WOW A RESPONSE, ALBEIT A CANNED ‘TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY’ ONE: IT’S CLEAR THEY BLAME PROBLEMS TOTALLY ON INDIVIDUALS THEMSELVES NOT LEADER NOR ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACHES/PRACTICES.

WOW NU IS THE SAME-BIRD FEATHER/FLOCK TOGETHER..

BUT GOD REVEALS/HELPS SINCERE SEEKERS WHO WANT/NEED HOLY SPIRIT HELP SO LET’S GO/MOVE ON FROM IRRESPONSIBLE ATROCITEERS!

—————————-

Dear Brian,

Thank you for your patience while we and our leaders attended to other pressing matters. Below are our responses to your questions.

1. Can you please make the Ethics & Accountability contact info public?

The information about the committee was made public in October, 2014 on the UBF website. Here is the link: http://www.ubf.org/about/committees

2. Will you please find a way to address people leaving your organization?

The most important goal UBF has is to help people know Christ and follow him by keeping his teachings. While our leaders desire to see people grow within our ministry, we rejoice if our Bible students serve Christ even if they do not remain in UBF. If a transition is needed, we want to make that process as smooth as possible. We are doing a survey of other ministries to find best practices for exit interviews/counseling.

If someone is having difficulty with a leader in UBF, we hope they can have a frank conversation with that leader to understand why it is happening. In the vast majority of cases, the leader will try to understand the person with the best of intentions. Many chapters have elders who are also available to help. If that can’t happen, people can get in touch with Mark Vucekovich (lincolnparkubf@gmail.com) for pastoral counseling or the Ethics and Accountability Committee if there are issues with ministry practice.

3. Would you please read my 3 books? http://www.amazon.com/Brian-Karcher/e/B00JAPPDEO

Your three books, Rest Unleashed: The Raven Narratives, Goodness Found: The Butterfly Narratives and Unexpected Christianity: The Penguin Narratives are thoughtful and well written. You have chronicled your sometimes unpleasant journey of faith, sought to understand God’s purposes in the midst of your experiences and have come to a deeper understanding of God’s grace in the gospel. While many of our leaders would not agree with the conclusions you draw about UBF nor with the way you communicate them, we all acknowledge that God is good, that he is your Shepherd who is doing amazing work in your life, and that he will continue to carry to completion the good work he started.

God bless you,

The UBF Ethics and Accountability Committee

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On 12/10/2014 12:35, Alan R Wolff wrote:

Hi Brian,

I saw your post. Here’s another update:

More than just one person on the committee member has been reading your books and this is taking time. Also the committee has had a very hot case that we’ve been focused on and want to bring to closure quickly. I really do hope that we can bring yours to closure soon as well.

Alan

————————————-
From: Brian Karcher [mailto:–@–.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 8:14 PM
To: Alan R Wolff
Subject: Re: Three requests – reformatted

Thanks for the update Alan.

BrianK.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID

————————————
On 10/19/2014 19:15, Alan R Wolff wrote:
Hi Brian,

Thanks for your patience. The official response has taken time mainly due to a very much busier than usual time for me over the last several weeks. You should be hearing from the committee soon.

We also wanted to make sure that at least one of us has read all of your books. We have done so.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ continue to be with you!

Alan

And unfortunately, a number of members of UBF seem to think that the people who are not 120% committed all the time (ie, people who are looking to wait things out and see what happens) are the problem. At least I fear this is so.

http://www.ubf.org/about/committees

The big question thought, is does someone contact the COMMITTEE for ethics or the DEPARTMENT for ethics?

http://www.ubf.org/about/departments

Oh wait, my bad, there isn’t much in the way of contact info for the “Healthy Community Department”… These are all blank, probably because such things are so unimportant and nonspiritual and non-mission focused…

Marriage & Family Life
Ethics & Accountability
Women Leaders

If you want a laugh, check out who some of the officers are and who is leading some of these departments and committees… no wonder people keep contacting me.

in other words we know what is ethical, but we either do it or not at any given moment based on motives/needs/etc

so do we need a committee to figure out what is ethical?
or do we just need to strive to act ethically..let’s get on with the show people-stop hiding behind the baggage like saul

That is self-aggrandized, comforting, coded language for: “Just forget about people leaving and get back to doing the heritage.” And it one way many people get lulled to sleep…

Hoping for change changes nothing. As Einstein said “If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got.” Change changes everything. Do what you hope for. Be the change you want to see. Take action.

