Leadership: Elders and Apostles

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[Anonymous]

Also, what happened to Terry Bartley?

He's still around. He's on the GCC board I believe.

[puff of purple smoke]

Here is a video of Jim McCotter (Spiritual Gifts Conference, 1984) teaching the apostleship portion of the Leadership book: http://gcxweb.org/Misc/ApostleshipVideo/Default.aspx

[lone gone]

Go straight to minute 22 if you want to skip the "humble intro" and get to the ironic introduction to the error.

[EverAStudent]

But if you skip the opening prayer you will fail to be properly intimidated (conditioned?).  In his prayer he implies that anyone who does not like his new teaching on apostles is like swine, or like the foolish men on the road to Emaus who were slow to believe, and you don't want to be like those men do you? 

Also, at 1 minute 20 seconds, Jim, who has been praying with his eyes open, suddenly closes his eyes as he states, "and Lord please open our eyes."  Could that be mere coincidence, or, is it indicative of something?  I'm not a mystic, so I will just write it off to coincidence and irony.

If you skip the intro you don't get to hear McCotter imply that he has "new light" for the church.  Anyone familiar with reaching out to Jehovah's Witnesses know that "new light" is one of their cornerstone heresies.  Anyone else hear a warning siren???

I think beginning a major teaching by implying anyone who does not believe in your "new light" is being foolish and swine-like is a horrible exercise in control and manipulation.

But then we all know that McCotter was not foolish and slow to believe, but humble, oh so very humble--oh wait, he actually tells us that in the video.   

[EverAStudent]

There is another surprise in the McCotter video.  One of our own forum members is mentioned by name as helping Jim put together one of his visual aids for the apostleship presentation.  Can you be the first to find the name and post at what minute he is mentioned?

[Linda]

Oh, man, that was painful. Interesting, but painful to listen to. (At the 125 minute mark, it ended abruptly, yet showed 147 minutes total, so I didn't hear the end). And, to be honest, I skimmed through a lot of it. He certainly has the gift of gab!

Around the mid 80 minute mark I enjoyed the teaching on spiritual gifts. Apparently, everyone is given the gift of service. So serve already! Serve the leaders. Serve the church. Serve, serve, serve. Be sure and let everyone see how well you serve so that then you will be recognized and "raised up" and can show everyone else your other spiritual gifts.

Around the mid 60 minute mark he was talking about desiring the greater gifts and he said:

Does God want to do today what he did in the 1st century?

He implied the answer was yes then said,

There is no way we can do today what they did then unless we have men today like they had then, isn't that right?

The blindingly obvious missing part was that God will do whatever he wants today through his Holy Spirit working through His people, not merely zealots for the local church looking to be "recognized".

This amused me:

What about, I'm getting older or you might think what about people in careers...I spent all my life being strong in my career. Can't I eventually do more if I spend 20 years building in this career? ABSOLUTELY NOT AND THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN!

I wonder how the devoted followers who sat for 2 hours listening to this man teach before they were allowed to stand and stretch felt about his departure for a career a couple years later!

Finally, a part I heartily agree with:

Every organization where it has it's breakdown relates to some area where they're not functioning with, under and/or as a part of the Church.

GC leaders, here's my admonition to you. You have forgotten the Church. You have become the parachurch that McCotter is speaking of here. Some of us have tried to point that out to you and you won't listen. We are trying to help you. You are calling us names and shunning us. So, don't listen to us. Listen to the founder of your movement. Become the Church. God gives each believer gifts. A big mistake in GC is to assume that the elders have all the gifts. You must assume that because you make significant decisions without input from the congregation. This is a mistake and as McCotter said it is what he believes results in the breakdown of an organization.

[puff of purple smoke]

(At the 125 minute mark, it ended abruptly, yet showed 147 minutes total, so I didn't hear the end).

My bad. There is a period of no sound and blackness (20 seconds?) near the end of the tape where the tape on the camcorder is being switched out. This will be cut out soon but for now just let it run for those 20 seconds and then Jim's enlightening sermon will resume. 

[puff of purple smoke]

(At the 125 minute mark, it ended abruptly, yet showed 147 minutes total, so I didn't hear the end).

My bad. There is a period of no sound and blackness (20 seconds?) near the end of the tape where the tape on the camcorder is being switched out. This will be cut out soon but for now just let it run for those 20 seconds and then Jim's enlightening sermon will resume. 

Okay, there's a new version there now without the 20 second gap.

[Linda]

I got through the 20 seconds of fuzziness, but when I was about 20 minutes out, it stopped playing and sent me back to the beginning. It did that a few times. I'll try again and see if it still does it.

Is there anyway to get it on my iTunes so I don't have to keep "live" downloading it every time? It takes a LONG time!

[AgathaL'Orange]

There is another surprise in the McCotter video.  One of our own forum members is mentioned by name as helping Jim put together one of his visual aids for the apostleship presentation.  Can you be the first to find the name and post at what minute he is mentioned?

Heavens to Betsy... I just heard it.  Awww.  SL, don't feel bad, friend!

[theresearchpersona]

I haven't watched that whole thing (no time at all to do that), but I did notice that at the beginning he speaks how 'we don't want to...' hold stale or repeat positions, etc., as if he's setting-up a defense to cut-off anyone who dares recall that we're to hold to the old truths, to the "tradition" in the sense of what has been passed-down in the faith, in order to preemptively strike in defense of whatever novel "truth" he's about to present, making it more appealing, of course, by calling it "fresh":" "don't let us just walk in the tracks of our forefathers, but let us walk freshly in the tracks of you our Lord Jesus"' a far cry from something like, say, Paul's "be imitators of me", however lauding McCotter may feign himself to be of Paul in that video; in fact, it appears he say everything that would, in light of Paul's writing, be opposed to Paul!

Lest we forget, it is Paul who said that among the Apostles he was "last of all" as one born out of due time (1 Cor 15:8). Unfortunately to modern claiments of Apostleship, this does (at least grammatically, and I've never actually seen any scholar challenge this) mean "period, no more, nada else, etc."; I've also read pastors' work teaching on the subject, in response to the proliferation of people claiming to be apostles, and been saddened at how often Christians try to justify it by saying they're using the word in a new functionally different...and struck by how often they are not, but are really covering (like the SGM ministry we've learned about).

Just watching that beginning, McCotter appears to be punching violently at anyone that might possibly speak-up, before they'll have the opportunity, at anything they might say, and driving his wall in the minds of those who might hear, blinding their eyes. It reminds me much at how GC indoctrinates people against criticism, producing an unreasoning product and much heartache for anybody who actually cares for them and tries to undo that damage. : *(

[Linda]

PWW,

I'll help you out with a few discussions since you don't want to search. Here's a thread.

[Vince Capobianco]

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