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, [...]

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 [...]

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:

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

AMENDMENT CONCERNING STATE [...]

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:

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

This amendment is not necessary to affect change.  [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

New CoGblogger and a Blog on Denominational Property Ownership

When you get a second stop in and say hello to new COGblogger, Weston Williford (what a cool name).
Also, there is an excellent discussion taking place about Denominational ownership of local church properties here. The orignial thread that kicked things off is here.  Together there are a total of 46 responses. Good stuff. [...]