Our church entered in a Sunday series based on Ed Anton’s new book, Repentance: A Cosmic Shift of Mind and Heart. The church began the series while we were slacking off (!) in Chicago, so I just started the book tonight. I have to admit, I’m never fond of these kind of church wide reading projects, and wasn’t looking forward to this one. However, I’ve read through the first two chapters and I am really impressed with this so far, and eager to keep reading. Let me share some tidbits:
Chapter 1 lays bare how our consumer culture has invaded our churches and how we view churches. People now ‘church shop’ much like they ‘car shop’ or shop for anything else. Now churches, in the honorable desire to get more folks in the pews, market themselves much like you’d market anything else. Of course, the traditional understanding of repentance (“Your wrong, so change.”) doesn’t sell well. This market driven approach (Ed spent 10 years in marketing at P&G and Coca-Cola) leads to pushing the message of Biblical repentance further into the background. We emphasize the ‘attractive’ parts of Jesus’ message, the parts that appeal to the emotions. Just like the marketers:

The distillation of our lifetime exposure to ad copy leaves us with this common sentiment: “You are so terribly misunderstood. We understand this better than anyone else. We have listened to you, and we know what you need. You need our product; everything’s going to be alright. Thank you for allowing us to serve you.”

pg. 19

Sounds like a lot of churches, no? And, frankly, it’s not a ‘bad’ message, except that once you begin there, it’s hard to bring in repentance later. And, Ed points out, both John the Baptist and Jesus began their message with “Repent!”
In chapter 2 he delves into a history of the translation of the Greek word metanoia which is known in English as ‘repentance’ and how that has colored our view of it for the worse. He lays out the story of hundreds of years of mis-translaton both accidental and quite deliberate, that turns the idea of metanoia, akin to ‘transformation’ or ‘metamorphosis’, into ‘penance’ or ‘sorrow’. Jesus did not come calling men to ‘Be sorry’ or ‘do penance for the kingdom of heaven is near.’ Jesus called us to transform our mind, not by looking back in regret but looking forward with hope:

metanoia does not rue the past so much as it pursues the future. Lamenting fault does not foment change. At the same time, metanoia does not ignore past transgressions; in fact we abhor sin – and sinfulness – through metanoia. … Metanoia results in a rejection of sinfulness, because its fierce pursuit of a righteous future abandons sin to an obsolete past.

pg. 32

Our understanding of repentance is a victim of the necessary evil of translation. He says

As the Jewish poet Haim Nachum Bialik put it, “Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your bride through a veil.” … but through translation, we should always strive to render the veil so sheer that we may sense the softness and sweetness of our bride’s lips.

He claims that our familiar English word ‘repentance’ is simply a thinner veil, still obscuring true metanoia behind our own preconceived notions of sorrow, regret and penance.
Chapter 3 promises illustrations to further illuminate metanoia. I already feel as though a certain thickness of the veil has been removed, if the remaining chapters are as enlightening this book will be well worth the $15. I don’t plan on blogging each reading of the book, I suggest you go to DPI and order a copy of your own and discover what Jesus really meant when he said “Repent!”. ICOCinfo has a couple of links today to study resources to use with the book as well.

Let’s pretend a minute, OK?
Pretend that you are the leader of a moderate sized church.
Pretend that you are well known in your fellowship of churches. In fact you were once the leader of said fellowship and are largely credited with being its founder.
Pretend that after many “urgent” conversations in recent weeks, sixty five well known leaders of of your fellowship from at least 11 countries and every continent, including many personal friends, publicize a 12 page rebuke (HTML version), listing your sins, documenting a lack of repentance and calling for change.
How would you respond? Indignation? Eager to see justice done? Alarm? In other words, godly sorrow? Perhaps there would be hurt, tears, fasting, prayer and much advice from Godly men as well. I think if it had gotten that serious that they had to go public, perhaps I should consider a career change.
Or maybe you’d fight back, defending your actions, avoiding addressing the specific charges, attacking your accusers, quoting misleading statistics (see today’s post at ICOCinfo) and generally obfuscate the issue.
This past week, that’s exactly what happened. Sixty Five men publicly addressed the sins of Kip McKean, calling for repentance. To put it bluntly, he refused, justifying his sins as God’s work. I’m not sure what happens next, but Kip seems determined to take the International Church of Christ name for himself and those with him, attacking churches for removing ‘International’ from their name. The irony here is that very few ICOC churches ever had ‘International’ in their name. Prior to Portland the only one I had ever heard of was the Indianapolis International Church of Christ. True to form, he is creating controversies rather than doing the hard work of loving people, respecting differences, honoring Godly diversity, binding the wounded and pointing people away from worldly diversions to their amazing God.
As far as I’m concerned, he can have the name and title, since it seems to be important to him. For many the ICOC will always be connected to the flawed doctrines of Kip McKean, which he refuses to let go of, and I want no part of it. What we call ourselves here in Columbus matters not at all. We can be “The Church of What’s Happening Now Baby!” for all I care as long as we’re doing the work of God.
(NOTE: What I’m not saying:
I’m leaving the ICOC. Maybe intellectually, but not physically. I think I left the ICOC intellectually a while ago, frankly.
My church is leaving the ICOC. Not my call, and not likely, as I see it now. That just fine with me because I don’t see any interest in following Kip’s lead either.
Just thought I should clarify.)

