United Church of God, an International Association, (UCGia or UCG for short) seems to be continuing towards more transparency by posting open letters from the President on Inside United: Realtime. While President Clyde Kilough certainly did a lot that brought more of an awareness to the membership as in regards to how the COE operated, it seems that Dennis Luker is continuing to open up even more to the membership at large.
On 16 July (and posted the following day), Luker sent a Letter From the President, which says in part:
So, God makes it clear that He is always testing us, especially those of us in the ministry…
I believe that all of us as elders, called by God to serve His people and do His work, are being severely tested by God in order to reveal the true depth of our conversion and Christian conduct. Are we setting an example for the brethren in everything we say and do? I don’t think so, when you look at the fruits of what is happening.
He then ends the letter with:
I hope and pray, as you do, that we will all humble ourselves and seek God’s forgiveness for our sins and mistakes that He might heal our church.
Obviously, I did not try to reproduce it in its entirety here, but I did want to highlight the call for humility. In the context of the original letter, it is quite a sobering call if you really look at what He quotes leading up to this point.
It has been far too often in our common COG history that humility was sometimes the last thing being sought.
While I don’t want to reduce what God is doing down to one single and final point, I have to wonder if this isn’t truly the main point that God is trying to show His people: He wants a humble Church. He wants a Church which will listen to the promptings of His Spirit instead of relying upon budgets, spreadsheets, telecasts or forms of governance.
Lest you take this the wrong way, I don’t think UCG is the worst offender by any means. It may simply be that UCG was the right organization at the right time to show that He is still in charge, and it is an attitude of love, obedience and unity that He is interested in.