noticed that people are moved when they see compassion in action? You have neighborhoods filled with people who will probably never “attend” your church, but they are open to spiritual conversations with their neighbor who happens to be connected to your church body. How are you equipping folks and encouraging them to make the most of these opportunities?

Oh, that we would be a people who walk a life of love for our neighbors!

But, of course, it's all yearning, desire. Not reality. As always, talk, not walk.

From the beginning of the above paragraph in the latest eNews: The church-consumed focus that flows through the veins of all shepherds with every beat of their heart:

Sure, your congregation can’t gather in person for worship. I know that it hurts, but do you see the opportunities? (emphasis, justifiable, and,  mine).

What throbs in each paragraph of these quarantine eNewses is the vision to see what apostles, prophets and evangelists do, done.

What lacks?

Self-awareness.

The translating of talk into walk, of belief into action.

First and foremost: Repentance. (At least, that's what a prophet thinks.)

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These articles all vividly describe us being a body which empowers apostles, the disciples gifted to lead change, prophets, the disciples able, through the Spirit, to generate the godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, and evangelists, the believers who can't resist the temptation to reach out.

Clearly, the highest holder of institutional authority in the CGGC can envision us as a body that reaps the benefits of APEST.

What he doesn't do, what he, apparently, refuses to do, in real life, is to empower APEST.

From what I understand...and I suspect that this is really the problem...

...the institution will have to repent of itself. 

We will have to walk the power and authority of the Holy Spirit and uproot and tear down and destroy and overthrow the power and authority of the institution.

I can see no other way for APEST to happen.

Certainly, for all of the APEST talk from the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC, we are, if anything, further from a real life APEST walk than we were when the talk began.

You can't serve two masters.

The holders of institutional authority in the CGGC haven't empowered APEST, despite the talk, and I can't see that they ever will.

They'll talk it.

They'll want it, even yearn for it.

But, walking it, clearly, is not in their DNA.

What would Quarantine be Like with an APEST Kingdom Culture?

During the quarantine, I've gotten into the habit of checking out what a number of congregations do online.

I normally check out a group that does the full Sunday Morning Show without the audience. To me, it seems odd. You can hear the echo, as the sound bounces off the walls.

And, I see what seems to be something like our house church gatherings with people sitting in what appears to be a living room or a family room, but, always with the staple of Protestantism, the sacrament of the sermon.

And, there are variations between those two extremes.

In any case, what I really see is this:

A concerted effort to continue recent Christendom traditions...to hold on, maintaining the status quo...until old and fallen ways can return without a struggle. 

I attribute that to two things, both of which are unbiblical.

1. The unspoken conviction that to follow Jesus means to maintain the clergy/laity divide, in which members of the clergy are tasked with providing religious products and services to be consumed by the laity.

2. In APEST terms, the plague of shepherd domination. In my opinion, two rotten fruit of shepherd leadership are, first, the valuing of relationship over truth, and, second, the need to create and, mindlessly, observe tradition...or, the absolute inability to innovate.

At times like this in the past, spiritually empowered people of the Kingdom led historic expansion of the Kingdom of God during times like these.

But, today, nearly all I'm see is determination to hold on to established, traditional practices until Sunday Morning Shows are permitted again and the church can receive its stimulus plan forgivable loan.

The demon in all of this is shepherd domination, which produces inept institutions that are incapable of following the Spirit in producing change.

And, knowing the glories of the past, I wonder:

What would the story of the quarantine would be if we thought Kingdom, not church, and if we were a servant community in which apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers were all empowered to live within their calling and, therefore, to prepare the saints for works of service?

The world is suffering today because there's been a shepherd revolution in the past, because a Shepherd Mafia exists, which resists all values not rooted in shepherd ways.

Apostles innovate, in the Spirit, as naturally as they breathe.

Some have been asking what it is we need to repent of. Duh! God gave us prophets who can answer that question in their sleep.

And, evangelists turn our focus outward, in the Spirit, by their nature.

Instead, shepherds and shepherd values and ways rule. And, we talk about change, and repentance, and outreach. Talk, and nothing more. No Spirit-empowered walk whatsoever.

Blame the Shepherd Mafia.

COVID-19 is an opportunity. Because of shepherds, and shepherd ways, it is an opportunity lost.

We must let the Spirit reign.

We must repent.

Turning on my Pedometer

We are domiciled in a retirement community. As I've said, the administration here was far ahead of the curve in isolating residents from the world.

(We've still had no cases of COVID-19 here.)

Our activities are severely restricted. Access to us by people on the outside has virtually been cut off.

And, normal interaction among residents...daily planned activities, for instance, has been essentially eliminated.

So, it's hard not just to shut down...personally.