I know I said I would be rather quiet for a while, but I just spent my lunch hour reading an excellent article and thought I should share it with you. Douglas Jacoby has displayed on his web site a link to an article entitled Unity on Three Levels for a while now. It is highly appropriate for the current goings on in the ICOC, namely Kip’s calling out the remnant, the LA unity proposal and now the group charged with working out a new unity proposal. DJ covers the Biblical issues and church history lessons far better than I would have, please go read it.
To summarize my thoughts on this current move to a more unified brotherhood of churches, I am firmly against any agreement that attempts to regulate beliefs, practices or opinions. In the 2,000 plus years of Christianity there have been many of these documents and they have contributed more to division among God’s people than anything else. I want no part of such a document and hope that nothing like that results from these current discussions.
I am all for church cooperation, ‘interdependence’ as DJ puts it, and would be in favor of some sort of organizational agreement to allow us to better share the burden of supporting other churches, both ‘missions’ work and churches that simply need help, and serving the poor. It seems that HOPEworldwide is already in place and perfect for the latter, we simply need to figure out the former. Sorting that out, however, is simply organizational. There need be no regulation of belief or practice and adding in anything like it will actually hinder that work rather than help as it will discourage some from signing on to the effort.
Please go read DJ’s article. It’s an excellent piece which I think sums up where true unity starts (between you and God) and the levels that must be built if we intend to be a unified brotherhood.

FYI – Much of this is from the reports of the two men here that went to the Seattle Leadership Conference. I was not there, and most of this has not been published any where that I’ve seen. The list of 9 & the timeline is from ICOCinfo.
Well, it seems tht all the hoopla of the past couple of weeks is blowing over, at least for now. Kip was rebuked by many and several churches have distanced themselves from him. He was removed from his speaking role at last weekend’s International Leadership Conference (ILC). Only time will tell if this will bring repentance and change. I hope and pray so, but like many others I am skeptical. I hope we are all wrong.
The LA ICOC church has abandonded their propsal for unity. Several churches spoke out agianst it, though fewer than reacted to Kip. Ironically Kip was the only one I’ve been made aware of that responded to it with enthusiasm. LA had posted an explination of their reasons behind their ‘call’ prior to the ILC and they evidently explained it further at there. I guess there has been folks urging the LA church to initiate some sort of move to a more cohesive church structure. Much of this was driven by the somewhat disorganized and haphazard third world missions support.
The quick timing and ultimate release of the document seems to have been driven by Kips ‘calling of the remnant’. That seems to be what pushed the LA leadership over the edge to do something. It strikes me how much turmoil was begun over one man’s careless words. The LA leadership apologized for the rush and any pressure that put on anyone.
In the wake of the ICOC shake up of a couple of yeas ago, some third world ICOC churches have found themselves struggling for support. Here in my region, once known as the American Commonwealth Region (ACR) of the Brittish Comonwealth World sector (what a mouthfull, sheesh!), once there was no ACR structure, we divided our missions work between the churches. The churches in Ohio are responsible for the Indonesian churches. Eveidently most of the other regions and world sectors did not have such a plan and the ACR model was the exception. Understandably, the third wird would really like us to get our act together.
So, at the ILC, 32 leaders nominated a commitee of 9 men (Mike Taliaferro, Bruce Williams, Mike Fontenot, John Louis, Steve Staten, Scott Green, Philip Lam, Andy Fleming and Sam Powell) to solicit proposals to move forward until November 1st and then present their proposal in February. There’s no document of agreement, no dos and don’ts, nothing yet but the start of a prcoess. Again, time will tell where this leads, but it’s certainly a far better way to start.
But for me, I’m just glad it’s over for now. I’m glad to put this behind me. It was an unfortunate distraction from the important work of my own relationship with God and leading my wife, family and my church. More unfortunate was how I let myself get distracted by it, particularly Kip. Well, no more. Like my friends Paul and John, I plan on spending no more energy on him. I may keep up on his writings and teachings, but unless it directly effects myself, my family or my church I plan on spending no more blog space on him. I’m reminded of this scripture:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Ephesians 6:10-13

