The Journal has an interesting review of a UCG ministers conference in January of this year. It concerns a question and answer period. Several highlights are listed below. The most telling conversation is the one that Gary Petty brings up about reconciliation. In what I read from Petty's comments is that he gets what is wrong with UCG and COG's in general (besides law keeping). However, Bob Berendt does not get it at all. It's all about power, control and determining who has the right to be forgiven. Berendt is totally ignorant about the process of forgiveness from Christ. It does not work according to the linear line Berendt assumes. Berendt to me exemplifies all that still remains wrong with UCG.
In regards to the situation in Latin America:
Council member Roy Holladay replied that the situation in Latin America was fluid, or, as he put it, "progressive."
"Over a period of time,"he said, "we had gotten a number of E-mails from various areas of Latin America but especially Chile, where there were members appealing how they were being treated [by church leaders], how they were being suspended, how they were being dealt with. And we were being asked to intervene."
"What we had discovered in Latin America," Mr. Holladay continued, "is that this is not necessarily totally as it's been painted: one happy family, everybody working together [under Mr. Walker's leadership]. There have been a lot of problems, a lot of difficulties."
He said that, contrary to rumor, about "a quarter of the members" in the region are "still--very much still--with United."
On servant Leadership:
John Elliott of Phoenix, Ariz., speaking from the audience, changed the subject. Mr. Elliott wanted to talk about "servant leadership."
In the old WCG, the ministers were unquestionably the boss over the lay members. The members were subject to the directives of the ministry in many significant aspects of their lives.
Servant leadership, on the other hand, turned that concept upside down. Ministers--the very word minister in English and other languages comes from a root that means servant--were to be, in a much more real sense than in the old WCG, servants of the church, servants even of the lay members.
"I'd like to know where this is going to go, what your plans are, and the relevance of Christ-centered servant leadership to the ministry of the United Church of God," Mr. Elliott said. "Could you [the council] update us on that, please."
President Luker stated to Mr. Elliott that he likes the term "servant leadership."
"All it means is that we look to Christ, our leader, to set the example for us in love and humble service, and those are the kinds of leaders we should be. The emphasis is on servants of God's people."
(In other words, same old, same old. Don't expect many ministers to become servant leaders. They are more concerned about control. It's a power trip for many of them. They like the prestige, the notoriety that it brings and the fear that it brings to others.)
UCG drop in income:
Mr. Dean said the church is "obviously taking a big hit financially." On the other hand, expenses are down because fewer people--the departing ministers--are on the payroll.
He said income is down for the first half of the year 12-15 percent from last year at the same time.
"For the year we're obviously down much more than that. In fact, I would say we're probably 35 percent.
"But then again it's the widow's mites that are blessed by God ... We just have to step out and realize that this is His work."
The events connected with the split and the terminations and resignations could cost the church "seven or eight million dollars," Mr. Dean said. "That's a lot, but then our expenses have dropped," although "we want to replace people."
On the UCG and COG's in general, lack of willingness to look at the failed prophecies from William Miller, Armstrong and on to today.
Yes, Mr. Berg said, but there is also the matter of prophecy.
Prophecy, he said, "has been a big problem in the church ever since 1844 and onward."
That year marked the Great Disappointment of William Miller and his followers in New York state. The Rev. Miller had prophesied specific events that were supposed to lead to the end of the age. But things did not work out that way. Nothing Mr. Miller prophesied came to pass.
Similarly, the old WCG lost "thousands" of members in 1975 at the time of that church's great disappointment when predictions that centered on the year 1975 failed to materialize.
"We lost thousand and thousands of people," Mr. Berg said.
"Some of us have been trying to open up discussions in the last 15 years with our past administrations here [in the UCG], and we've just been rejected continually when trying to open these things up and to really reexamine things in a way that will not hurt the church."
The understanding about prophecy in the Churches of God, he said, "most of which has been generated from the 1930s era, has discredited the church, and it has disillusioned many of our people."
Gary Petty on UCG Church culture and its failure to reconcile:
The United Church of God has a problem, and it's "systemic," Mr. Petty continued.
"We spent years bragging about what we do for Him. It's a core problem that I started to realize that not only I have. It's part of our culture, and if we don't change it [the phenomenon of church splits] will just happen over and over and over again and it will never stop."
The second problem Mr. Petty mentioned came to his attention in an E-mail. The E-mailer wondered "how can God do any work of reconciliation through a group of teachers who cannot even model reconciliation in their dealings with one another?"
The E-mailer's question "has haunted me," Mr. Petty said, because somehow "we failed at reconciling."