Ok enough cliches for one comment :)

I kind of agree with Brian on that one. It seems as if things will keep going as they’ve been going until the organization just dwindles away, because it’s not sustainable and does not value or invest into its human capital. But then again there is always Dr. Ben who used to be the most gong ho UBFer and also Brian, it seems like you were also very overly zealous about UBF at one point in your life. You two show that change is possible, but then again there are huge differences between Ben/Brian and current leaders (nationality, background, age, life experiences). We’ll see what happens. Maybe with a functioning ethics committee trained in intercultural communication and a new GD, things will change. Actually there are a few UBFers at seminary now (it used to be taboo and highly discouraged.) Maybe if they are invested into helping UBF out things will change. I think there are many people who notice things and hope for change, hence this site.

Here is an idea: Make Ben Toh the 2015 General Director, who then appoints BrianK, JoeS, CharlesW, MJ and four others ubfriends to the board.

Einstein is quoted as saying, “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there will be no hope for it.” and “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.”

Also, thanks for the link to the new appointments at ubf. You raise very valid questions which will go unanswered. The IEB article you linked to Charles is proof that ubf has no governing board. Yes they have a board, but look at their purpose:

“This Board works in close coordination with the General Director to carry out under his direction the mission of the University Bible Fellowship. It reports to the IAM at regular meetings. (UBF International Bylaws Article 7.3)”

This is clear, documented evidence that the ubf organization does not exist for people. Instead, the people exist for ubf, to propagate the ubf mission. They have completely ignored Jesus’ clear teaching in Mark 2:27.

Whatever mission context we are carrying out, that mission needs to be for the benefit of people in order to be called a Christian church. When people exist to carry out the mission context, the organization is a cult.

This point is made exceptionally well by the Naked pastor’s steamroller cartoon.

I agree with you that the culture has to change, particularly, to be communal. As I see it, the focus and output in UBF is over-personalized. (Scot McKnight notes on <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/10/03/personal-relationship-with-jesus-2/"his blog that this “personal” aspect of faith is a rather recent thing.) There are 1:1’s, personal shepherding, and testimony writing. All personal activities. Conferences are mostly designed as personal activities, although people have traveled to gather together in a remote location (strange). Listen to a message. Write a personal testimony based on that message. Repeat. To become more communal, UBF ought to open up to its members and to outside ministries, the “whole of the body,” as you mentioned. There’s some weird thought that if you just get right with God personally, if you repent and believe and make a new decision to love God, then everything will be right with others as well. Recent reports on ubf.org highlight this. <a href="http://ubf.org/announcements/new-ubf-international-executive-board-ieb-members-elected"New international advisory board members are elected. The “community” at large is just told about a done decision via the website. But who was really involved with this decision? <a href="http://ubf.org/announcements/ubf-hq-announcement-new-continental-coordinators"New continental directors were appointed in S. America and Asia. Who appointed them? Where S. American or Asian disciples involved in appointing them? Why are the newly appointed continental directors Korean missionaries? Were there no disciples among students in those continents that could fulfill the duties? Hard to believe when the scope is the whole continent. And, if no one among the disciples really was able, then haven’t we failed somewhere and need to address our way of doing mission work?

Each person is valuable and important. Each person’s faith in God is also so important. But it’s not everything. There’s a context of that individual as part of the people of God. We ought to move into a better understanding God’s work of making a people for himself, a nation, a community and the context of a believer in that community (which is not just further recruitment into this community). There’s no guarantee of stopping or fixing this or that problem. The churches we find in Paul’s letters were broken and in need in many ways. But surprisingly we find the issues being address in a most public way–we are even reading about them and discussing them 2,000 years later. But we find he addresses these issues, even personal ones, in a context of the community of God’s people.

As a naive and idealistic 25-year-old, my answer is: community. The initial steps would be awareness of these issues, hence this website and maybe sometime in the near future face to face discussions (I know those are happening, but even more). The problem I see is that the culture of this organization has to change. My opinion is that decisions from the top will not change things because if the congregation isn’t ready for those changes it won’t change things. People need to get to know each other and actually like each other within UBF. (There’s a lot of people in UBF who don’t like each other, I see it all the time.)