I consider myself an artist and a musician, of sorts. I inherited a love for music from my father who has been singing Barbershop Harmony for longer than I’ve been alive. I’ve always liked to draw and ended up in getting an Industrial Design degree in college, initially thinking I would get into Automotive Styling. That didn’t work out, but I’m still in the design field.
For folks who aren’t musical or artistic there’s certain awe for those who have those talents. It’s almost mysterious to them. “I could never draw/sing/paint/play like that!” they say. I disagree, having been through formal training in both. The mechanics of moving a pencil or mixing paint or producing sound or playing an instrument are not out of the reach of most. You could learn to do it. But what makes folks excel in these things is the most understood of all because it has nothing to do with the actual production of the art or music.
In order to be a good artist, the most important skill you need to hone is your vision. In order to be a good musician, you must hone your hearing. Sketching methods, painting techniques, proper fingerings and vocal production techniques are all required and can be fairly easily taught. But if you want to be good, you must go deeper and, in a way, in the opposite direction. To make pleasant music, you must hone your hearing to new levels and directions. To produce good art, you must fine tune your vision.
You see your eyes and ears will lie to you. You look at a picture of a building and know that the walls are vertical and the doors and window ledges are horizontal, so that’s how you interpret them. However, if you look again you might see that the lines on the picture are at all kinds of angles, none of which are truly horizontal or vertical. Note the picture at right the top of the garage door is tilted down and the line of the curb is tilted up. Yet we know that they are parallel and we read them that way. It’s the recognition of that process of converging lines and tricks of the eye that you need to appreciate. The same happens with color. Look at the picture of my black car at right. Your mind reads it as black, yet very little is actually black. There are shades of grey and reflections of blue sky and green leaves and even bright white reflections. All of these things are processed by your mind to tell it that the car is black and the highlights and reflections describe to our mind the shape of the car. A good artist understands all of this and is able to reproduce all these nuances on paper or canvas.
About 10 years ago I played in a Motown Band in Detroit with a bunch of folks from church called West Grand Boulevard. I did background vocals, tambourine and alto, tenor and baritone sax. After playing with them for a while, the band leader pulled me aside and asked me to leave the group. Why? I wasn’t able to hear what I was playing in relation to the rest of the group. We’d be in rehearsal (and recording it) and I was playing along doing fine. I knew the fingerings and was technically playing the right notes. But upon playing the tape back it was painfully clear that I was not playing the right notes. Frankly, I sounded awful, completely out of tune. During the song I hadn’t a clue, I though I was doing fine. It was embarrassing. I had played sax and clarinet for years in High School and college, but somewhere in the intervening years I had lost my ability to hear how in tune I was and adjust to it. I had no ill feelings toward the brother, he was clearly right, I stunk!
As I contemplated this recently, I wondered if there are spiritual parallels to this idea, and I think there is. Bear with me because I haven’t exactly fleshed this out completely myself.
On the surface, Christianity is about church services, tithing, Bible study, prayer and avoiding sin. Many folks look and say “I could never live like that.” But just as the real heart of art lies beyond the techniques of pencil and paint and the real heart of music lies beyond proper fingerings and vocal techniques the real heart of Christianity lies beyond the mundane day to day practices of faith. Beyond those surface things is the real heart of Christianity and only in getting to that heart to the surface things start having meaning. Jesus expressed it this way:

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40

Everything we area s Christians must spring from our love for God and for each other. That’s just the way it works. We can practice all the other things, hone them and fine tune them to perfection. In fact, it’s pretty easy to do and it’s easy to get caught up in the mechanics of religion and forget the heart.
In my opinion, folks that dabble at the mechanics of music and art aren’t truly artists and musicians. That is not to demean the enjoyment they get from it or to stand in judgment on them or their abilities, it’s just the difference between a hobby and true artistry. The same is true of religion. Some are content with Hobby Christianity, playing with the surface aspects of church services, traditions and sacrements. They feel good about themselves for ‘being good’ or ‘showing up’ or whatever, but it goes no deeper than that. Are these folks really practicing Christianity or are they playing some other game?
I can remember taking drawing classes in my freshman year of college. I thought I was an artist and to some degree I felt that this class was a waste of time. I already knew how to draw. I can remember however, when I went from a hobby to artistry. It was when I started seeing what was really there instead of what mind told me was there. It changed the way I was able to draw, transformed my abilities. In the same way, in recent years awareness of this perspective from Jesus on what’s important has transformed my faith. Evangelism? Yes, as a part of my love for God and his people. Tithing? How about giving generously to more than just my church, but to wherever the need arises.
Listen, I’m not here to stand in judgment on anyone and how they live out their faith. That’s not my job, it’s God’s. We all are capable of falling into a rut where our faith becomes about the schedule, the dos and the don’ts. All I’m saying is that we cannot stay there. We must get to where we are driven by our love for God and each other. When we do that, it will impact every aspect of who we are. It will transform our thinking, our worship, our prayer, our study habits and our actions.

Well, the church leaderships are responding to Kip, to the LA proposal or both toghether. So far, only one has signed onto the LA proposal (more on that later.) I must say, overall I am encouraged. What I feared might become a landslide into the past does not seem to be materializing. Some snippets:
In response to Kip:
From Bostson:

As a result of Kip’s divisive behavior, conversations and writings, he was warned last year at the Chicago leadership conference by a group of mature elders and evangelists. Kip committed to changes, but his actions indicate that he is not serious about working respectfully together with others. Most recently, he preached and distributed an article and posted the same on the Portland church Web site. The article in effect calls on churches to either agree to accept Portland’s direction or to realize that Kip and others from Portland will call out members from these churches to join with them. Kip’s actions are divisive and arrogant and must be opposed.

