{"id":423,"date":"2005-12-18T22:24:48","date_gmt":"2005-12-18T22:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/12\/corporate_repen.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:46:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:46:47","slug":"corporate_repen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/12\/corporate_repen.shtml","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Repentance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The union between the Father and the Son is such a live, concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person. I know that’s almost inconceivable, but look at it this way. You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club, or a trades union, people talk about the ‘spirit’ of that family, or club, or trades union. They talk about its ‘spirit’ because the individual members, when they’re together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn’t have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course it isn’t a real person: it is only like a person.<\/p>\n

CS Lewis from Mere Christianity<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A few weeks ago I posted<\/a> about the renewed cooperation among the deacons and our minister. It has been an exiting turn of events as we’ve continued to meet and talk about the direction of the church. I had feared that we would be starting over, rebuilding the level of trust we had acquired a year ago before we could move forward. While that’s been true to a small degree, we have been making some rather significant and exciting plans, which I’ve been hinting at as well.
\nWell, for some reason, though I’m excited about what’s been started and what’s to come, I can’t seem to write about it. Maybe it’s the business of the season or the difficulty in describing what it is, but I keep coming back to tweaking the layout on my site. (Did you notice the now look on blockquotes?)
\nWhat’s happening is the title of this post – Corporate Repentance. It’s something new to me in practice, but makes so much sense I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. Actually I’ve seen a version of it before, but not this version.
\nWhat it’s not is the old ICOC ‘reconstruction’ or church wide sweep when things weren’t going well. In the early days of the ICOC, entire churches were reconstructed. The theory was to make sure the church was only fully committed disciples. Actually in the day they just said ‘disciples’, I think. Later it was ‘fully committed disciples’ now some are using the term ‘sold out disciples’. Whatever. The idea was to rid the church of the uncommitted, either by attrition or change. The result was if you weren’t ready to bare your soul, deal with your sin and start ‘being a disciple’, which usually meant evangelism, you were rode pretty hard until you fell in line or left. Good riddance, they’d just slow us down. A simplistic representation, but all too accurate. Not very Christ like either.
\nIf that’s what this new Corporate Repentance isn’t, then what is it? In some ways the goals are the same – restoration, revival, change – but the focus is different. Before we had identified the problem (lack of growth and baptisms) and we knew how to fix it (evangelism and Bible studies) so we just needed to get back to work. In this Corporate Repentance there’s the realization, by looking plainly at the evidence in the church around us, that we’ve fallen short of God’s desire for us. There’s no presupposition that we know how we’ve blown it or how we can fix it. We simply acknowledge that we’ve fallen short, and then await for the spirit to work, leading us and revealing our sin. We’ve prayed individually and gathered in small groups to talk and confess. We will talk in our families about how they stand before God. We will meet in our small house churches to talk about it and get open. It will culminate in a meeting of the church, a Solemn Assembly to stand together before God to confess our shortcomings to him, to repent (return to Him) and to take communion (more on that later).
\nIn the old days one of the goals was to weed out the uncommitted. We didn’t actually state it as a goal, but it was clear that if you weren’t on board, you’d be left behind. In fact, it was often stated that “you’re either with us or against us” or something similar. In what we are doing now, one of the stated goals is that no one will be left behind. We are going forward, but we are mindful that the pace be set by the Spirit. Our sister church in Dayton went through this very quickly, but they were in a different place than we are. I think it will be slower for us. We are committed to listening to the God and His Spirit and giving this process the time that it needs.
\nThis isn’t just about finally dealing with the things that Henry Kriete showed us nearly three years ago. (Although, frankly, this is what those open forums should have been after the letter came out, not the attack session that too many of them became.) That must be a part of it, but it’s also about what we’ve become in the absence of the old ICOC structure. It’s not as if Henry wrote a letter and then everything was new and good. Post HKL has brought it’s own problems and sins. What we must do is deal with who we are today. We are where we are today is a result of both pre-HKL and post-HKL culture.
\nThis entire idea hinges on the concept that the church as a corporate entity has a personality and culture of its own, like C.S. Lewis said in the quote above. Just as an individual can sin, a church, due to the culture created within it, can sin too. We can set up an environment that fosters, encourages or hides sin allowing it to prosper unchecked. These kind of things cannot be fixed one on one very successfully. This is a very new concept, but one that seems so obvious now. Over the past couple of years, as the sins of our church, locally and worldwide, have been exposed, there’s been a certain level of denial on the part of individuals that has been difficult to deal with. They protest that they never believed that we were the one true church or that they never lorded over their disciples or whatever else so they will not take responsibility for those things. On one level, they are right. There are many who didn’t take part in the sins of our fellowship in their own lives. But the sins were there nonetheless, and prevalent. In the sense that that was the culture and personality of our church, we all bear the burden of that sin collectively even if we didn’t practice it individually. The same is true of who we are today.
\nLooking at the Bible, Ed Anton pointed out that more calls for repentance go to groups than to individuals. I think he said around 85%. Throughout the Old Testament, Nations (primarily Israel) were called to repent. In the New Testament it’s churches. A particular focus in this study has been Revelation 2-3. There God calls out these churches, some rather hard others lightly, to repent. One of the questions our minister has asked us is if God were to write us, the Columbus Church of Christ, a letter like in Revelation, what would he say? He’s asked us all to write one.
\nAside from the general excitement I feel about the concept and the process itself, I’m particularly excited that it is our minister that is driving this process forward. I’ve seen a marked difference in him over the last weeks. He’s looking at his leadership and the state of the church lately quite differently. The level of cooperation between him and the deacons has been heartwarming. I’ve been rather frank about my disappointment on occasion with him here on my site, so I figure it’s only right that when I am encouraged – and I am – that I mention it as well.
\nAnd yet, I have not been eager to write about it though I managed to, I guess). I think it has more to do with what I wrote about last week. I’m frankly not excited to change. I’ve grown comfortable in my life and the boundaries I’ve drawn for myself, and I don’t want them challenged. They must be, however, and I cannot just sit by and wait to feel good about change. I feel as though, on some levels, this is exactly what I’ve been longing for, but now that it’s here, I want to hide from it. God help me pursue you and let me stand and hear your reproof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The union between the Father and the Son is such a live, concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person. 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I went to my 10th, and although I was able to see a couple of folks that I was glad to see, mostly it wasn't that great. It was planned by the old party crowd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family and Friends"","block_context":{"text":"Family and Friends","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/family-and-friends"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":669,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/05\/a_good_sunday.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":423,"position":1},"title":"A Good Sunday","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"May 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This past Sunday, the Holy Spirit was at work. No, there was no fire from heaven or anything like that, it was just how the service came together on a theme of God teaching us through suffering. It wasn't planned, at least not by us anyway. 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You may recall back in June my story of a farewell to a family that had given so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family and Friends"","block_context":{"text":"Family and Friends","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/family-and-friends"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1012,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2010\/02\/galatians_5_-_spirit_vs_flesh.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":423,"position":3},"title":"Galatians 5 – Spirit vs. Flesh","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"February 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Galatians 5:1 - \"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.\" There's so much power in this statement. Do not submit to a yoke of slavery. Slavery of performance, Slavery of perfection. 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