Rickie Moore Prophecy Reposted

As you may know from following this, this, this, and this, the prophecy given by Dr. Rickie Moore at North Cleveland was removed due to a letter to Captain Matt Boyd, Chaplain in the USAF from one of his supervisors at the Church of God headquarters in Cleveland, TN.

Great Past Conversations

Here is a quick refresher of some past MissionalCOG threads.  Many of them have active conversation continuing to take place.  Check them out:

Leadership Maxims and “Praxims” - Law of the Lid

There is some heavy/intersting denominational dialogue on missionalcog.com right now. I don’t want to interupt it by adding an unnecessary topic. But, I would like to add to it by discussing some leadership maxims and their practice (praxims…my new word).

Leaders are excellent in sounding like we know what we’re talking about when it comes to leadership. Too often, we put on a good show and would rather people not look under the hood to see too closely.

General Assembly Leadership Survey: Who Gets It?

As mentioned in the other post, “Five Questions to Ask Potential COG Leaders,” we now need to determine the scope of solicitation. “Who do we send the questions to?”

The following questions are close to being the ones asked. I think they embody the “spirit” of what others have suggested. The last one is still uncertain (#5)…and then, I would like to add a #6 as shown below.

Here they are:

#1. What do you see as greatest opportunity for the COG now that will affect the next decade?

#2. What do you see as the greatest challenge for the COG presently?

#3. What is your opinion on the “Tithe of Tithe” reduction?

A Call To Ethics by the COG

I have recently been researching some items in the Minutes of the Church of God General Assembly, years 2002-2006. I came across this from the 2002 General Assembly Minutes.  The resolution is a really great document…sincerely. The modifications I made are NOT intended as satire or sarcasm…but represent my concern with the pointed pursuit of reestablishing credibility and trust among ourselves.

The “strike through” text is the original language in the resolution. The red underlined text are the substitutions I inserted.

Resolution on Ethics in the Marketplace

2002 - 69^th Church of God General Assembly

WHEREAS; the frequency of corporate scandals are being highly publicized, and

WHEREAS there is the strong tendency in many businesses humanity toward short-term thinking, planning, and commitment which can lead to morally questionable decisions and practices; and

WHEREAS it is arguable that the long-term survival of even very large businesses organizations with an extended history and legacy , such as the Church of God will depend increasingly on the permission of society continued support, involvement, and contributions of constituents rather than on short-term financial statistics; and

Copy of the Detailed Audit Report for the Church of God

On April 19th, I requested a copy of the most recent COG audit report from Stephen McCall. Today, I received a copy of the “policy-statement-and-agreement” to receive a copy of the detailed audit report for the COG from Denise Watkins/Julian Robinson. The text in the document has the following requirements:

POLICY STATEMENT AND AGREEMENT

I, ________________________, ministerial file no. _______, am a duly credentialed minister in the Church of God. Pursuant to the Church of God General Assembly Minutes regarding “International Offices Space,”

exponential conference (national new church conference)

Follow my notes on my blog and twitter.

I submitted this proposal for discussion to Ken Bell and the Church of God Executive Council

I sent the following email to Ken Bell and all members of the Executive Council yesterday to place this on the agenda for discussion during the Executive Council meeting this week discussing formation of the General Assembly Agenda. The email read:

Ken,

Please add the following proposal to the agenda for discussion during the Executive Council meetings discussing the Agenda for the General Assembly. Should you have any questions, need clarification, or have formatting requirements, I can be reached in my office at 305.247.0889 on Monday. On Tuesday or later, I can be reached strictly on my cell at 305.505.****.

The brief comments on the proposal read:

General Assembly Proposals That Make a Difference: State Overseers

***REVISED TO CHANGE TERM TYPOS and to EXTEND TERM

The following amendment should do a couple things:

1. More closely tie a state overseer to his pastors.
2. Point accountability down, truly inverting the pyramid.
3. Slow down the rotation game.
4. Select men for leadership that are more reflective of the state/regional culture.
5. Severely impact the patronage system we presently function under.