From Seattle:

Unfortunately, in “The Portland Story,” our brother Kip, in seeking to “call out” disciples to an ostensibly higher level of commitment, engaged in several serious and inappropriate kinds of unwholesome criticism and comment: mischaracterizing our church history in a way that disparages many of our most experienced churches and regional church leaderships; making matters of opinion into binding doctrine (that is, passing judgment on disputable matters Romans 14:1); disparaging the very real weaknesses of sister churches and their leaderships in a way that is disrespectful and undermining to their reputations with the people they are struggling to shepherd; and insinuating that many or most of our church leaderships worldwide have melodramatically “trapped” true disciples behind walls of lukewarm-ness.
We appeal in particular to the Portland leadership group to consider and act on these observations carefully and thoroughly. We do believe that the Portland church is a zealous, happy place, but we implore them to make remedy and apologize for behavior affecting disciples beyond Portland’s borders—for disrespecting, judging, for condescension, for one-size-fits-all demeaning words, for ignoring Matthew 18 protocols in specific church situations, and to renounce reckless accusations and opinions foisted as doctrines.
In that event, we would welcome them “to be on the team,” with the Northwest family of churches and leadership fellowships. If not, then we wish them well, pray for them, but are both sad yet content to part company for the present time and move in a very different direction for our own church’s missions and maturity.

From Phoenix:

Obviously, we are all concerned about churches growing and each disciple in every church being a disciple according to the Bible’s definition. But unfortunately, we in most older, larger churches find ourselves trying to help bring order out of the chaos that we believe resulted from faulty building principles in the first place. Taking the biblical premises in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, the fires of testing showed what sort of materials were used in the foundation of our building, and this biblical principle should make it abundantly clear that the building of the past 20+ years under Kip’s leadership was clearly faulty. It is pretty difficult to hear Kip state or imply that those of us who are trying to pick up the pieces of a devastated movement are somehow unaware or unconcerned about its condition and helping it to recover.
At any rate, the brothers who met with Kip at Chicago last year expressed in no uncertain terms that he would have to cease such disrespectful and divisive statements, or unity with him would be impossible. It was clearly a warning.
…
We are adding our voices of concern to those of others in calling for Kip’s repentance of his divisive approaches, and for Portland church members who are actively recruiting members from other churches to cease and desist. … We are desirous of seeking a forged type of unity based on relationships of mutual respect and agape love.

In addition, Disciples Today, the closest thing to a ‘official’ ICOC web site, initially printed, then removed, Kip’s Portland Story. They explain why here (subscrition required.) In a quote from the article on ICOCinfo, it was in part because:

The article clearly calls for disrespect, rebellion and division among God’s people — far beyond the boundaries of boldly challenging God’s people to be righteous.

In response to both LA & Kip:
From Orlando (via ICOCnews):

The purpose of this statment is two-fold: 1) To let you know that your elders & staff believe that creating an organization to promote unity through stated standards of behavior or beliefs may, in fact, cause more disunity than it promotes; and, 2) To restate our commitment to be a grace-motivated, purpose-driven church led by a local leadership. Though our feelings are strong, we do no want to be reactionary but want to gather as many facts as possible so as to lead you forward in a powerful but humble way.

From St. Louis:

First, Kip McKean unveiled a plan he has regarding other churches within our fellowship. … While we do appreciate any desire to help struggling churches, and understand that Jesus deserves our total, “sold-out” commitment, this plan seems to promote more competition and division than it does respect and unity. We have all had enough of that in the past. Here in St. Louis, we have no desire to be a part of such an endeavor.
…
Also the leadership of the Los Angeles Church of Christ has made a unity proposal of its own last week. In it there was a list of unified beliefs, unified practices and an appeal for unified worldwide leadership. … We greatly respect the desire of those brothers to do something that would hopefully draw God’s people together. However, at this point, we do not desire to sign such a proposal, fearing it may limit true unity rather than promote it. We do not feel that a centralized leadership group or a narrow view of “unified practices” should be the foundation or requirement for unity amongst our churches. Rather, it should be simply our common commitment to honor, obey and serve Christ.

From San Diego:

Many of you are aware of the controversy being stirred up over the last few weeks by an article on the Portland, Oregon [website entitled], “The Portland Story” in which Kip McKean unveils his plan to call out of our churches a remnant of what he considers to be committed disciples. Although we are committed to making disciples here in San Diego as well, it saddens us to say that his divisive statements are clearly doing more harm than good, and we are absolutely opposed to having anything to do with it here in the San Diego Church of Christ.
…
A separate issue that has come up recently which also deserves our attention is a call by the Los Angeles Church of Christ to a new brotherhood structure … While we applaud our brothers’ efforts at unity, we are very reluctant to pursue it by means of structure and accountability since the tendency of human nature is to become more and more legislative and controlling, and we have no intention of ever being a part of something like that again.

