GC Book: "New Testament Church Leadership in Action Today"

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

You may read and post, but some features are restricted to registered members. Please consider registering to gain full access! Registration is free and only takes a few moments to complete.

[theresearchpersona]

I've made this threa[d] to put quotes from a GC book "New Testament Church Leadership in Action Today" by Brent Knox & John Hopler online, with some commentary. Also, to Linda, please clarify if this is the book that they wrote in response to Terry's blog posts if you would. Because GC pastors are co-taught and often so often "on the same page", being an organization that likes to hold so many events, conferences, etc. with its own people, I plan also attempt to dig-up relevant quotes (past and present, probably the latter from what I'm aware of since the time I first starting going to a GC church) to give the context so that the movement's ideas/teachings can be seen more fully.

And in the event there are parallels from books/sources I know GC has widely spread/read or adopted ideas from and spread (i.e., ECC could possibly read something another part of the movement hasn't, but then that content itself spreads from that location to the rest of the movement), especially those I was personally exposed to at the time, I plan to see about adding relevant quotes from those too, and perhaps might return to add new information as uncovered.

Notice I say "I plan": of course I can't put all my time into this, and it's up to the Lord whether we live or die or do anything.

addendum: Though somewhat humorous, it's also not since GC can't seem to realize anything other than what it accuses here of, that they're a bunch of people being divisive slanders who want to do all evil: above I wrote "I made this thread" but instead of "thread" the last letter was "threat": and the last "thread" I just wrote turned-out to be "threat" too (until I corrected it); so to GC, if you thought I was just being some jerk, I apologize.

[puff of purple smoke]

Interesting, I've never heard of this book before now. Looking forward to quotes.

[Linda]

Also, to Linda, please clarify if this is the book that they wrote in response to Terry's blog posts if you would.

I have never seen this book.

My opinion is that after we left, GC churches began to emphasize church government and commitment to GC. We had only one discussion with Brent. Two things that stood out from that discussion were that he believes that the pastor is the head of the church in the same manner that the husband is the head of the house. He pretty much said that word for word. The disturbing part, of course, is that Ephesians tells us that Christ is the head of the church. Pastoring is one of the gifts of the Spirit.

The other thing I remember is that we had read about the Statement of Error and Apology and asked him about it. His response was (and I'm putting this is quotes because I think I remember pretty much word for word what he said) , "I seem to remember some type of statement. I think it was more of a statement of clarification, than apology. Would you like me to get you a copy?" Our response was, "Yes!" He never got us a copy. We contacted Larry Pile a few weeks later and he sent us M2Z which has the statement.

I know that the Bloomington ECC leaders believe that our main issue is with "church government". For the record, we believe in a plurality of leaders and probably lean more to the presbyterian form of church government. They, have a skewed view of presbyterian government which I think is due to the fact that the GCLI teaching of "off" on the subject of types of church government.

As a side note, at this meeting, we also mentioned the talk where MD told the gathered believers that they were his (Mark's) bride. Brent agreed that teaching was "off", but brushed it off as MD being a gifted  "evangelist" and not so much a "teacher". No public correction was ever made.

One other thing. We did not leave ECC because anyone "hurt" us. We know some people who were hurt, but not us. We left because we realized that there was something more going on besides the Gospel. To our shame, we were there 10 years and didn't ask a lot of questions till shortly before we left. We still love everyone there and our desire is for them to realize their error and fix it. We are not shunning anyone. Some ECC leaders are shunning us, not all. Many of the ECC leaders have never asked us our story.

[theresearchpersona]

There's a few problems I have, however; first, reading words, and knowing the context in which they're placed (and the meaning as the group uses the words) are two totally separate things; so someone outside, without "GC-literacy", would likely not get it.

Second, I'm reading through the book and...to a large extent it is a regurgitation of other (better) works that GC pastors have read: I'm even finding online parallels using nearly the exact same metaphors.

