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.
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