The SanDiego article is a little different in that it spends little time going over why they aren’t signing up, instead refering to the Boston, St. Louis, Phoenix and Atlanta articles for more detail. Instead, they take this opportunity to explain where they are going:

Through the trials and difficulties of recent years, God is calling us to mature in our Christ-likeness more than ever before. Among other things, we are learning how to be committed without being legalistic, how to be unified without being coercive, how to be connected without being codependent, how to be generous without being irresponsible, how to be nurturing without being sentimental, how to be honest without being hurtful, how to be forgiving without being superficial, how to be evangelistic and serving without losing a sense of boundary and balance, and how to take care of our own without being overly provincial.

There are also individual responses to the LA proposal from a member of the LA church and an Elder in Atlanta, both against the proposal.
I must say that I am encouraged by these responses. Please go read them in their entirety if you have time, particularly the San Diego article, as there is much more to them then the snippets tell, including acknowledgements of the good Kip has done over the years in individual lives and the role he played in building out fellowship of churches. Many, if not most, in the ICOC owe something of their conversion to Kip and his vision, if only because that vision made the existance of their church possible. There is little debate that the execution of his vision came at a high price for many, however. While I’m happy about the way these churches have responded, I am still sad it had to happen at all. Of course, a few churches denouncing these things doesn’t end it. In fact, in the 2.5 years since the HKL, this is the second such unity proposal from LA and it seems pretty clear that the rebuke of prominent church leaders has not had an effect on Kip …
Not surprisingly, Kip has wholeheartedly endorsed and signed onto the LA proposal, revelaing that he was one of those consulted on it’s contents. In the same article, he comments on the growing voices expressing concern about his recent writings, and The Portland Story in particular. Rather than taking their concerns to heart and looking at his own sins, he seems to take their criticism as evidence God’s plans and Satan’s attacks. It’s a hallmark if the former ICOC that events that are percieved as negative are attributed to God’s discipline or Satan’s attack, while what is good is man’s doing.
In direct reponse to those criticisms, he only says this:

Last week I received a phone call from my friend Mike Taliaferro. He asked several pointed questions concerning my article “The Portland Story.” I realize from that conversation what I wrote could be misunderstood by even my friends. To give Mike a background for my thoughts, I shared with Mike about all the calls from weak, hurting disciples received weekly. We simply want to help these wounded souls as well as to be arm-in-arm with all who desire revival in our churches and to see the world evangelized.

Leaderships of large and prominent churches in our movement condemn his plan and rebuke his sin, and his response is to point the finger back at their ‘misunderstanding’, without a clarification of how it was misunderstood. And much like the LA proposal Q&A, Kip distills his demand for submission to his vision of ‘church health’ to “We simply want to help.” It all depends on what your definistion of ‘help’ is.
Kip is a dreamer and a zealot, potentially good things when not blinded by pride. Imagine what good could be done with that visionary, zealous energy if channeled, not into a bigger, grander ‘movement’, but into empowering individual people to rise above their own humanity, and using their gifts, whatever they may be, to God’s glory.
Though this isn’t likely the end of it all, I still feel as tough I should feel ancouraged, but I do not. Our churches have spent the last week or so caught up in this little tempest, and we will likely have to continue to deal with it for days, maybe weeks to come. It’s an unfortunate distraction to the business of leading our people.

From ICOCinfo, I’ve learned that LA has released a FAQ of sorts regarding their statement.
They didn’t answer my one-word question, though. 🙂
I think that the first question speaks volumes:

1. What exactly are you asking us to sign up for?
A: We are simply calling for those churches that are unified on the statement of beliefs, practices, and brotherhood to begin the process of rebuilding a stronger and more unified brotherhood.

So, all you’re asking is to say that you believe in, stand for and will practice those 2 pages (containining, by my count, some 39 individual items) of beliefs, practices and brotherhood? (My rewording of question 2, listed in the Q&A simply as “That’s it?”)

A: That’s it.

Yes, I’m being a little sarcastic here, but let’s look at the whole picture, please. It’s not as simple as that answer tries to make it.
To be fair, there is some good clarification in there, most of it regarding the nitty gritty operations of the steering committee. They do say they are not looking to define who’s in or who’s out or to exclude folks based on the unwillingness to sign on, and I believe them. But in practice, I don’t see how this will not lead to some level of isolation and division. Perhaps it won’t be catastrophicly divisive, but it will, by it’s nature, divide the larger group for the sake of some unitiy – or unifomity – in a smaller group. Just as the creation of the ICOC did to the COC, just as the various beliefs of the COC (one cup or many, musical instruments, kitchens in church, etc.) have divided it and just as individual denominations over the centuries have done (ever counted how many flavors of Baptist there are, just to mention one?) over and over again.

