Travis Johnson

Catalyst - Brian Hunter

I was bragging on Brian on my old blog, talking about their name change and move to Leon HS in Tallahassee.  In the past three years, Brian's church has grown from 8 people to 1,000 on Easter with over 400 people professing Christ!  I am betting that this fall they will have around 1,500 people on Sundays. 

Check out the newly launched Genesis Church website. Remember to pray for these guys. They are going after the prize in a huge way. I can't wait until ReFormation '06 in September when guys like Brian, Jamie, Phil, Mike, Chad, Roscoe, and Pete get together to talk about ministry.

Life Giving Groups

At Life Pointe, we are constantly preaching community, involvement in Life Groups, and connection with one another.  It isn't only something we just preach.  We also model it.  For instance, I am involved in three regular groups.  My Pastoral Covenant Group, a south Florida pastors group at Cooper City Church of God, and now I've got a new crew to hang with which I spent time with for the first time today. 

These guys were pretty decent folks.  I found out that Steve reads my blog regularly (sup, dude?!).  I found out that Kevin used to milk cows in Wisconsin.  Rick sat behind me at C3.  Great fun. 

So, why does this matter?  It matters because we were made to live life together, not alone, isolated in our own universe where we get a limited view of what God is doing.

Church of God General Assembly Day One

Today was borderline bizzare.  We flew from FTL.  Dwight and Bonnie Allen were on our flight.  Super people.  Made a connection in Tampa...a pile of pastors, too many to name got on there.  The girls did super on the flight.

We caught a cab to Embassy Suites.  While I was checking in, there was an accident on the escalator.  Someone fell at the top and people began piling up on each other. It was bad.  People were screaming. I found myself in the middle of the pile pulling people by their hair, arms, and anything else I could grab to get them out of the rapidly building pile of people.  It was so weird.  I remember seeing Blaine Faircloth, a pastor in Michigan in there doing the same, except that his wife was in the middle of it all.

After getting passed that excitement and finishing checking in, we headed into the RCA Dome.  We saw a ton of familiar faces.  That's what is so great about these meetings, the relationships.

When we stepped into the service, I was taken back in time with the style of music.  It was all music I loved and had fond memories of.  But, it was very dated stuff.  It did not keep me from worshipping.  But, it does concern me that that is the style we hold up as the model to our pastors.

Dr. McGuire preached out of Acts 1 & 2.  He spoke of recapturing the same spirit that we had when our movement was birthed a little over 100 years ago.  I personally tend to believe that we cannot recapture that. 

I do believe we can function in the same passion.  Dr. McGuire spoke to that.  Our founders had a revolutionary passion.  I am afraid that as an organization, we may actually have an institutional passion.  The brokenness, humility, and contrition that Dr. McGuire spoke of is largely absent from
our church, including me.  We are far too comfortable. 

When we left, of all the people we spoke to, it was especially good to talk with Paul Conn, the president of Lee U. where Kelly and I both graduated from.  Dr. Conn has without a doubt had more direct influence on individuals in the Church of God than any other individual.  When preparing to speak, I often think of how he would try to communicate a message.  He is one the best communicaters, period.

Tomorrow, I start the day with a 6:30 breakfast with Ben Hodges from Four Corners in OH.  He is really doing some great ministry coming to the end of year two of their church plant.  I'm really looking forward to hanging with him.  After that I'll hit my first day of business on the floor at 8:30 AM.  It sounds like it is going to be a very interesting day.

Blogging the COG General Asembly

On Monday, I will fly into Indianapolis for the Church of God General Assembly. This will be the first year I will be able to participate in the discussion and voting as an "Ordained Bishop."  I've already done enough speaking in the Open Forums. During business, I will only be voting.  Since the Forums, people that didn't know my name, now pat me on the back and say "hey doc!" Or, they, look at me like I'm some kind of rebel. 

Perhaps, I should be more delicate when pointing out that our denominational organization is too top heavy.  Fortunately, I'm not even close to being the first to say it.  John Maxwell and Injoy were paid big bucks to say the same thing several years ago except they delved into Patronage issues as well.

The issues that I am particularly interested in that are coming to the Ordained Ministers are:

• A gradual elimination of the mandatory percentage sent in to World Missions.  I will vote for this but, I think it should be done immediately and it should all come out of the administrative budget.  For this to happen 2/3 of the body is going to have to agree to suspend the rules and submit a substitute proposal.
• Appointment of Evangelism, Youth, and World Missions Directors by the Executive Committee.  World Missions is one thing we do really well.  I can't understand why we would fire the General Assembly from being able to select leadership and give that authority to a few good guys with a more limited scope of who can effectively lead.
• Unified Budget (Consolidation of the World Missions Budget with the International Budget). Again, this seems like the parable of the talents in reverse.  The biggest producer on a corporate level for the Church of God is World Missions.  Yet, we have a proposal on the table to remove the World Missions budget and give it to our ever-growing International bureaucracy.  That makes no sense to me.
• Election of Denominational Leadership.  I am focusing on the selection of the Council of 18 since it      is basically the Elders Board of our denomination and there is decent opportunity for pastors to be selected. Additionally, selecting Administrative Bishops for this role makes no sense as they are unable to provide straightforward, honest feedback to the Committee that appointed them.  Four guys that I really would like to see on the Council of 18 are Marty Baker, Anthony McDaniel, Mike Chapman, and Harold Bare.  Those guys have big voices that pastors are listening to. As they speak, they are not considering first how the denominational guys perceive their statements.

Basically, I am not in favor of anything that further centralizes our structure.  I will be blogging from Indy.  I'm sure there will be others that get the facts out on the taboo, unofficial Church of God message forum, Actscelerate.  I'll try to share my personal observations here as well as there.  If it comes across as being too political, just ignore me for a week and it will be out of my system.

Related COG General Assembly posts:

Day One - Embassy Suites - Day Two - Council of 18/Grant McClung - Day Three - Day Four - Glad to Be Home