However a few things are GC-esque showing through: it goes on and on and on about character...and ignores ability to teach and correct sound doctrine, mentioning these only passingly, and then emphasizing the character again above all; it mentions hypocrisy in leadership without at all applying it to GC (ahem, not at all correcting doctrine unless it threatens GC's leadership, success-driven/based Churches while GC itself is structured and founded on the same principles, just with a different spin, even introducing the book with a bunch of worldly "success" examples); de-emphasizing and avoiding the fact that the word "presbuteros" and its contextual uses in the bible emphasize a component of "age" (i.e. the qualifications given), (though it's important to note that "presbuteros" is also a Greek word with different senses and uses besides just of a position in the Church, the same kind of thing applies to other "titles" that people look-up with concordances and then try to exegete based on these uses as if the use is all the same); talking about "barn blindness" and saying it "can be overcome by pastors who listen carefully to outsiders" (p.53), which would have me miffed since GC has always refused to do this unless they are utterly and totally embarrassed publicly; talking about the importance of pastors knowing the bible through and handling it through, but of course not applying this back to GC (one of the biggest "outside", (miffed), complaints, (ahem, inside and outside)). : (

So far it seems it's a mostly "this is what sounds good in theory, see we know this", but the stuff that is unapplied by GC. : (  So selecting out anything that might actually be of benefit is difficult, but there's a few things here and there I can think are readily of value, and which (in context of other GC quotes) might become transparent to the way of using words  to sound good, vs. the way GC often uses them.

[Linda]

However a few things are GC-esque showing through: it goes on and on and on about character...and ignores ability to teach and correct sound doctrine, mentioning these only passingly, and then emphasizing the character again above all; it mentions hypocrisy in leadership without at all applying it to GC

They have turned the character vs. knowledge thing into an either-or argument. Choose the pastor with good character, OR, choose the pastor with sound doctrine. I say, that is their problem. It's not an either-or situation. A pastor should be above reproach AND able to teach AND teach sound doctrine.

I was reminiscing back at the old wordpress site and found something I wrote under the "Top 10 Reasons Why I left". It jogged my memory about our final meeting with Mark Darling and Spencer Bernard. It was the meeting where we knew we had to go. Here is a portion of my old post:

Then I told him about how the plurality of elders thing can also work as a cover up group. The example I gave was how when this man gave a message at an all church gathering and referred to ECC church members by saying “you are my bride” not one elder called for a public correction…three knew our concerns and agreed this teaching was “off”.

So, what response did this elder/pastor give that troubled me? I said, “It seems that the elders have each others back to the extent that an elder could have done something like have an affair, and still be a pastor, and no one in the congregation would ever know about it.”

To which the founding pastor replied, “I’m sure it’s happened.”

I was flabbergasted, and as you can tell, still troubled, but since we knew at that point we were leaving, it was not something for us to pursue.

I would just say to any GCM leader reading this that things that are kept in the dark hurt people and the truth sets people free. And, if the plurality thing has become a “cover up” thing…it’s not right.

Mark Darling, sitting on the current board of the entire GC organization told me (two other witnesses) that he was sure that the plurality thing had been used to cover up immorality on the part of an elder. Thus ends the character argument.

[trthskr]

So, what response did this elder/pastor give that troubled me? I said, “It seems that the elders have each others back to the extent that an elder could have done something like have an affair, and still be a pastor, and no one in the congregation would ever know about it.”

Like when a certain pastor was on CNN for having written "anti-Catholic slurs" and illegally promoting a certain presidential candidate in a tax-exempt non-profit organization...and a certain friend of mine found the story online and was told by said pastor's kid to keep it "on the down-low".  Something like that?

[G_Prince]

:lol: Ha, it's on CNN! How did they think that was going to stay on the down-low?  :lol:

[theresearchpersona]

They have turned the character vs. knowledge thing into an either-or argument. Choose the pastor with good character, OR, choose the pastor with sound doctrine. I say, that is their problem. It's not an either-or situation. A pastor should be above reproach AND able to teach AND teach sound doctrine.

But Linda, don't you understand, the greatest need of the hour is leaders: if GC has to follow such definite, inarguable, restraining, unbendable, limiting rules, it's numerical (nevermind in substance) growth would be stunted, strategy undermined, and even many (if not most) of its own leaders made ineligible to continue their work: I rebuke you sister!

[Just kidding!]

But the above is true: the greatest need of the hour isn't leaders, but for real Christians: people actually remorseful over sin rather than trading one path of seeking satisfaction for one a bunch of supposed preachers said will actually be more satisfying; people who actually care for (and demonstrate it) the truth rather than the truth in which they take comfort, and play-down questions.

People who seek Christ, not purpose: here's a real truth, you're purpose is either to please God through worship in spirit or truth, or for Him to show the riches of His mercy to those He's saved by the wrath He's going to visit you with. God isn't, I think, in the business of letting murderers accuse Him of being unrighteous in this (Romans 9). Notice this has nothing to do with being influential in the world.

But that's fatal to GC's feel-good "gospels", and it's because of these other gospels that I most fear for those within whom I love (because as hard as it is, I do love them).