Last week I was in Saint Augustine, Florida for the annual Area Administrator's retreat. It was a good time to connect with colleagues from across the continent and to exchange ideas and experiences.
General Director Ronald Duncan was with us for the week, and shared a paper he wrote entitled "Congregationalism and the Church of God Reformation Movement: A Needed Conversation". It was still a draft edition, but the intent is to have a final version ready for distribution in the not too distant future.
Certainly this is a needed conversation. As Duncan says, our "understanding of congregationalism has functioned largely as an unquestioned assumption in the life of the church", and that many have seen it "as synonymous with independence or unlimited autonomy".
In the paper Duncan traces the development of congregational polity from Scripture through to its implementation in our movement. He argues that things started to unravel for us around the late 60s or early 70s. Rampant individualism in society, carried over into the local church and into the Church of God at a larger level. "Unlimited autonomy within an increasingly loosely connected congregational system" has become the accepted norm, but Duncan correctly points out that this is "totally alien to a biblical understanding of the body of Christ". Nevertheless, the result of all this is disconnection, isolation, and loss of trust. He even goes on to call this "an insidious cancer in the life of the church".
The remedy, according to Duncan, is covenantal relationships, both within and among congregations. Responsibility of all involved is critical, and leads to interdependence that is centered on mission. This should radically shape the way we function as a movement.
I affirm what Dr. Duncan is writing. If we are going to have any impact as a movement we must address what it means to belong to "Church of God" and the implications of this belonging. Sadly, the Church of God has sold itself out to the prevailing attitudes of society and Evangelicalism, even when it deeply conflicts with what we understand as truth. Even more tragically, we have failed to acknowledge these influences.
Hopefully Duncan's paper will lead us to confront these issues. Be sure to read it when it is officially released.
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9 comments:
Reading your analysis of Ronald Duncan's paper is exciting for me. The "cancer" of congregational isolation is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to address. This will cause significant waves among the movement. I suspect we are in for a major turning point in the near future.
Steve I also am excited.
I to see that we've not wanted to talk about structure because in the beginning's we fought even naming ourselves. But if you don't decide what system you want to be, you just go to the default or status quo of the world around you. Which you are saying happened, I agree.
let's not simply admit that the elephant is there, let's give rides on it and sell cotton candy and over-salty popcorn.
Since we're talking about elephants, does anyone else wonder if the Church of God will in fact be able to navigate all the changes we have to face and not splinter apart?
Randy,
That's a question that I have wondered recently. It just seems that we are at tipping point.
I believe it will require a major transition in attitude if we are able to completely avoid any splintering. There are just too many people that view attempts to move forward with suspicion. I pray that God moves among us a powerful way, and an attitude of unity truly takes over. Regardless, we have to address what is slowly killing us - Even it we face schism.
Some of "our" churches ("our" meaning that they're listed in the Yearbook) would probably rather leave than embrace interdependence. (They would not leave to join other denominations or groups, but would simply revel in the complete autonomy of their independent non-denominationalism, choosing to associate with others only when it was of self-benefit.) Some of these would even be large congregations. But they are currently only "attendance numbers" in the overall scheme of the Church of God, contributing little if anything financially or leadership-wise. Schism may happen, but what are we really losing anyway?
-kls
I often wonder if our autonomy isn't just an excuse for some congregations/pastors to just do whatever they want, regardless of whether it's good or right. Having been in churches that are borderline abusive/neglectful/disrespectful to the pastors, I wish there were steps a pastor could take to get help from Anderson. All I hear is, "Sorry you got the stuck in the bad church but there is nothing we can do."
I pastor an extremely small church (10) in a state with few congregations that are spread out. Talk about feeling isolated!
It's interesting to me that a movement that is stagnate focuses so much attention on its stagnation looking for structural solutions to correct what ails us. Why don't we look to spirit led leaders to show us the way, and seek to walk in the Spirit. The movement is splintered and disconnected already, we're just taking our time in making the divisions permanent and give birth to another denominational entity.
And we all know, of course, that the Spirit would never lead us to organization, structure and accountability...
When I attended the Anderson Camp Meeting in 2000 (I'm not a member and never was) I heard some talk here and there about what sounded like formal organization. Coming from a group of churches that experienced conflict when one part of the movement when through "restructuring" into a formal denomination, and then tried to claim that dissenting church properties pertained to the denomination (I don't think they one a single court battle to take property, btw). Every time I hear folks in the Church of God movement talk about challenging the congregational system, the first question that comes to my mind is "What about local church property?" It is possible that local churches might not like going along with many changes and may leave. Would new church plants be required to sign property over to the denomination hq or would loans for construction be considered acceptance of an obligation to stay with the denomination?
This is just friendly curiosity.
I grew up in the the Church of God and now lead worship for CoG in St, Joe, MI. There's another CoG literally 4 miles away and I have never spoken to or even really heard of anything they're doing. It's always seemed crazy to me the disconnect not just between our congregation and the Mother Ship in Anderson, but other congregations in the same community.
I realize I'm jumping into this convo a little late...
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