We had an event called “The Well-Chicago” on Sept. 27 and the speaker was David Choi from the Church of the Beloved. He shared that in his home life there was not even a space for him to acknowledge that he had been hurt by his Father. He was never allowed to think about it. He thought that’s the way it is supposed to be. There are a lot of issues, wounds and baggage on both sides. I’m about grass movements and climate change. I’m also about communal devotions and Bible studying. When I say communal, I mean with the universal body of Christ. If we dialogue with other believers and denominations we will learn a lot. When we live in community our blind sides are kept in check. Anyway, this is how I see it. This is my simple answer. Community is crucial to a healthy church. Once again, when I say community, I mean with the whole body of Christ, either that or you’re screwed and most likely spout out heresy and have no one to check up on you. But it takes courage and humility to be part of a community.

Maybe ubf would start publishing the NakedPastor’s cartoons in the newsletter?

Maybe start with this one?

Any suggestions for the title/subject of my next book?

(By the way if you’ve been waiting for a chance to take a jab at me, now’s the time to do it!)

“Say Lisa gets angry with me. She’s livid! Justifiably so. And she comes at me with it. What do I do? Do I say, “Ew, I’m uncomfortable! I don’t appreciate how your voice sounds! Do you have to do this here? Now? Can we get a neutral mediator? Calm down! Your feelings are too overwhelming for me! I want you to talk to me on my terms! Calm down!”

I’ll tell you now, if I did anything like that, even remotely, it would send her through the roof! When she’s angry because of something I’ve done, I’ve lost my right to tell her how to talk to me… a right I never had to begin with. I have lost the right to tell her to leash her emotions and her mode of expression… a right I never had to begin with. It makes her angrier because it repeats the original offense, which is usually disrespect or disregard.

I don’t like it when she’s angry, but when she can feel and express it naturally, the way she wants, directly, then this is the first step to repair. It’s always worked so far.”

Source: http://www.nakedpastor.com/2014/09/are-you-so-angry-at-the-church-you-could-spit-nails/

That is the kind of frustration when dealing with ubf as a former leader such as myself. Who represents ubf? ubf leaders are all about maintaining individual power and authority, but who can make decisions about the organization as a whole?

There is no governing body.

My question, and I think that of many here, is this: How do we as a community put a stop to the abuse? How can we as a community ensure such things never. happen. again.? How can we fix the flawed system that perpetuates the pain?

One of the most eye-opening things I’ve learned from Joe’s aarticles and ubfriends interacting is that we are not just individuals. We are a community. And Scripture is often speaking at the communal level.

That is a haunting question. I don’t think there is a cookie cutter solution to people who have experienced this. Moreover, I don’t think it is a matter of right or wrong. Maybe they (my old chapter) did something bad to me, but I also know that I was not perfect in my relationship to them. It is not a scale; I didn’t do more sin than them and vice versa. Sin is sin. Both parties are guilty. But what I do know is that I am enjoying God right now. Before it was a paradigm of focusing on my sin that kept me from God. But now it is a paradigm of God on my side helping me. (The Cure, John Lynch) Sin is not keeping him away. No one is without sin; it is my self-reliance and doubt. Actually, I really don’t know what to call the thing that keeps me away from God, maybe it can be defined as forgetfulness of his presence, or not living by the spirit. But this is my personal experience. It is difficult to acknowledge that no human is completely bad or good. The person who caused my pain can still be used by God, and I pray for that. I pray for his family and kids.

“The psychological bondage which happens has a demonic character. When the people leave they are automatically ostracized by the other people still in the cult. It is like Catholicism. You left the one true church so it is a mortal sin, go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass “Go”, do not collect $200. That is it – the unpardonable sin. The other people will turn against those leaving because those leaving are free while those remaining are in bondage. But are they free? No they are not, not right away.
A person can be taken out of the cult but they are so confused and have been so hurt and manipulated it takes a longer time to take the cult out of the person. It is like that rock songHotel California – “you can check out any time you want but you can never leave”. The person can be taken out of the cult but to take the cult out of them is not so easy. They remain in psychological and spiritual bondage to it, particularly if they were saved in it. And they cannot be accommodated in other churches because other churches cannot understand what they went through. There is a secret fear that they have, “What if they were right?” This battle takes place within and sometimes it goes on for years.
Sometimes people have had nervous breakdowns and become mentally ill because of it. Some have turned to alcoholism and drugs. Some have committed suicide. Marriages have broken up because of it.
Another common phenomena is they have been so hurt and so burned they can never trust another church or another leader again. The solution to a bad church then becomes no church. The solution to bad leadership becomes no leadership. Actually the right solution to wrong leadership is right leadership, and the solution to bad church is good church. But they cannot accept that. Others do not understand what they have been through. No one understands what is going on inside of them. They can come to a church but they do not fit in until something happens. It takes time for that to happen, but it eventually happens.”