Note: Please keep in mind the admonition at the upper left about the content of this site. Though I am a deacon in my church, the comments posted here are mine and mine alone. Unless I say otherwise, they are not the opinions of my church or it’s leadership, just me. Considering the controversial things going on lately, I felt the need to say that again. On this topic specificaly, our leadership hasn’t yet considered it as a group, though we intend to.
I wanted to talk about the LA Call to Brotherhood Unity and Revivial, since implementation of it is to get underway within the week (why so fast, by the way? This only came out on the 27th.) My thoughts can pretty much be summed up in one sentence. Actually, in one word.
Why?
What I mean is, why do wee need a formal, codified structural arrangement between churches? The ‘Call’ doesn’t really answer that question. It touches on it, but never answers it in the following statements:

There are many of us who believe that in order for our churches to go forward and multiply, the time has come for us to reaffirm what we believe, set aside a day to fast, pray, repent and forgive, recommit to having the same expectations for everyone in our church, and organize ourselves in such a way that we have a brotherhood that has supporting ligaments (Ephesians 4:16), not just within one congregation, but between the leaderships of congregations.

OK so this does sort of answer it, I guess. “Many” think that we can’t “go forward and multiply” if we don’t have an arrangement between churches. OK then, let me rephrase the question. Why can’t we grow without some kind of structure between us? How is a structure going ensure or foster growth?
I wonder what our first century brothers would say about this. I mean, I don’t see any formalized, codified arrangement between the churches other than the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, and I’d like to take a minute to compare LA’s call to that. In the Council of Jerusalem, the apostles addressed the desire by some of the Jews to return to the comfort of the familiar – obedience to the law of Moses. The Apostles affirmed that they should not return to a system that neither they nor their fathers could bear. Instead they came up with four things to instruct the Gentiles disciples to stay away from – “food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.” Interestingly, three of those four things seem cultural. Who today struggles with, and what church preaches against, food polluted by idols, the meat of strangled animals and blood? Only sexual immorality seems relevant today. Also interesting to me is that there are many other passages like Galatians 5:19-20 that list sins to be avoided, with dire consequences if one doesn’t, but those sins aren’t listed here, nor are those three cultural things mentioned again in the NT.
Actually, the Council of Jerusalem is not really a ‘call to unity’ as much as it is a list of specific instructions to a minority group of believers in danger of being outcast by the stronger majority. In a very real sense the council at Jerusalem was to protect the weak from the strong. The first century churches seem to be united on Jesus Christ & the cross alone. This ‘call’ from LA seems to do the opposite, to bring the ‘strong’ out from among the weak. The push from the majority at Jerusalem was to hold onto and to return to old, familiar ways. The resulting instructions from the Apostles and elders was a rejection of returning to a system that did not bring them closer to God, but was instead was a burden to them. It seems to me from this document that some desire to return to a polished version the old ICOC system. I would say the same thing that Peter said in Acts 15, “Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that … we … have [not] been able to bear?” The old ICOC ways were needlessly burdensome to most of us, why go back there? Instead let’s look for a new paradigm, truly based on grace and the lordship of Christ. We’ve had two years to do this, but instead we sat on our hands waiting for the storm to pass. Now that the coast is clear and most of the critics within our fellowship have left, will we return to our vomit (Proverbs 26:11)?

Numerous people have expressed that there is a significant need for leadership, of some nature, on a Kingdom level to assist in meeting needs that cannot be met on a local level. While we certainly believe the local leadership needs to be able to make decisions concerning their own congregations, we have also seen how fractured, discouraged, and weak any church becomes when the leadership is isolated and fails to solicit counsel and discipling from mature evangelists and elders outside their own congregations.

I ask again, why? Or more to the quote, what are these ‘needs that cannot be met on a local level’? They are not listed, only to say that lots of folks think there is a ‘significant need’ for ‘Kingdom level’ leadership. How is having another level of leadership above our churches will help ‘fractured, discouraged, and weak’ churches, particularly if they are not seeking outside council on their own? Will forcing oversight on them really help?
Again I wonder what the first century church would think. If they wanted help from a the outside, it was extremely difficult. Yes, there were traveling evangelists but I would assume their visits were by necessity few and far between. After all it took days to travel from city to city. If you put a call out for Paul or Peter to come visit, it could very well be weeks or months before he arrived. It’s speculation, but I suspect that all of the nitty gritty day to day living as disciples had to be handled on a local level. It simply took too long to go get someone to help you work things out.
I think that we are spoiled by telephones, email, blogs, cars and airline travel. We can call or jump in the car or a plane and meet face to face with other church leaders. Our first century brothers did not have such a luxury. It’s a blessing, but it can also be a curse. It leads us to believe that we need to work out some arrangement between us, because we can. Why not instead simply focus on those immediately around us instead of those outside? What I mean is, let’s stop putting all this energy into relationships with other congregations by flying here and there and instead focus that on strengthening our own churches. Certainly, build the dialog and talk to each other to help each other build, but mostly stay home and take care of the flock.