AMENDMENT CONCERNING STATE OVERSEERS

CURRENTLY READS - P. 162 - S23 STATE OVERSEERS

General Assembly Proposals That Make a Difference: Property Sales and Church Planting

The following amendment would single handedly turn around our negative growth trend in the number of churches in the USA.  It also ensures that we are focused on sustaining and promoting mission as opposed to sustaining and promoting structure.

AMENDMENT CONCERNING PROPERTY SALES AND CHURCH PLANTING

General Assembly Proposals That Make a Difference: EHM FUND

There is zero credible dispute that the current stewardship of Evangelism and Home Missions Budgets is not congruent with the heart of the General Assembly.  The Minutes presently offer only two options for the distribution of EHM Budgets:

1. new field work
2. in the case of an emergency, small church assistance

This amendment is not necessary to affect change.  A simple charge of misappropriation of funds by any COG minister could handle that.  However, this amendment would create an environment that would promote financial health and integrity.

COG: A Credibility Crisis…period!

For the last year or more I have been reading on the Actscelerate forum, as well as dialog with groups of Church of God pastors regarding the present “ambiance” or atmosphere in the Church of God. For me they all seem to end up in the same place…

And at risk of simply being a nagging echo, or “harping,” I offer the following point …again…albeit through a somewhat different occasion.

Immediately after the close of the opening meeting of the Engage 21 conference (Thursday night) I had a lengthy conversation with the Presiding Bishop/General Overseer, Dennis McGuire…

I shared with him pointedly that pursuant to the events of the 2004 and 2006 General Assembly meetings - WE HAVE A CREDIBILITY VOID, VACUUM, VORTEX….

I told him if he would have walked to the microphone (at the moment the submitted motions were about to be presented) as the General Overseer elect and taken Mike Chapman’s motion in hand…and said something like:

Small Church Research

Ed Stetzer and The Lifeway Research recently completed a study of small churches. If you would like to check it out click here.

Multi-site Exposed Conference Notes

Blogging live here. All conference notes are tagged here.

What would you do if the police stopped your baptism?

Over the past year, we’ve struggled with county park rangers, park law enforcement, and park life guards during our individual baptisms at the Bay.  We are absolutely in compliance with all parks regulations.  Further, we are absolutely protected by founding US documents.

Going into the baptisms today, we knew there may be a problem. As usual we video the baptisms and let the cameras roll as our people were berated by a trio of life guards trying to halt our baptisms.  We complied with all requests, including when all swimmers were required to get out of the water because of the two people we had in the water, a pastor and a person being baptized.  The two things we politely refused to do was to turn off the camera and once people were allowed to go back in the water, nearly an hour later, we kindly refused to quit baptisms.

Oprah’s Full Blown New Age Beliefs

A friend of mine Alan had this video on his blog today. I wanted you guys to watch it and give some thoughts.

Five questions to ask potential COG leaders

You guys give me some feedback on some ideas for critical questions to be asked of those who are on the radar for elected general executive positions (Committee/Council) at the next General Assembly. Travis and I have approached some of these guys already and they, for the most part, are amenable with complying and offering a response.

Developing a Dashboard

You’ve helped me develop some pretty decent ideas in the past.  I’m going to the well again for more help.

When I drive, I know where I can take a quick glance to find out the stats on my car, the gauges that tell me the health of its systems, trajectory, and climate. In my church, I need to have a single place to do a quick glance and know the same pieces of information about the church. We use a church dashboard.

Domain Dilemma: All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

Prior to Engage 21, I was contacted by one of the guys on the steering committee for some of my thoughts. I shared some, including developing a basic conference website. Unfortunately, we only got as far as an email address that bounced, a pretty atrocious poster with the typical COG head shots in pecking order, and a video that sent me into to epileptic fits.

Some time after the conference, which was a great first step, I was contacted again for my thoughts. I am glad to be included in the process. But, at this point after exchanging close to 20 emails with none of the suggestions getting any traction, I was beginning to feel a little patronized by the process (not the people talking to me).

Help Developing a Message Series

UPDATE: Thanks for the help. We completed a chunk of the planning, including the postcard we’ll be mailing to 10,000 neighbors (our smallest mailing we’ve done). I think coupled with the 5,000 fortune cookie invite cards, this will be a successful campaign. Our total expense is barely over $2,000. Still, if you have any thoughts on how we can better involve people in message/experience, leave your comments.