I think that whole lectures speaks to UBF and is worth a read, especially by the ethics committee.

link to Christian Cults by Jacon Prasch

“Last sunday, my husband and I officially joined the Methodist church. Almost two years after moving to this city and about three years after leaving the abusive fundamentalist church in which we had spent the previous 10 years.

Here’s what we thought would happen two years ago: we’d shop around a little, take our time visiting some churches, meet some people, and then carefully attend the one we like most, probably not officially ever joining and most likely not participating in much.

Two years and seven denominations (and even more churches!) we have become Methodists.”

My friends’ blog shows how one family is coping with life after ubf. If the committee will pay attention to such narratives, much can be changed:

On Becoming Methodist

And yes, God has blessed me abundantly. If you read nothing in my books, I hope you at least read the acknowledgements section of book 1. God has blessed me with my family, my friends, my work, my neighbors and even with people who vehemently disagree with me.

My wife is a blessing from God, and I now see this vastly more clearly, now that we talk to each other daily and go out on dates. Our first date after 18 years of marriage was eye-opening.

I’ve been blessed with four amazing children. They bring joy and love into my life every day. They challenge me to go way beyond my comfort zone and give me reason to keep fighting to provide for them.

God has blessed me with incredible parents, grandparents and in-laws who have given me a bedrock of goodness and a safety net of help year after year. I am so thankful for them.

God has blessed me with so many friends who have reached out to me privately to thank me for being vocal about my life story, and for sharing publicly at great risk.

The committee needs to discuss a few things and will get back to you one way or another.

God bless you.

“And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.'”

The old wine of legalism and careless self-righteousness tastes better, and you better not disrupt the flow!

And thanks big bear, /bighug for you

By God’s grace, we shouldn’t either. I do not mean we do not press and address issues. But that we do so with the utmost of kindness, patience and tolerance (like God), which has the greatest likelihood of promoting repentance (Rom 2:4).

The Message rendering of John 3:19-21 says everything I ever wanted to say to ubf people the past several years.

“This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.”

Can it be said that we have loved the light? Does ubf leadership love the light as Christians do?

The only reason they call Robert is because they cannot deny the lose of money. No customers in their restaurant is a shock to them but they deny that they are the problem. They deny that their food sucks and don’t see the dirt on their walls.

In 2 days Robert shows them tough love and tender love and revamps their restaurant. It is so relevant to see how he does this. I have often patterned my actions off of Robert’s show because ubf leaders (like me in the past) are just like the restaurant owners in denial.

ubf leaders can deny many things, but they cannot deny the fact of people leaving and loss of offering. Yes the total money numbers for ubf went up recently, but only because of some money-making venture. The ministry has been in decline for several years, since 2008 primarily.

One common phrase among us former leaders is “a spade is a spade”. I do not have the mental capacity to do the gymnastics required to understand this:

“virtual isolation and insulation (from the rest of Christendom) in a self-created bubble”

That is simply denial in my book. Denial means simply “the action of declaring something to be untrue”. We have ample witnesses saying ubf is unhealthy and needs help.

The leadership says “No that’s not true; we are healthy.” Or they admit some level of unhealthiness and then say “No we don’t need any help, leave us alone.”

One day this fish happens to land in the ocean (Finding Nemo comes to mind). He was shocked to see how expansive and majestic and marvelous the immense ocean is.

In his joy and excitement he returns to his fish bowl to share this gospel of good news with his fellow buddy fishes: “Hey, my dear fellow buddy fishes, there is an immense vast ocean out there!!!”

But all of his buddy fellow fishes resolutely and decisively and unanimously concluded that he has gone crazy and can no longer be trusted.