As your brothers, we are inviting you and your congregation to join us in this call to unity and revival. We are calling our congregation to a day of fasting and prayer for unity and revival on Friday, October 7th, 2005 and invite your congregation to join with us. We are building a list of churches that likewise affirm these Biblical beliefs and principles and choose to join us in this effort. We encourage you to speak with your leadership groups and prayerfully consider this proposal. We realize that there may be some churches that join us that may use slightly different wording or phrases in the way they express some of their beliefs or practices (such as small groups, family groups, etc.), but have the same basic core beliefs and practices. We also realize that there will be some who may not be ready to join us in this action.

In general it seems that this is more a way to draw lines in the sand. Are you with us or not? Who is a part of us? Particularly when I look at the list of beliefs and practices that we are asked to agree to. Why do we need to add up such a comprehensive and specific list of dos and don’ts in order to work together? Why do we need to regulate giving, attendance, church structure (small groups & teen and campus ministries are required) and dating habits if not to draw a line in the sand around us so we can tell who is in and who is out? I wonder, as John Engler did, which congregations are they giving this invitation too? Is going out to our COC brothers as well? What about other churches? Or are we only capable of being unified with ourselves?
Individually, there isn’t much I disagree with in these statements. For example, I happen to think that dating non-disciples is not wise and should be avoided. I think it’s good to be at all the meetings of the church, although there are good reasons at time to miss them (beyond the traditionally accepted being sick.) I think small groups are great. I don’t agree that these are ‘laws’ we should codify, however. A very relevant thing to read on this is one of the latest posts from Tent Pegs, No Jesus for YOU! A snippet:

Legalism is not a love of the law. It is not wanting to do the right thing to please Jesus. Legalism is saying that you must have Jesus AND…. or that you can’t have Jesus UNTIL… and then placing barriers around the would-be disciple.
…
My Catholic friends tell me I need Jesus AND the Pope and their structure. My Mormon friends tell me I need Jesus AND their extra Bible (Jesus: The Sequel). My charismatic friends tell me I need Jesus AND a second outpouring of the Spirit. My friends in the church tell me I need Jesus AND the right doctrines on a hundred different crucial matters. And if I don’t have Jesus AND whatever they add? Then — no Jesus for me! I am denied equal status with them, turned away from their fellowship, because I only brought Jesus and that — to them — was just not enough. Or, alternatively, what I brought wasn’t the real Jesus because the real Jesus only comes in a package with whatever else they declare as essential.

I don’t think there’s a need to add anything to Jesus, grace and the cross.
So, in the end, it really for me boils down to that one word, why? I’ve been trying, and I can’t think of a good answer to that.

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 at the Boston Church of Christ (then the Lexington COC). I wasn’t around at that time, although I joined the ICOC in the middle of the ‘reconstruction of COC’s” phase in the late 80’s and remember the transition shortly after to the “plant new churches” phase. I came to Columbus on one of those church plantings, after two unsuccessful attempts to reconstruct local COC’s. In each of those cases, the ‘sold out’ were called to Boston or Cincinnati and the churches left wounded. Years later we marched into town to save the city. Now the roles are reversed and it’s my church that is threatened. It’s a humbling feeling that creates a rock in the pit of my stomach when I think about it.
On the other hand it seems like 2003, in the months after the Henry Kriete letter (HKL). In those days there were letters, papers and opinions flying on what we should and shouldn’t do or believe and what it all meant. Talk about deja-vu. First it was Kip, then the LA Statement, then the Boston COC elders respond to Kip, then Alan Rouse (an elder in Atlanta) responds to LA and John Engler, former ICOC leader in Denver and the guy behind the Barnabas Ministry has posted his comments about it all. All of this has sparked a revival in the long dormant ICOCNews, the place to go in 2003 for links and commentary on all that was happening.
It’s a bit overwhelming on a lot of levels. It’s sad, it makes me angry and it makes me afraid of what will happen next.
Time to take a breath.
A couple of things have helped put things in perspective for me.
First, my wife has asked me a couple of questions and cautioned me to be careful in my criticism, specifically of Kip. I need that. It’s easy as the words fly across the internet to forget that there are real men behind these words. Men that I don’t know personally, in some cases I haven’t even met them. They believe that they are doing their best for God. I must act and speak with respect for the men, even if I consider their ideas and doctrine to wrong. It’s frankly not hard to keep from personally attacking them with words, I’m not the name calling kind of guy in general. But to stop the slide in my mind from disdain for their ideas to disdain for them is much harder. I must pray more and try harder to maintain my respect. After all, many of those things that they profess that I disagree with now, I wholeheartedly endorsed at one time. Humility goes a long way.
Second was a reminder from my friend Pinakidion from this post (and the comments) that there is much more to life than the state of the ICOC family of church. Much, much more important things to be focused on. Like my amazing wife of 12 years, my 6, 8 and 10 year old girls who started school today, my and my wife’s families, my local church family and my friends. This too will pass, although perhaps with a fair bit of pain.
Don’t get me wrong, there are things that should be, and will be, said and actions to take to care for the flock here in Columbus during this time. But all of this must be done with the proper perspective. Lord help me maintain that.

