Ed: Tim I am glad to see that you have unlocked this thread.
May I assume that that when you posted "If we can get away from the fights and the blame game that
does with it, the church has a chance of being relevant" that you meant "...goes with it". Those darn spell checkers can get you can't they, like when I posted "...you have chosen to
attract me..." rather than attack me.
But then I do not consider that looking for reasons for our failures requires either fighting or placing blame. However as Bruce wrote into the rules for this site "Although pointed exchanges are to be expected, malicious attitudes towards other users will not be tolerated."
And while some of the reasons you have advanced may play a part for our decline, I would say they are more symptomatic of other problems.
I am agreement with you when you say "One of the most refreshing things about the New Baptist Covenant meeting was that we gathered for worship, encouragement, and common mission." But that is nothing new to me our congregations do that every Sunday. I think what was even more refreshing than that was that the huge assemblage was so well ordered and resisted any loud protest when personal ideals may have been stepped on. OF course we had the advantage of knowing it will be a good while until any of us have to deal collectively with any one with whom we may have had a difference.
And it is true that "We quite purposefully did not vote on anything, including theological differences." However I do not know that the structure of the celebration lent it self to any one proposing a vote, and that was I believe due to the wisdom of those who planed the event.
Picking up Tim's statement " IMHO, this is the wave of the future for the church to survive. We need to get back to our roots in cooperation in mission and autonomous local governance. Leaving doctrine to the local church."
Ed: Here Tim, I have a semantics problem. 1. How are you using church in that first sentence ? 2. And how do we cooperate in missions if we have no consensus on what missions might look like, or what missionaries are to do, with out a denomination?
I see some possibility for some solid coordination of mission activity between various of the groups that where gathered in Atlanta, in fact we heard of some that is already occurring. I do not however seeing any of the represented groups melding their mission program into one even in your lifetime. And if doctrine is left to the local church, does that mean that your association would be OK with your church making a decision to take up snake handling. Sure that sounds far out, I meant it that way, because I see a danger in absolute autonomy of the local church leading us to the acceptance of some far out things. And I am not going to Appalachia on a crusade against Snake handling churches any time soon. Unless they happen to be in the ABC of the South. Or they are allowed entry to one of the city regions hundreds of mile away.
I will look forward to that link on the small church from the Hartford Institute.