Irvine sampling

Someone needs to help ubf people who live in denial.

That picture is a great example of what I call the KOPAHN fantasy. The ubf ideology leads people to live in a make-believe world where everyone outside the group is “spiritually starving” and everything in the group is so wonderful.

KOPAHN fantasy theology ignores people’s personal self-narratives and imposes a shepherd narrative onto them, which does violence to their conscience.

Take a look at this director’s narrative he imposes on the various people he talks about. How do those people feel? What is their genuine narrative about their life?

We should photoshop that picture and write an article about the now infamous Well issues that went on behind the scenes. They are living in denial and need a wake-up call.

As Robert Irvine says when he helps restaurant owners who are in denial about the sad state of their restaurant, people who live in denial need something shocking to bring the back to reality.

If anyone thinks I am not following “biblical procedures” in talking about this rogue chapter director, consider this. I repeatedly expressed my concerns about that chapter to the regional coordinator, the North American coordinator, the GD, and members of the Ethics committee.

About the Well… Did you notice this?
http://ubf.org/world-mission-news/north-america/well-chicago-one-night-prayer-meeting
Look at the picture. Virtually all these people were removed from the Well, resigned from the Well, left UBF, or are barely hanging on at the margins. And yet they are using this photo to advertise. It’s so strange.

Someone created a shiny new website over at ubf, but the same depressing reports are published. The ubf internet committee claims they are publishing good news and encouraging reports about the work of God.

But am I the only one who feels so discouraged by this new report? I think this chapter director needs help. He is living in a fantasy world. He keeps doing the same thing over and over with no results. Maybe the system is the problem? Maybe narcissism is the problem he is dealing with?

“Personally, I was a man of inability and a lack of good talent. However, by the grace of God, I struggled each week to write Bible questions, Bible study materials, and message preparation. But there was no new visible fruit at the end of last year. While I was discouraged by seemingly invisible work of God, God provided me spiritual strength, hope, and vision to battle against the schemes of Satan.”

“I began to think about the main reason why they would reject God’s word and why they didn’t want to commit themselves to the truth of God. Of course, they have their own perspectives and reasons, but in the light of the Bible, they are possessed by something else that hinders them from coming to God. Many people have Bible knowledge, but they lack God’s truth and don’t want to commit themselves to the truth of God. It is a serious spiritual sickness in our country. I was distraught to realize that America is a spiritually barren land. On the other hand, I was thankful that God has chosen me to love his word and pray for young college students even though I am rejected by them. It was also a privilege that God has given me an opportunity to learn the faith that Jesus wants me to have through disciple-making ministry.”

And check out how the family is once again bashed by man’s report about one person:

“Before Bible study, he was full of fear and stress because of his future. He also had a strong family centered heart and mentality. However, God encouraged him to challenge his academic courses so that he got all “A’s” last fall. He has been president of our student organization on campus.”

Until such leaders are removed, challenged and/or helped, ubf ministry will continue to bump along in darkness. My #1 prayer is that ubf people will come into the light and begin loving families and people.

The problem deepens when we realize how few of the full time pastors have actually received formal education in this field. Bible study is good. Missionaries are trained in a large part by studying Acts and writing reflections on it, in addition to a few other things. However, in today’s world, it is abundantly clear that in order to be a good shepherd for a ministry, one needs to be available, reachable, and understand issues like conflict resolution and real cultural differences.

there are times that the “get a phd and undergo intense bible study training” has been effective. There are people who have “Joseph” experiences which prepare them for aspects of ministry that we are talking about. But for a ministry to disregard the (easily anticipate-able) needs of young people and growing families in a multicultural mission is simply careless.

Case in point–i have a number of concerns I shared with my wife. She listened humbly but told me, rightly, I ought to meet with my “shepherd” and discuss them clearly (though we’ve discussed them all at one point or another–I do see a need to sit down and say, here’s where I’m at, I want you to know, so I’m not surprising anyone with my words or behavior) but the person is simply too busy to meet with me. Oh yeah, and my own family and work life are so busy that it’s not easy for me to meet with him either.

This makes me see the worth and value of other ministries who hire educated ministers for the purpose of being available and reaching out to people for the spiritual needs they see.

