It wants it’s Evangelization Proclamtion back.

For those that do not know, in 1994/95, we in the ICoC had a five year plan mandated by God to evangelize the world in one generation. This meant we had to have a church in every country that had a city of at least 100,000 folks. We were also supposed to have a church in all 50 states.

We came really close, but we didn’t make it despite the press at the 2000 Jubilee that we did. We had no church in Mississippi, South Dakota, or North Dakota by 2000. Many churches in Africa had 0 members. (Not kidding, it counted as a church if it had 0 members.) This push for tremendous growth was a key element in the accompanying collapse in 2003 - the 12 month period between May 1999 - May 2000 was probably the most intense, most demanding, least gracious, works-oriented time for many of the leaders. The reason was that we had to announce the completion of the EP for the 200 Jubilee.

The truth was not entirely necessary.

Now, the earthquake in LA is seen as divine approval of the same style five year plan. The goals are more modest, but the effect is bound to be the same.

Those that do not learn from history really do repeat it, sometimes verbatim.

An odd idea is floating around about fellowship requirements.

From the article, here’s the bottom line:

Better yet, through the koinonia concept, each church that wishes to be part of this fellowship of churches, instead of signing a document, (which has already put off many leaders in today’s over-litigated society), should simply chip in a token sum, say, US$ 1 or 2 per disciple, to “register” as a member of this fellowship.

As an aside, someone needs to tell Steve Chin that there is no place to sign.

Making DToday into a subscription site is not wrong. Really, it’s not. I don’t believe that it would be successful because of the small audience, but there’s nothing morally wrong with doing so. I’m not railing on DToday here. What is objectionable is the so-called need to determine who is “us” and who is “Them”. In other words, this proposal is still calling for someone at a high level to take a tally of who is a member and who is not a member. Instead of a creed, now the line in the sand is a financial contribution.

Somewhere between hierarchical command-and-control and “every man for himself” there’s a happy medium. Therefore, we ask the Steering Committee to propose a fellowship fee to be collected from the churches who wishes to be part of this global koinonia community

As an aside, the first sentence is a false dichotomy. It’s a prevalent thought in the new ICoC (Cooperating Churches) as well as the new ICoC (Community Churches). There is no golden mean. There are other models out there that lie outside these two ideas. We should investigate them. As it is, we are steadily building ourselves into a denomination. I guess it is what the ICoC (CoOperating Churches) really want. Have at it.

More to the point, isn’t fellowship enough of a test for fellowship? ICoC(Community Churches) may not have signed the unity proposal, but they contribute to missions, send people overseas, help the poor, go to all the conferences, etc. etc. etc. What else is needed? Why does a person need to prove that they are Christian by something other than their actions? Why this insistence on an artificial filter? Again, isn’t it enough to be a Christian?

No, apparently not. The response will most likely be that many claim Christianity without actually being Christian. As such, there needs to be a mechanism to be able to weed out false Christians from real Christians. This is a false need, but I no longer believe that many in either ICoC can overcome this thought-stopper. For whatever reason, we just have to be able to put people and churches in nice, neat categories so that we know how to act around them.

Grow up, please.

Six more churches are now part of the big chain letter known as the cooperation churches. Again, don’t know why something that was supposed to fade into disuse is still circulating. The so-called problem area of the southeastern US has no new signers. Europe, the other problem area has two more. w00t. I am not certain of the proposed benefit to San Diego and Fresno except that maybe certain people on important committees will stop visiting and making the case to sign the agreement. I imagine that aid to other churches is somehow better facilitated by joining the group, though everyone I’ve asked has denied my allegation.

The official name of the new committee appears to be the Co-operation Service Team. As stated in the article, if your church is ready to commit to co-operate, give them a jingle on their email. If not, well, I guess you can talk to the southeastern US churches. They seem to be united and co-operating pretty well, just not officially, I guess.

PS: Alan’s article was never printed though his apology was. Just remember kids, you can believe that you don’t need to sign, you just can’t tell anyone else publicly. Publicly, you have to always ask the question, “Why not sign?” over and over until the other person stops talking.

Doug Jacoby, of all people, has a new forum and blogsite. Who would have thunk it?

You must register to comment.

It’s a Drupal site, like ICOC HOT NEWS. On the positive side, it looks like DisciplesToday will also move to Drupal, based on the last newsletter sent out. Free just seems better than whatever Exigo Office costs. Working properly is also better - Exigo remains the only CMS I know that shuts down the site while *one* article is being edited.

Long live Drupal!

Turns out that the Daily Trojan caved. I’m glad it did not escalate as I thought it could. It definitely wasn’t ignored, so it ended without much incident. I was wrong about this one. I suppose that a note in the archives is not a retraction, but a part of the record.

Who’s next?

Father Ronald Stanley published an article about Campus Advance in Rutgers (near bottom of the page) Although reprinted in September 2007, this article describes events before 2001. Most likely, this was originally published in the 90s. I suppose the staff of Dominican College will be notified soon.

In some ways, these kinds of battles are appearance over substance. Seven years ago, a woman had a traumatic experience that required her to secretly moving out in order to escape. Yet, this is minimized as old news. Hundreds of similar stories played out in ICoC campus ministries all over the United States and this is treated as a local, one-time event. The fact that this happened so many times over points to systemic problems. These problems have never really been addressed.

Apologies are the beginning of change, not the means of change.

More could be said, but it’s not really worth it. Maybe this was a one time thing because the deans of Religious Life were on the ICoC’s side. Maybe instead of being Scientology-Lite in challenging every negative article, it is simply cherry-picking easy battles. Either way, I guess that someone(s) feel(s) vindicated. If I hear from Dr. Whitsett, I’ll let you know.