As a result, he began an in-depth study of the subject of reconciliation.
"I realize that not only do I not know what it is, I can honestly say in my life I've met only a handful of people who do: ministers, members, only a handful. Yet we are ambassadors for the ministry of reconciliation.
"I believe we've failed. I have failed."
Reconciling with God
In the midst of what he perceives as his and others' failure, Mr. Petty is "trying to be reconciled back to God in a way that I haven't been for a long time."
If Church of God members cannot bring themselves to reconcile with God, they will "plant the seeds for having another conference like this one."
Mr. Petty is "trying to reach out to the ministers who have left and be reconciled to them on a personal level, and I've spent many hours with them, because that's what's required of us."
He described a movie starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones that came out in 1989.
"When United started, remember the analogy of Field of Dreams, the movie?" he asked. "We talked about it all the time. Build it and they will come. Remember when we said that" about the 1995 start-up of the UCG?
"I liked the movie, and I liked the analogy."
In the movie the Kevin Costner character hears what Mr. Petty called a "supernatural voice" that told him to build a baseball stadium.
And he does. He builds the stadium, and at the end of the movie thousands of people visit it. The Costner character builds the facility, and, sure enough, "they" come.
Misinterpreted message
Mr. Petty rewatched the movie a couple of years ago and concluded that he, and UCG elders in general, had misunderstood and misinterpreted the movie's message.
Attracting thousands of people to baseball games was "not what the movie's about at all." Rather, "the movie's about a man who had a broken relationship with his father, and he was tormented because his father died before they could be reconciled."
We took it wrong
The movie is not about attracting new members to a baseball stadium, or, by analogy, new members to a church.
"The movie's about reconciliation," Mr. Petty said. "If you go back and watch the movie, it--the supernatural voice--does not say build it and they will come. It says build it and he will come.
"The whole point of the movie is that the supernatural help doesn't build a facility. But that's how we took it. We thought if we built churches and we built camp programs and we preached the gospel and we ... did all this stuff, the people would come."
But "the analogy's about reconciliation. Build it and he will come."
At the end of the movie, the man's father, played by Dwier Brown, "comes back from the dead to reconcile. That was the purpose. We missed the meaning of the analogy then, and we're paying for it now. We didn't learn it, and we didn't do it."
Mr. Petty talked with a church member who, counting the current split, has experienced six of them since 1995.
"He's gone from church to church, and we just plant the seeds again," Mr. Petty said.
"So I simply ask all of you to join me as I plan on spending the next few months praying and fasting and asking God to help me understand the ministry of reconciliation."
Then there is this view from another minister that "Violence is sometimes necessary"
Mr. Berendt spoke of two horses: a couple of large, solid-footed herbivorous mammals that humans employ as draft animals or beasts of burden or for riding.
In his equine analogy, Mr. Berendt, who mentioned that he's 80 years old and has served four and one-half years on the council, described a "strong" horse and a "humble" horse.
Ideally, he suggested, a humble horse is preferable. However, riding only a humble horse can lead Mr. Berendt and his fellow ministers to "beating ourselves up."
Of course, a minister, an elder, should humbly serve. But there is a time and a place to seat oneself solidly in the saddle of a strong horse.
Violence sometimes appropriate
Mr. Berendt's analogy expanded to include a shepherd, a spiritual shepherd as in Acts 20:28.
A shepherd much of the time rides a humble horse, but a shepherd must carry a big stick because a shepherd "protects the sheep."
The stick is not meant "to hit the sheep with. It's to hit wolves with. It's to protect the sheep."
Because of the existence of wolves, in this case of the human church-leading variety, shepherds must sometimes wield sticks while riding strong horses.
"We have a responsibility, as a council we have the responsibility, as ministers we have a responsibility, to take care of God's people, and sometimes that means getting violent."
Lesson on forgiveness
Remember, Mr. Berendt admonished, "God does not forgive until a person repents."
Accordingly, he seemed to be saying, it is not appropriate for elders and other church members to forgive someone who has not repented.
He concluded: "Let's try to be Christlike. Let's quit beating ourselves up. If you prayed and fasted and turned to God, then you are His child, His servant, His person. And, when you move forward, get on the bold horse sometimes too."
Maybe Petty really gets it, I don't know. As long as he still thinks the law is required, he will never fully get it though. Perhaps I need to look at this as a first step to something better down the line. One can only hope.
There are more interesting things of note from this conference and the rest of the article is here: The Journal: Issue 144 UCG Elders Conference It is worth checking out.
