I went to this small shopping center church because it is part of Grace Communion International, a miracle denomination that is the remnant of Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God. The entire denomination converted from essentially a cult to orthodoxy a few years back. Their story has been feted by noted heresy hunter, Hank Hanegraaff, in his book, Transformed by Truth.
I sometimes attend a GCI congregation in Colorado and have great love for it's pastor, people, and theology.
In a church world dominated by the abhorrent theology of penal substitutionary atonement, Grace Communion International stands, along with Orthodox churches, by the theology of the early church, Incarnational Trinitarian Theology, the theology of the Nicene Creed.
Penal substitutionary atonement is a relative newcomer, having come out of the Reformation about 500 years ago, championed then by Calvin and in later days by such as J.L. Packer and now Billy Graham and the Southern Baptist Convention. I recently attended an otherwise wonderful SBC church where the otherwise intelligent young pastor proclaimed that penal substitutionary atonement was THE thing that "this church was founded on". I hope Jesus wasn't listening, but I know he was, and likely wept.
So they had an adult education class beginning at 9:45, that I attended along with 10-12 other mostly older adults, who were very welcoming of me. Pastor Steve was at the whiteboard and they were going through some sort of workbook. I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that the spiritual condition of the participants was generally far beyond the material in the workbook.
I contributed probably more than I should have as a first time visitor, as I was intent at stripping away at the complications of the workbook material and putting all into the terms of the fundamental love that is in Jesus.
After the class, perhaps 30 others joined us for the main service at 11:00. The worship music was a bit puzzling to me as the newest song, based on the title credits, was from 1999. It seems to me that if you want to attract a younger crowd, as is desperately needed in an aging church like this, you would do well to at least integrate some contemporary worship songs, which are often better than old ones since there is so much competition in that area now.
Even more disturbing is that at least three of the six songs used had lines in them referencing penal substitutionary atonement. I would hope that a GCI church would be careful to excise all such songs from their playlist.
Their were two "trinity" banners on the wall, so I'm sure I was in the right place. And Pastor Steve's sermon was also clearly trinitarian, about the importance of listening to God.
Once again, my perception could be off, but I felt he was asking a lot of mature Christians to listen more for God. My sense was that these mature believers are already listening to God pretty well, that is why I'm calling them mature believers.
He seemed to me to be teaching what they already know, well. They might be better served with more challenging fare, perhaps how they can continue to grow in Christ even as most are at an age where their bodies may be shrinking instead of growing. They all impressed me, including Pastor Steve, as lovely and sincere Christ followers.
Based on what I have now seen at two GCI churches, the GCI denominational leadership or individual churches must embark on their own listening to God adventure, to allow Him to guide them in solving their aging out demographic problem.
My suggestion is that they start asking their well grounded older couples to start or start participating in neighborhood house churches, where they can act as spiritual fathers and mothers to the much younger people generally found in that movement. Let them be ambassadors for the truth, that Jesus did not come to die for our sins, but to show us that we can live, in Him, without sin, after His sanctification in us.
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