Years ago, during the heyday Brian Miller's Emerging CGGC blog, I began participating in another discussion forum, a religion board where most participants are not Jesus followers. That board still functions.
Recently, one of the old-timers there reminded me that, for a brief time, I posted under the name, "Postmodern Bible-thumper." That's what I did there: Thump the Bible.
It's also what I did on the CGGC Blog.
In those days, the CGGC approved its first ever Mission Statement, directly inspired by the three points John Winebrenner preached in his October 1830 sermon, on the day the Church of God was formed.
Our first ever Mission Statement was:
As witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves to make more and better disciples by establishing churches on the New Testament plan and proclaiming the Gospel around the world.
In the early years, "the New Testament plan" was a way of life in the Church of God, and we were blessed.
In 2010, the General Conference unanimously adopted that first Mission Statement. Sadly, we talked, but we didn't walk.
In our early years, the Church of God searched the Scriptures first, then acted. By design, our "Plan" was the New Testament.
Today, in the CGGC, the church, not the Word, is our focus.
Today, we devise humanly-imagined visions and strategies, then, we supplement them with verses and passages from the Word.
Today, the CGGC is in decline.
The men and women who make decisions that determine what the CGGC will be, and do, in the future met, recently, to "Reimagine."
It's time to Reimagine ourselves as people who focus, first, on the Word, as people who are willing, as God said to Jeremiah, "to uproot and tear down, and to destroy and overthrow" everything about us not of the Word and, "to build and to plant" (1:10) a people who, once again, "search the Scriptures daily" (Acts 17:11) to know what is true.
Forget Reimagining. We don't need to rethink our own thoughts.
It's time to thump His Word. And, to hit it hard.
We must repent. (Mt. 4:17)
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