The unfortunate result is that very often these people who are dealing with so many struggles in their life in addition to ministry become the ultimate pragmatists, who arrange their life along lines of necessity and convenience. then people who need spiritual love and understanding are bowled over and, since their “concerns” require more time and love than is practical or available, they are shunned and/or labeled.

Not to say that voluntary, non paid service to the Lord has no value. But when we make an idol out of this way of life, many people get hurt.

You should keep in mind I’m recalling memories from the last century. At that time, when Samuel Lee was still alive, it was pretty much the same everywhere, and I know for sure there were chapters and directors that were far worse than mine. My chapter director was not really such a bad person. He sincerely believed it was ok to run a chapter like that, and he copied what he learned from Samuel Lee and his shepherds in Korea. What he did was considered acceptable and normal by nearly everyone in UBF at that time.

“he did not have a job outside UBF, he did not need to commute to the work place like everybody else because he “worked” in the UBF office close to his home…”

Yes in the us, everybody is expected to live near the “ubf center” and the chapter directors are often always at the center. But to my knowledge, they almost always do have full time jobs.

For example, “others had to type it in the computer, correct, print, xerox…”

For years we had a Saturday night messenger meeting. One lucky “chosen” one would have to stay all night or at least until about 2:00 am typing in dictation from the chapter director.

I remember working with others every Sunday night to making 50 or 60 copies of the Sunday message, staple each one, and place each on in each person’s mailbox. Yes we had a table at the center with a big shelving unit of sorts on it. Each shepherd/shepherdess had a mail slot/cubby hole a few inches tall and a little wider than a sheet of paper.

This is where daily bread booklets were delivered to, as well as the question sheets each week and the Sunday messages each week. If I spent about 15,000 hours in bible “study”, then I spent thousands of hours at the copy machine in the center, making copies, distributing copies and tallying up various reports each and every Sunday (offering reports, Sunday attendance reports, etc).

Need to chime in here. It’s one thing if Christians occasionally hurt each other by accident because they are sinners. But it’s another thing if Christians hurt each other systematically because they are in a spiritual abusive system that reinforces abusive behavior.

I guess that’s what MJ wanted to say by emphasizing “the church” hurt them, not individual people in the church. A healthy church would help both the hurted and the hurting person to reconcile. And I can confirm MJ in the observation that sadly there are many unhealthy churches out there, not only UBF. But the spectrum between “healthy” and “cult-like/abusive” is continuous, and there are not so many churches who have such an extreme, long, systematic, consistent and global history of abuse as UBF, and at the same time managed for such a long time to never repent or acknoledge the problem or hold anybody accountable.

In your comment earlier, I thought I heard glimmers of 2 Corinthians 7:8-13, that you were describing the awakening of consciences at ubf and some indignation by certain ubf presiders. These kinds of things are chaotic and not so peaceful, but I think we can clearly count them as works of the Spirit as He works to bring about repentance.

But maybe that’s not what you were describing. If not, then I agree, this sounds more like Genesis 11:1-9 where everyone was scattered and confused.

Here is one of my favorite quotes. I’ve posted it before, but here it is again. It’s from Thomas Merton.

*****

It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we do this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement . But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no one expects us to be “as gods.” We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives . It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.

Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and “one body,” will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the successes but of the failures and accidents in our lives. My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from the failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another’s achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my own achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time. It is seen, above all, in my integration in the mystery of Christ.

****
If that sort of thing is happening in ubf, then praise God. But from my limited perspective, what I see is less communication, less self examination, less acknowledgment of mission failure, more implausible positive spin and pretending that all is well.

I suppose I can see some Babel-like actions going on, Joe. I think it would be helpful to iron out some criteria around this. How do we recognize the Spirit’s presence/work? How do we identify Babel-building actions?

In other words, I think your earlier article, “Is This An Authentic Work of the Holy Spirit?”, deserves more discussion:

“So how can we test an activity to see whether it is the genuine work of the Spirit? The criteria that some Christians apply are rooted in sectarianism, prejudice and competition. We may be quick to assume that the Holy Spirit is with us in everything we do simply because our church is “biblically correct.” At the same time, we may dismiss what is happening in other communities because it doesn’t jibe with our own experiences and violates our assumptions about what the work of the Holy Spirit should look like.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2011/01/31/is-this-an-authentic-work-of-the-holy-spirit/#sthash.8GpWTIOG.dpuf