While I don’t think it’s a direct response to Kip’s ‘Portland Story’, this was posted on Saturday from the LA ICoC. (BTW – You can follow some of the news on Kip’s ‘calling of the remnant’ and the fallout and responses at both the suddenly renewed, ‘outsider’ run icocnews and icocinfo, run by an ICOC member and teamed up with Disciples Today, the closest thing to an official ICOC website there is. See links at left.) Some snippets from the LA article, including the ‘Statement’ in its entirety

After much prayer, we humbly put before you the following call to unity and revival. … There are many of us who believe that in order for our churches to go forward and multiply, the time has come for us to reaffirm what we believe, set aside a day to fast, pray, repent and forgive, recommit to having the same expectations for everyone in our church, and organize ourselves in such a way that we have a brotherhood that has supporting ligaments (Ephesians 4:16), not just within one congregation, but between the leaderships of congregations.
…
We have assembled a basic list of core convictions and principles upon which most, if not all, of us have lived our Christian lives since the beginning of our walk with God. We have attached a document that states a declaration of these convictions and
principles.
…

STATEMENT OF UNIFIED BELIEFS, PRACTICES, AND BROTHERHOOD
“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:23 NIV)

As brothers who have been brought together by the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we have a passion to love, honor, and obey God. As His disciples bonded by the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and saved by grace in the waters of baptism, our collective vision is to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to every corner of the world. From that vision, our belief that the Bible is God’s inspired Word, and our intense desire to please the
Lord through seeing Christ’s church grow in spirit and number, we commit ourselves to the following beliefs, practices, and brotherhood:
Unified Beliefs

1. Every member in every church is expected to be a true disciple through belief in Jesus as God’s Son (John 20:31), a decision to deny self and surrender all to Christ’s Lordship (Luke 9:23ff; 14:33), complete repentance of sin (Acts 2:38), confession of Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9), and baptism for the forgiveness of sin and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) and to be raised to a new life. (Romans 6:1-4)
2. Every member in every church is to share in Christ’s mission to seek and save the lost. (Matthew 28:18-20)
3. Every member in every church is expected to be totally committed to the body life of the church which includes attendance at all the services, consistent sacrificial giving, and joyful and growing “one another” discipling relationships. (Romans 12:10, Hebrews 3:12,13; 10:24-25)

Unified Practices

1. For the purpose of outreach, as well as mature discipling, every member will be in a small group. ( Acts 20:20, Colossians 4:15)
2. Every member in every church is to financially support both local and world missions. (Matthew 28:18-20)
3. We are committed to remembering the poor. (Galatians 2:10)
4. We are committed to women having a ministry role in training other women. (Titus 2:3-4)
5. We are committed to providing resources to supply leadership for our young people, to insure ministries such as the teen and campus thrive and multiply. (Acts 19:9, 10)
6. We are committed to free and respectful communication within the brotherhood. (1 Peter 2:17)
7. We are committed to obedience to the command of 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1, and in that spirit expect that disciples should therefore only date and marry disciples.
8. While we recognize the need for local decision-making, we are committed to our congregation soliciting and receiving outside godly input and influence. (1 Peter 5:5)

Unified Brotherhood

1. Missionary Unity: We are committed to practically coordinate resources for the evangelization of the world and provide necessary representation and cooperation. (2 Corinthians 8)
2. Kingdom Leadership: We are committed to a collective leadership that will maintain unity, foster revival, and advance the gospel. (John 17:20-23) While we understand the need for each congregation’s leadership to make the decisions regarding their local work, we also recognize the need for leadership on a Kingdom level to meet needs such as, cooperation and fulfillment of missions support, regional coordination of training and discipling, provide accountability to these beliefs and practices, when necessary, and provide assistance to meeting staffing needs, when asked, etc.
3. Conflict Resolution: We have all born painful witness to the past three years’ turmoil fueled by an unbridled spirit of suspicion, accusation, judgment, generalization, and public slander. We firmly commit, with this in mind, to Biblical conflict resolution and loving confrontation. We resolve to address concerns and disagreements as privately as possible, as Jesus’ teaching directs (Matthew 18:15ff) Though we affirm the charge for all disciples to privately and gently confront sin (Galatians 6:1, 2 Timothy 2:24) and the rare need for leaderships to publicly
   mark false teachers, we commit, in the spirit of family, to making every effort to guard one another’s churches’ and individual reputations in what we publicly say and write.

Under the submission and Lordship of Jesus Christ, the leaderships of the following churches commit to these unified beliefs, practices, and brotherhood “…that the world may believe” (John 17:21 NIV) “…and that by believing…have life in his name.” (John 20:31 NIV)
Los Angeles International Church of Christ

Both this and Kip’s latest seemed timed (this overtly so) to be just prior to the up coming leadership conference. It seems that those who were once in charge are jockying for position to shape the future ICOC. OK, to be fair, that’s the cynic in me talking. I probably shouldn’t say any more until I’ve prayed more.