I found an item of note on the conference schedule of MOAC 2005:

Thursday, September 8
Class Session #2: 4:00 pm

Forum: Paradigms of Brotherhood & Church Cooperation
How do we simplify the criteria of effective unity? In what areas do we need cooperation? What, if any, is the role of one church mentoring another? How do we handle doctrinal and opinion differences? How can we effectively work together to continue evangelizing the world? Steve Staten & Thierry Fender will moderate a forum of several presenters, followed by question & answer, on the shape of our future unity.

I truly wish I could be there. I would want to ask two questions:

• What are we going to do about those that promote division, specifically Thomas?
• Are we only looking to cooperate with churches of the former and present ICC?

There’s a part of me that looks at the “how to deal with doctrinal differences” question and sigh. It appears that, if we follow the path we’ve started so far, the answer will be to quote Ephesians 4:29, challenge indrectly, play nice, and hope for change. When did Ephesians 4:29 become “thou shalt not raise your voice or publicly disagree with your brother”? Paul, the same person that wrote Ephesians 4:29, also publicly confronted Peter. But I digress…

Then, there’s a part of me that thinks, “this could be great”. There is a question and answer on this, not just a bunch of papers. It is a moderated discussion. It can demonstrate to Thomas and his ilk that there are many of us that have zero interest in ‘overseeing evangelists’ or being replanted or ‘one-over-another’ discipling. We can sit down and work through issues before and after the forum. For this alone, I wish I could be there.

At least I hope this will be fruitful. I pray to keep this hope because the speakers are all the same cast of characters as before. (When is Sean Wooten actually in Russia.) The other bit of discouragemnet comes from other speeches on the program:

Friday, September 9
Class Session #3: 2:00 pm
Revival: Son of Man, Can These Bones Live?—Kip McKean
Principles of faith-building revival culled from the two-year turnaround experience of the Portland International Church of Christ

and

Victory: Re-Defining the Abundantly Fruitful Church—Mike Fontenot
How do we know when a church is succeeding or struggling? As leaders, what should we pray for and expect in evangelizing and in baptizing? Drawing from the outstanding example of the Hampton Roads church of Christ, an elder & evangelist tackles the crucial topic of “success” in the church.

Lord, please help us despite ourselves.

Update: Joe Beam, the creator of Family Dynamics is coming to MOAC 2005! I actually want to go – unfortunately, he is speaking at the same time as the forum. I wish he could be at the Friday 2pm slot 🙂 In any case, this is shaping up to be a good conference. A forum, Dr. Reese, Joe Beam of Family Dynamics… How about that?