Now what indeed. The elders of the Boston Church of Christ have spoken. Two elders in LA have also spoken. I’m certain from conversations I’ve had that more will follow.
You would think that this would make me happy, because it is what I asked for.
I am sad that speaking out was necessary. I wish it had never happened.
***
I spent the weekend doing what was important to me. I spent hours with my wife talking about our family. With our first coming soon, sometimes we talk to each other without talking with each other. In other words, we talk about showers, baby stuff, evil appliances that won’t work, the cat, and other things. We don’t always talk about what we can do to help each other remain close to God.
I talked to one of the leaders I hoped would respond to Thomas. It was a good conversation for me.
I prayed quite a bit and thought about taking care of those things most important to me. Those thing include my own walk with God, my wife, my baby, my friends, and my family. When I go to Heaven, it’s God and the immortal souls of his children that will last forever, not the “Kingdom of God”, not my failures, not my blog.
So what am I going to do now? I’m going to pray. Why on earth do I think that I have it all figured out? I have opinions, but all of us have them. We also all have a heart and a brain. Despite evidence to the contrary, having heart, brains, and/or opinions does not make a person right. Only God is good, only He is just.
As to my opinions, here they are for what they are worth. If they help, I’m glad. If they don’t, I’m sorry. I’m offering them because I’ve been asked, not because I feel like I should be a “Kingdom Level” leader and I’m providing my political platform.
1. I believe that things will get worse.
The plan proposed by LA draws a line that doesn’t need to be drawn. If a church doesn’t sign their proposal, what happens to them? This may cause yet more fights. This is in addition to reactions to “The Portland Story” and the Boston elders. At best, reactions to any or all of these three documents will only reveal what others already believe. I doubt it that anyone will really be persuaded.
2. If the ICoC is from God, it will not disappear. If it is from men, it will not last.
3. The timing is not accidental. No, this isn’t “God is in control”. It is, however, acknowledging that God has something in mind, even if it may be what I do not want to happen.
Again, I’m going to pray. I don’t know what else to do.
Comments
7 Responses to “Now What?”
Recent Comments
- toeteaknow: well, since it was a post, the answer I guess is ‘yes’ and not ‘maybe’….. …maybe not? ttk
- pinakidion: what rock said
- Rock: “Is Pinakidion ever going to post again?”
- salguod: Is that an answer to a question that I missed?
- xray342: How’s this for cryptic? $ echo ‘pinakidion’ | md5 16da6556b9ba8a411a6f4251591eae2b
Do you have links to the “three documnets? I’ve only found two (Boston Elders & LA Proposal), unlesss you’re talking about the original ‘Portand Story’ article as one of the three.
Is there another LA elder’s response to Kip? The LA proposal seems not to be a resonse to him but something they were developing on their own.
I thought Boston’s response was good. Forceful and scripturally backed. It’s late, I’ll write more on my blog later.
Oh, and upcoming MOAC ‘05 should be interesting, eh?
I’ll agree that LA’s statement is not a response. The third document was the original Portland Story.
MOAC 2005 should be quite interesting.
We stayed home Friday to watch Battlestar Galactica and eat pizza. We ended up Stargate Atlantis, too, and the wraiths scared my 9 year old.
Saturday, our church had a parenting workshop that happened to coincide with the parenting week in our Family Dynamics class. My wife mentioned that our boys don’t actually see me when I read my Bible, but I haven’t decided if that’s important if they know I do and know I love God’s word. We spent the afternoon and evening with friends from a local mainline CoC. At steak. Mmmmm.
In the parenting workshop, one of our elders shared how they had taught their children to pray to Jesus when they woke up scared. I went (to myself) “DOH!” because I had blown an opportunity to help my son address his fears by leaning on Jesus. DOH! (Again).
Yesterday, Guillermo Adame spoke (3 points
), then me and another brother took our boys to a cub scout event where we shot 2-liter pop bottles the boys had decorated into the air. After that, while the boys went to another friend’s, Laura and I spoke a little about all of this stuff and prayed for the folks in New Orleans.
I think I mean I agree with you - the ICOC is not our life, Jesus is. TOH, our local congregation is our family and part of our conversation was about how some of the idiotic practices like decision making and handling of finances behind closed doors really keeps individual members from engaging themselves and from taking ownership of their congregations’ needs.
So, yes, there is much in life more important than Kip, L.A., Boston, etc. There’s teaching our kids about Jesus. Loving our friends. Shooting pop bottles. Watching Battlestar Galactica together. Heck, there was even a lesson in there (Adama brings the family back together)…
Mark
Very wise words, “…life more important than…”.
There comes a time when you need to look at the state of your soul and the spiritual life of your family. It may be best to just leave. Get away, take some time. Search the scriptures and pray. Read, reflect, think. Then find where to go.
I was a part of the early ICOC a long time ago. During the reconstruction of the St. Louis church. I was only there for a few months and then went back to my old church (a so called traditional church of christ).
But about 5 or 6 years ago, I finally left the C of C completely. I can only say it was a very good move and I’m glad that God was able to get through to me.
Before I Get Carried Away
Boy, I’m having serious flashbacks going on here. On one hand, it seems like 1979 all over again, with Kip “Calling out the Remnant” from the ICOC now, just like he did with the COC shortly after taking the reigns…
Yes, I have listened to a couple of messages from the portland web site earlier this summer. It is amazing to me how much he sounds exactly like he did back in the early 80’s when I used to listen to tapes from the Boston church. Has he grown at all? That’s what I came away with after hearing it. Everything, delivery, topic, style, it was all the same. They could have just put up a message from that time and it wouldn’t be much different.