Friends,
I have blogged only twice so far in this calendar year. There are a number of reasons for that. I've continued to sense prophetic insight but haven't always felt as keenly connected with the Spirit as I've wanted to be.
My most consistent harangue is that a faith in Jesus that is true produces fruit. It produces a way of living that draws the attention of the people around you. It causes them think about Jesus.
Paul reminded the Ephesians that we are saved by grace through faith to be God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. (2:8-10).
I've been in the midst of an extended moment when, doctrinally, my faith has been consistent but my walk has been too tepid, less than radical.
I've felt unable to write to you with a clear conscience, "We must repent."
Yet, the truth remains. We must repent.
What follows is a conviction that I feel strongly about. This is, as far as I know, the first time I have constructed the message in this way.
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By then, the Conference ministry had already been in numerical decline for two decades. As I understand the history, that numerical decline was fruit of spiritual decline that had been under way for much longer than that.
The men entrusted with Conference leadership 45 years ago were sincere and devoted churchmen. They knew that Conference ministry was in trouble and, as someone new to the Conference, I sensed concern if not panic...and a touch of the frantic.
Even then, there was talk that recognized that if this continues for another ten years or even twenty years,...
And, that was 45 years ago.
Even in the 1970s, our leaders were struggling to bring about change. Back then, the three year cycle, the "Triennium," was a big deal in the East Pennsylvania Conference. With the beginning of each three year cycle, the men in positions of institutional leadership presented a new plan to change the Conference, to reverse the trend toward decline and to produce growth.
These three year programs were surprisingly sophisticated. There was a program name, a slogan, even a logo. These programs were rolled out during Conference sessions. And, the first time or two, as a young "pastor," I was motivated and excited. After then, I realized that there never was a plan of implementation...at least one that rolled far enough down the mountain to reach the pastor of a small church or churches.
As history makes plain 45 years later, there was no change, and certainly, no reversal of decline and absolutely no growth.
In these 45 years, we have always been working to change. Yet, we continue to decline and, in terms of what we actually do, we have not changed.
I have had one thought about that for a long time, based on what I find in the teachings of Jesus.
For all the programs we have devised, for all the strategies we have attempted, there is one crucial spiritual act that we have never practiced.
Jesus used the word "church" in only one of the four Gospels. So, from the Gospels, it's virtually impossible to learn about the church from Jesus.
However, in the Book of Revelation, before John, the author, describes the vision Jesus gave him, John directs letters, dictated directly by Jesus, to seven churches.
Two of the seven churches receive nothing but praise from Jesus.
The other five churches, according to Jesus, needed change. They all received strong warnings including, to one of the five, the threat that Jesus would actually fight against them. (Rev. 2:17)
In each of those five letters, Jesus issues the same command as a first act in change: Repent.
For example:
"If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." (Rev. 2:5)
So, since my first days in the Conference, we have always sensed the threat of our decline and we have constantly adopted new plans to change.
I'm certain that these were our plans, not the Lord's, for two reasons:
1. They all failed.
2. None of them were built on the act of repentance which is commanded by Jesus.
For a few years,...a few years ago,...I'd read in CGGC Newsletters, ABOUT repenting, but I never once read or heard a genuine call for repentance.
Honestly, my belief is that few, if any among us, know what to call for as repentance in this time and place.
Still today, we are as ernest as ever to end what's now generations of decline, and to share in expanding the Kingdom.
I'm convinced that it is time to return to the way of Jesus.
The Gospels and those seven letters in Revelation are heavily peppered with calls from Jesus to repent.
Here's one thing we no longer understand:
Getting to the moment of repentance is emotional... it is painful. Paul told the Corinthians that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation.
Jesus said that it is the "poor in spirit" and "those who mourn" who are blessed. It's brokenness of heart that leads to that sort of repentance that produces Spirit-empowered change.
In Acts 2, after Peter spoke, the text says that people in the crowd were "cut to the heart." As Jesus might have said it, they had become, poor in Spirit," they became people who mourned. They were experiencing the "godly grief" Paul described to the disciples in Corinth.
In my 45 years in the Churches of God, we always been worried about decline. But, emotionally, we've been steady, even happy go lucky. We do not mourn, or grieve.
In the early days days of our movement, we were an emotional people. The places where we gathered had what was called a "mouners' bench."
In those days, we understood the Sermon on the Mount teaching of Jesus that, to walk in the Spirit, people have to hit rock bottom, to be poor in Spirit and to mourn.
In recent decades, we've been too, what?, suave, too sophisticated to be poor in Spirit and to wallow in godly grief.
Our yearning to change has not been blessed by the Lord. We continue to decline.
We do not need to plan. We need to find something inside us that will crush our hearts and bring us to our knees. From that brokenness can come a repentance that leads to salvation.
I'll repeat the ancient words of Jesus, dictated through John to the church in Ephesus. "If you do not repent..."
We must repent.
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