Mind you, if we go belly-up I will be sad and disappointed but I do not embrace the notion our denomination is essential (or even that important) to the commission Jesus gave his church to make disciples, baptize and teach. Now some may think that an odd attitude. Especially for someone who will, God willing, be entrusted with a leading a PCA agency. If you think that, you’d be wrong. That is exactly the attitude a person leading a PCA agency should have.
Back in October I was nominated as the new Coordinator for Reformed University Ministries. Next week the PCA General Assembly votes to confirm or otherwise. The exigencies of a PCA Committee report don’t always lend themselves to full and thorough communication. So let me say something here.
I’ll start with a PCA joke. The corpus of PCA humor is not large. As far as I know it has only one entry. I’ve told this one a hundred times. You’ve probably heard it.
Question: What is a secret in the PCA?
Answer: You tell one person at a time.
Soon after I was nominated as RUM Coordinator a man who is sort of a somebody in the PCA approached a friend of mine and asked, “Is Tom Cannon a team player?” I’m pretty sure he didn’t want that getting back to me but, one person at a time, it did. When it did, I was emphatically not bothered at all he asked it. Nor did I take umbrage he didn’t ask me the question. I don’t know this man very well and he was doing his due diligence to figure out who I am. But it did get me thinking about how I would answer the question. Am I a team player?
That, of course, depends on what team you’re talking about. So let me tell you at least one team I’m on.
I am on the team that believes the PCA’s existence and survival is incidental to the work of the Kingdom.
Mind you, if we go belly-up I will be sad and disappointed but I do not embrace the notion our denomination is essential (or even that important) to the commission Jesus gave his church to make disciples, baptize and teach. Now some may think that an odd attitude. Especially for someone who will, God willing, be entrusted with a leading a PCA agency. If you think that, you’d be wrong. That is exactly the attitude a person leading a PCA agency should have.
Investing our denomination with even a modicum of importance is the womb which births a brood of pretentious nonsense. It’s also a lock guarantee to give you leaders who have a vested interest in projecting themselves as guardians of the realm, men who must do what it takes to make sure we take our place as movers, shakers, influencers and leaders. And I’ve been around the PCA long enough to know that leads to nothing good.
[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]