Hey Brother Dan,

Even though I have not known you for very long, I have come to appreciate your thoughts and writing. In your comments above, you said, "From my 72 years on this earth I have come to understand His will mostly from what the Holy Spirit has brought to life to me through the bible." It means the world to me that you view Scripture as the central authority for the life and practice of the Christian. While we may debate on what God is trying to tell us in His word, if we don't have a common starting point then it's unlikely that we will ever come to agreement on anything. Christ is our all-in-all, and if we keep him in focus then we'll be ok. One of my favorite passages is 1 Col 1:15-20...

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

I think that it's great that your focus is on God's kingdom reign. A couple of decades ago I was involved in a church plant. It was funded by our church denomination, and within a few years the funding for the pastor was pulled because the denomination didn't think that we were making progress fast enough. Instead of letting the church die, a number of us took it over. It lasted several more years but finally disbanded. I'm convinced that what finally killed us was our inability to move beyond the initial adrenaline rush that came about when we were abandoned. Those negative emotions that we experienced at the start of our journey finally subsided. But then we lost the fuel to continue the mission, so we finally gave up.

The reason for me to tell this story is that I see the same potential danger with this group here but in a different way. I am grateful to find like-minded Christians who believe as I do that church leadership has gone completely off the rails. There is no place in Scripture that I can see for the clergy-laity system that has been so well developed in the institutional church today. That being said, I think that it is incumbent upon those of us willing to speak up about these abuses to then do what we can to restore church leadership to its rightful place in God's kingdom. In other words, we can't just be whiners. We need to be part of a church leadership culture that points to the preeminence of Christ in all things and desires to see God's reign in our lives and the church. For as Heb 13:7 says to the sheep, "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith". I believe that if we indeed bring the word of God to our fellow believers then they will "consider the outcome of [our] way of life" and find us worthy to lead.