What if We Don’t Finish the Task (Part 3) – Preserving the Organic Church for Future Generations

I expressed, with a broken heart and a soul on fire, that you could have open meetings and that we were not going to be afraid of the crazies who would come along and mess them up. That’s one of the reasons people say they won’t have an open meeting. A meeting that does not have any jurisdiction whatsoever, and we do it every week like we were falling off a log. And you don’t even know it. We’re going to lose the open meeting to this entire world, its experience, and the how-to of it. Even now, we need help.

We’re going to lose a non-eldership eldering. A non-eldership eldering. This is really important. You have no idea how much more I could have done in this world if I had appointed elders anywhere; it wouldn’t matter where it was. Got elders, now I’m no longer a solo pilot getting shot at. I’ve got the elders who back me up, and they go over and get you where you belong and put you in your place and talk to you about—and I’ll tell you something else, it wouldn’t have mattered who on earth I made elders, they’d still be around today, with one possible exception. That’s because men will die for a religious title. And I repeat: Napoleon Bonaparte, when he held out these medals, said, ‘Gentlemen, it is with these toys that we marshal armies and conquer nations.’

And the same thing is true of the word “elders.” If there’s anything on earth we have proved, it is this: eldership is transitional. It’s transit. Think of all the men in the world who held the place of eldership who today aren’t even Christians. If they’d given them a title, they still would be. Or there is one other thing they could do. They could get so distraught with the church or so ambitious that they would decide to overthrow the worker. Now let me tell you something. In my lifetime, I have seen this happen again and again and again. They are either ruthless men or they later turn on the worker. Great! I don’t mind that one bit. I know where the front door is or the back one.

But we have seen something beautiful here: we have an eldership with no name. It’s never recognized, and it shifts. Sometimes there are those who stay forever, and others are there only a short time before they go. And you don’t even know you have elders. Well, yeah, you do too. And I’ll put it on record, if you don’t know who your elders are, it’s really simple. Ask all the sisters to get together on a sheet of paper—no talking—and put down the names of two or three men they trust in the church, and you will have the mind of the Holy Spirit.

I’m going to tell you what – he’s not going to look like an elder. An elder’s, you know, this is…

Audience: I’ve always seen the difference from my perspective about elders, the authority as we have them compared to what the religious system has, and it’s like a plant growing up. They grew up in the church. They begin to function. Nobody puts a name on it. They just are, and they just do.

Yes, sir. That’s called organic. And nobody has bothered to take the time to be organic. And men like me are so insecure that they get elders around them to protect them. I’m going to repeat that. I don’t know of a man in this world who gets a bunch of elders around him while he’s doing his work to protect him, but that man is insecure. I say it, I’ll say it again, sir, you’re insecure. You’re insecure in your calling, your vision, your work, your testimony, and your internal resources. It is not necessary. Furthermore, one of these days, we’re going to publish a little book on rethinking elders again, and we’re going to prove that elders were transitional. And we’re going to put that out too, but we’re going to lose that kind of eldership if we come off the stage.

We’re going to lose the living room. We’re going to lose non-paid clergy or workers. This sword doesn’t stay still. I suppose this is the second most important thing I’ll put here.

The first one was that we will lose a redemption of the Lord’s testimony, which is so desperately needed, a return to our honesty in His testimony among Christians outside the institutional church. Let me tell you what we will lose.

We will lose…you. Do you have any idea how many places I’ve traveled to since I left the institutional church? Have any idea how many groups of people I’ve addressed? You are a vanishing breed, and if you vanish, not me, and even, not even you, but Christians all over the world lose. You who don’t have elders, you who do have open meetings, you who can touch the Lord, you who do share, you who get together and find the Lord, the mind of the Lord, all the experience you have accumulated. All the trial and error that we have gone through, that you have gone through…if this thing that we are passes off the pages of history, we lose you.

We lose the richness of your experience. We lose you, and we lose any hope of anybody coming along to take your place. We vanish. All that we can call on, we lose it all. The question is, do you want to lose it? And yes, it’s flawed, but it’s still ahead of whoever’s in second place.

I speak of you. You’re both strong and patient. This thing of being strong and patient. All I have been doing for the last forty years has been seeking to leave no ugly spirit in any group of Christians I have worked with, so that you will imitate me and be strong and patient. And if you challenge my work, I will not fight you. I don’t know of anybody else in this world who lives under this Damocles sword. If you don’t want me, I will leave you. I will get up and slip out, and there will be those who will be hurt, perhaps fatally, but they will be nothing compared to those who…if I stay and fight.