I figured out how to check out audiobooks from the library but there's no physical activity there, though, it occupies my mind...but that's wearing thin, too. I think I'm on my fourth Robert B. Parker in a week, and only one of those were actually written before he died.

So, a little more than a week ago, I turned on the pedometer on my phone. It set a daily goal of steps, which was unreasonable for a geezer in quarantine and that was discouraging. So, I figured out how to reset the daily goal...and it seems to be working.

This is allergy season for me but, still, I've been braving the pollen and going outside for a walk every day. (Walking is something we're encouraged to do,...though we must wear a mask.)

And, it seems to help me not be so indolent.

What I Saw at Walmart

We occupy an apartment in Residential Living in a retirement community. The administration here was well ahead of the curve in getting us all quarantined.

As a result, still, no one who has been living in the community has even tested positive for COVID-19.

But, there's been a price to be paid for that.

We only leave the community for medical reasons, i.e., to have surgery, keep an appointment with a doctor, or to pick up a prescription.

A few days ago, I went to Walmart to pick up a prescription and, while I was there, did some grocery shopping...

...and I observed the truth I heard predicted when the stay at home order went into effect here that...

...in a month, we'll know everyone's real hair color.

It's amazing what you see when you go out, and all the more amazing to me because I do it so rarely.

I saw, for instance, a woman about my age, who'd had beautiful, dark auburn hair, nicely styled, and, obviously, colored in a salon by someone who is highly skilled. The woman has very white roots.

Based on the expression on her face, she wasn't happy to be out in public. 

(Actually, it's a bit oxymoronic to have nicely styled hair colored by someone who is highly skilled and to shop at Walmart but, then, maybe that's how you afford the expensive hair, or maybe you're not shopping at your usual high end store because you're hiding out.)

Anyway, I love having a phone with a camera. I love to document what there is to be seen. That's probably the historian in me.

But, I suspect that if I'd grabbed my phone to take a snap of my fellow customer, I would have been the victim of assault, so I didn't...

...but I wanted to...for historical purposes only, of course.

What we will have seen by the time this is over...!

Sad News on Mom

Journaling.

Mom's Hospice nurse called me yesterday, when I was outside walking, enjoying an absolutely beautiful day.

The nurse said that mom had begun to show the signs of someone who's entering the final stages of COVID-19.

Additionally, mom's COPD has become worse. For several days, she'd been struggling terribly with the sense that she can't get her breath.

Ultimately, the doctor ordered a number of increases in her dose of morphine, ultimately getting the dose more than 5 times what it had been AND increasing the number of times she can have it in a day.

Also, Hospice suggested a powerful antipsychotic drug that is also used for patients with severe dementia.

That combination of drugs, combined with Ativan, which she's been on for a while, has her calm and relaxed.

Still, we're dreading the next time the phone rings.

Mom's heart is very strong for a person of her age.

This could be a while.

She's loved the Lord deeply since my earliest memories.

Oh, that she'd just go to be with the Lord.

Nick and Dan's Bible Study Podcast 3

I just finished listening a few minutes ago.

It was awesome. 

It was very biblical and promised more Bible in the follow up next week.

Their take on worship, in my opinion, is more than a tad counterculture for the CGGC in the last 90 years or thereabouts...

...but, as I say, biblical...profoundly biblical.

And, my guess is that what these guys are talking they have already been walking.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to check it out.

Struggling to Preserve Fallen Ways

One of the ways I use this blog is to journal my observations about life.

I've been off of work for nearly a month so I've had a lot of time on my hands.

One thing I've done with that time is to follow CGGC parish priests on Facebook.

Because of the stay at home orders in various states, many CGGC churches are using social media to continue their ministries.

I've been monitoring a little of it to see the how CGGC and their parish priests are responding to the challenges of the day.

In the eNews, Lance is encouraging the people of the CGGC not to miss the Lord giving us the opportunity to change. His latest has the title, If the Lord is Doing a New Thing, Let's not Miss It.

Lance says he thinks the Lord is doing something new in our midst and encourages us not to miss it.

However, based on fruit I can examine from out here in the wilderness, on the level of doing, nothing has changed with Lance.

And, that's what I'm seeing for the most part across the CGGC.

I see pastor/parish priests struggling mightily to continue the old ways in a time of crisis, treading water until things can return to normal.

Won't they realize that for nearly 90 years in the CGGC, at least, normal has meant spiritual decay and numerical decline?

Why would anyone want to return to that? Yet, I'm seeing a great determination, if not passion, for things to return to normal.

I'm not seeing the godly sorrow that produces to the repentance that leads to salvation.

Admittedly, I'm viewing a small sample. I hope that what I'm seeing is not representative of the whole.

Please feel free to give me examples to show me that I'm wrong.