First, I have wondered why now seems to be the time to so actively imagine such a thing. Is the COGOP membership so disappointed or ready for a change of almost any kind that this is the kind of thing that occupies the mind when a General Overseer decides it is time for him to leave that position?
And, I also wonder if the influence of the internet isn't aggravating that inside people. What I mean is that you can browse around online and in seconds find a whole host of news and tweets and headlines and blogs and all of that where larger Pentecostal denominations or even large, recognized independent congregations are mentioned. Many time and again. And, you tend not to read about the COGOP or COGOP congregations in a great number of those mentions. So, it makes me ask if there is not a growing sort of -- and I don't like the word as it may be over the top -- contempt inside the COGOP about the COGOP. One that is unjustified if the measure of thinking "this is where I belong and this is on mission with God" is made by looking at activity through online lenses.
I had pretty much blown the discussion off until I read Rascal's post on Monday afternoon. It made me go "hmmmm". And, that is the prevailing age of current leadership combined with a perceived "ho-hum" among the COGOP membership about differences between the two groups. Rascal doesn't offer to speak for everyone COGOP in the post, but perception is reality to a lot of people. I have heard local folks I know say very similar sounding kinds of concerns.
What drew me to post here about it was Rascal's hypothesis that COGOP could go bankrupt. Now, look, I know what happened years ago and how money got lost or squandered or whatever. And, I know that was a big deal. But, how can the central body become insolvent and thereby dissolve the fellowship? That seems to be a really thin fellowship. I just don't believe that, y'all. I just don't believe that, even if there was actual fiscal insolvency in Cleveland, TN by the Int'l Office of the COGOP, that it would spell the end of COGOP as its own movement. If that's the case, either money is hindering the movement and the movement goes forth or the movement is not a movement at all. Does that even seem possible??
And, why does the resignation of Randy Howard seem to be the lynchpin that causes this house of cards (supposed!) to take such a fall? I mean, if HE is seen as the reason why COGOP is a functioning movement to such an extent that his going to the house would cause the utility company to put a little red seal on the meter box at headquarters, I can understand that he'd be under an immense pressure. But, I just don't believe that. I don't believe that COGOP is in the dire circumstances that I'm hearing. I don't believe that COGOP must find its future identity inside the COG.
That's an old school way of seeing what is happening in this time we live in. It is as if so many people see this as the viability of an organization when it is about the life of a move of God in the world. The organization has been adjusting itself to the flexibility needed to move with God, has it not?? If that's so, why be dour about it now? We're nearer the time than when we first believed!
No. I think this is opportunity, here. I really do. This is a time for every local church and pastor and member to get on your faces before God and ask for Him to awaken you to the immediate world around you and to go to it with the gospel of Jesus. Man, this is not time to throw in chips or towels or whatever else gets tossed in.
The Church of God of Prophecy has always been in love with Jesus. Now, pardon me for going way back, here. But, A.J. Tomlinson -- and I don't have to apologize for using him here, there's nothing wrong with A.J. Tomlinson -- loved Jesus Christ. Those men and women in the hills with him loved Jesus.
I had a formative moment at TC when, not being a Christian but a couple of years or so, I sat in a class in my first semester and heard James Wallace passionately describe the centrality of Jesus to everything and everyone in the COGOP. It cemented something in me that never really left. And, although I left the COGOP, what he said about the love for Jesus that is rooted in the church is the way I view it. I highly regard the high regard that COGOP has for the person of Jesus Christ.
So, what is it now? I believe that she still loves her Lord. I believe that the COGOP is still a Jesus-loving, Jesus-centered movement of God in the world. I wouldn't give up on Him and stop short.
This reminds me of that triangle diagram thing that Billy Murray did at the General Assembly in, what, 1990? 1991? The White Wing Messenger took all kinds of photos of it and essentially reprinted the illustration. That has never left me, either. And, I think it bears reviewing. I won't do it, but someone could.
The upshot of it, though, was this: That if people try and come together in fellowship for any reason, cause, or motive short of obedience to and identity in Christ Jesus, they are coming up short. They are stopping short.
Look, I'm in the COG now. Our local church is not all wrapped up in what is happening across the organization. Conventions and assemblies are pretty much non-events that barely get mentioned. When they do, people act like, "Assembly? Hm. What's that again?" We do what they say for us to do, but it is pretty much business operations and does not define who our church is at all. So, it is hard for me to judge what the real temperature of things in the COG is outside of my local church. I think we are probably kind of unusual, but I'm not sure.
And, not sure if that's good or not good. I never stop to ask.
But, what I do know is this. COGOP is local and global. Its history of that is vital to who it is now. That is special, I think. And, boy I know this doesn't make a lot of people happy, but I have a hard time thinking that God has brought this million plus people from outside of the US into the COGOP in very recent years just to sit here and watch it evaporate over some transient notion such as money. The fellowship of the COGOP is and always has been stronger than that, more about eternity than that.
Now, I know I've rambled here. But, y'all. Don't stop now. Don't think that now's the time to roll up the floors and hang out someone else's label on your front door. There may come a time when that IS the thing to do. But, this ain't that. Not by a long shot.
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