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NCW 27 Editorial
Historical Survey
January 1996
A blessed (Roman) New Year to all our readers! With the advent of a new year it is the prayer of the Patriarchate that our anno horribilis will finally be over [1], characterised as it was by persecution and considerable inner struggle as we prepared ourselves for the Third Wave. We are currently in that last period of change and looking hopefully forwards to our ecclesiastical and spiritual New Year in April.
What will 1996 bring us? [2] Certainly it will bring new opportunities for spiritual growth and evangelism, but what form will the Church itself take?
There has been a considerable evolution of doctrine and practice in the New Covenant as we have adjusted to our call and left behind our old thinking and behavioural patterns. That will continue. In preparation for the Church New Year the Patriarchate has been actively engaged in seeking the Lord's will through fasting, prayer study and meditation to know exactly what form the Church of God will take for the remaining four years of the twentieth century and on into the new millennium.
Although we do not know the final outcome we are able to share with you some of the changes that are to take place. The Church originally began in the mid 1980s as a loose fellowship of independent congregations and then organised around two (later three) organisational structures: an inner esoteric body and an outer exoteric one. This was felt to be necessary in order not to "choke the baby on meat" and allow the saints a natural growth. Even so, the pace of change was phenomenal, as members of the 1988-92 period will especially remember. The division was not ultimately a success largely because there was already too much meat in the exoteric church. The baby did indeed begin to choke.
1992-5 saw major readjustments as a greater separation between the inner and outer churches took place, ensuring that the milk was milk and the meat, meat.
The baby has now grown up. After seven long years of struggle the Church of God now enjoys a mature ministry able to serve a new spiritual generation of "children". It is rightly said that putting a gun into the hands of children is dangerous and that children must be protected against themselves for their own good. But when the children grow up and learn responsibility so it possible to entrust them with more sacred stewardships.
A little over a year ago the Presiding Patriarch had a dream in which he saw three trains on a railway line. The first two trains were far ahead and had joined together. This happened quite recently when the Holy Order and the Church of Christ effectively became united as a single entity. But the third train was gaining rapidly on them and it was apparent that before long it too would be united with the other two. That train was the outer church, or NPKF (New Covenant Christian Fellowship).
It has now caught up and is being coupled to the other two.
Over the next three months as we approach Holy Week, a full and complete unification of the three churches of the New Covenant will take place, thus effectively marking the end of the formative period of this work. There will no longer be the "Holy Order", the "Church of Christ" and the "NPKF". There will only be the one Church of God.
This unification will, of necessity, require a complete reorganisation of the Church structurally, as is true when, for example, two companies merge together. New procedures will be instituted to meet the demands of the new Church. Whereas before the Church was very much designed for the internal training of its priesthood -- a function almost entirely carried out by the Holy Order -- as from next April the structure will essentially be a field one -- what we have started to call the colonial enterprise.
Whereas previously our emphasis has been on the establishment of isolated Zionic firstborn communities apart from the world, we have now started to emphasise the importance of establishing colonies (NPKF congregations) within the world. In effect, this means that the emphasis shifts away from the Holy Order and to the NPKF, or a shift from patriarchal to apostolic ministry, with the effective merging of the two.
It is important, further, to understand that this change is a part of an unfolding process, and not a sudden "realisation", though the way it has happened could not have been -- and was not -- foreseen by us. And it is even more important for the people to understand that this process has been guided by revelation.
Amazing changes have taken place. In mid December a special conference was held in Våler, east Norway, in which the members were invited to share their own personal experiences and of the changes that have taken place within them. To the astonishment of many almost everyone had arrived at the same conclusions, putting into words private thoughts which had never been fully aired before. In considering the traditions we came out of to found this Church, we understood that what had happened to us -- and the way it happened -- was of vital importance. Because, in His mercy, the Lord granted us time to change, the change (for those present) had been largely painless. There were no longer any divided thoughts, no longer a feeling of being tugged in one direction by our former traditions, and in another by the newly emerging New Covenant tradition. We were all facing the same way and had no regrets about fully cutting ourselves loose from our past [3].
At the beginning of December of last year a meeting was held in Oslo in which we compared the many changes of this Church with the dramatic events surrounding the metamorphosis of a monarch butterfly. First the egg -- the loose, ill-defined "Restoration Christian Fellowship" which emerged in England (ca.1984-88), followed by the rather ungainly caterpillar-like creature called the "Independent Church" (1988-92). Finally, the pupa or chrysalis, the NPKF (1992-6), which saw the total reorganisation of the caterpillar as it slowly became invisibly transformed into the New Covenant Church of God (1996-).
We are at the end of the NPKF period. Largely hidden from the world, we are preparing to emerge as something quite different from what we once were. We are thrilled at the expectation of what will emerge through the grace and loving kindness of our Heavenly Father. May you be a witness to this long-awaited spiritual rebirth, is the prayer of the Patriarchate, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
The Patriarchate, 14 December 1995
Historical Endnotes (170498)
[1] It wasn't. Though the Church had been severely mauled by persecution between 1995 and 1996, the end of 1995 was to witness the eruption of the "Third Rebellion" and its dessertion by most of the membership.
[2] January 1996 to the summer of 1997 was a spiritual winter for the Church and many believed it would be extinguished. But God had other plans. July 1997 saw the formation of the long-promised Kadesh-biyqah, the publication of the Olive Branch, the establishment of a vibrant Internet Ministry, and in 1998 the beginning of the fulfilment of the promises made in the revelations towards the gathering of the remnant to Zion.
[3] Unfortunately the rebels were not truthful and were secretly plotting a coup d'état. Two weeks later Par ben Baqah, the leader of the rebellion, announced his intentions in a public meeting of the NCCF in Oslo when the Patriarchate was absent. Rejecting all the revelations, the Patriarchate, the covenants, and (progressively) more and more of the Bible, the unrepentant leaders of the rebellion and their followers were subsequently excommunicated. The beginnings of the New Covenant Church of God as presently constituted in many ways stems from this rebellion. In one fell sweep, all the remaining Restoration and existentialist trappings were finally and permanently removed.
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