I am in-between places at the moment, so I am not able to write very much. Hopefully, we will be moving to a nice townhome this weekend. No internet access where I am staying at night.

Interesting things going on with the Unity Group’s latest. It is largely a positive and helpful article, if not a bit much on the editorial side. Someone wrote in one paragraph what the group wants – they want to have a representative council like they wanted to have in 2003. For those that do not know, the plan was to have a unity meeting in 2003 after the World Sectors dissolved at the end of 2002. That unity meeting never took place and it is the subject of much revisionist history from Kip and from current leaders.

In any case, the plan appears to be a meeting to sit down and talk about these things. Great! Let’s set a time and place. How about Kansas City? It’s not too expensive and it is centally located to all cities in the US. Hotels aren’t outrageously expensive and neither is meeting space. October sound good? Chicago is not good as it is too expensive. LA is not good for the same reason and it is too far (and too expensive) for some east coast churches. Washington DC or Atlanta is the same, but for west coast churches. By all means, don’t make this a part of August’s seminar in Norfolk, Virginia. Keep in mind that since HKL, not every church has a lot of money anymore to send delegates. Let’s make some decisions to facilitate having the most people attend, not just the right people to attend.

My only remaining disappointment is that a lot of time is spent telling people what to believe instead of what to do to move forward. I can imagine that it took a while to agree that the best course of action is to have a sit down meeting together. LA’s original proposal was to re-create to World Sectors because it would be expedient. Similar proposals are also aimed at being expedient. My proposal was the same way – let’s not have a bunch of meetings about what unity means, but have a meeting about who will take care of remaining churches that do not get support. (I figured that it assumed unity and wouldn’t delay aid getting to other churches.) It may seem like a let down that after all this time, the result was to have a Continental Congress. I do not believe it is a let down at all, but the demonstration of much needed restraint.

Again, let each church appoint a delegate and let’s get talking. Time and place are all that is needed. I would hope that it would be an event without a lot of special music and dance programs. Let’s get to business and finally start talking. I do not believe a universal standard of a delegate is neccessary, each church can make up its own mind whom they send. Following the Jerusalem Council model, a popular study topic these days, each church sent a delegate of their own choice. When the council made a decision, the council sent delegates of their choice (the council’s) to spread the decision. And as I noted previously, even this decision was changed later and Scripture contains no mention of a second council to alter it.

However, I get the sense that disagreeing with the Unity Group’s treatise on what a delegate should be would warrant the label of agitator. More than that, so many words in this article and many of them spent on commentary like this:

These discussions are merely a starting point. If we had had these practices going on in a healthy manner, we would have been better able to confront the problems we shared before, during and after the recent upheaval in our churches. Together we stand, divided we fall.

Truth is that we simply do not know what would have happened if this had been in place before. For me, I believe I would have more respect for those that purport to be leaders because they would have earned it by exercising temperance, love, restraint, and concern for the welfare of others. Had this been in place, the upheaval would have happened years ago and would have been similar to the Worlwide Church of God’s time of drastic reform. Had this been in place, we would have listened to the Church of Christ elders in the 80s and never elevated Kip to be the leader of our denomination. Who knows? Only God knows his purposes for everything that has happened. Unlike many, I believe that hindsight only reveals other options available at the time, not solutions. (Hindsight is not so much 20/20 as it is a pretty like wiping a fogged window to see through it.)

All that being said, I am ready for this meeting. It will be contentious and difficult at times, but I hope it will accomplish a lot.