Commentary: End of an Era
#1715c
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 24-Jun-23; 5 minutes
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transcript:
I thought the memorial service went very well, and I hope that it showed our respect for dad, and more than that, our respect for Jesus Christ and the work He did through him, and what He's continuing to do.
As I said in the announcement I wrote for my dad's death, it's the end of an era. And this end of an era is happening all across the churches of God. The older generation is slowly passing on. Many of those people who are what we call Silents—in the Silent Generation, those that were in the forefront of things in the Worldwide Church of God, and then afterward, once the church broke up, that generation is passing. The Baby Boomers are coming on as the elderly now. I know you do not to think of yourself as the elderly; you think you're still 17. New generations rise, taking the place of the old. The new generations must step up.
I'm not a Boomer. I'm a Generation X person. We have our own strengths and weaknesses. But one of those is that, generally, Gen-Xers say, "Ok, fine. We'll just move forward. We will just go on. We're not going to be bogged down by whatever. We've faced a fair amount of adversity. We're just going to try to do as best we can." So that's what I aim to do. I'm just going to move forward.
One thing I should make sure everybody understands in the way I'm thinking of things is that this never was John Ritenbaugh's church. It never was Richard Ritenbaugh's church. It never was "Ritenbaugh's church." I've heard all of those things (not necessarily the "Richard Ritenbaugh church"; who am I?) But you know, people have called us "Ritenbaugh's church." And that was never in our minds from the very beginning. I mean, look at the name we chose. We could have chosen the name "Church of John Ritenbaugh" if we wanted to. It was out there; the copyright would have been easy.
But that was never our goal. We have, from the very beginning, way back in 1992, said, "This can't be about us. This can't be about a man." That's why we called this church "The Church of the Great God." It's always been His church. We are just servants, and we want to do His will.
James Beaubelle mentioned Charles Whitaker. One thing that Charles wrote in one of the early articles in Forerunner Magazine (back when it was called "In Brief . . ." years and years and years ago; that was early '90s)—he wrote an article that essentially said we have to learn to zig when God zigs and zag when God zags ["Staying With the Puck"]. His article was about following the cloud, and the cloud did not take a straight line from Goshen to the River Jordan. It wandered all over the wilderness, and it was the people's job and the leadership's job under Moses to look up and find out where that cloud was headed. That idea has always been in the back of my mind ever since he wrote that article.
Obviously, the biggest question in this era when there is no physical cloud to look at is how do you figure out where God is going? You do not want to zig when God zags or zag when God zigs.
So, what I have, over the years, come to understand is that you must have a close relationship with Jesus Christ to follow Him as closely as you can. So, I think we are set up for success in this church—not physical success; I'm talking about spiritual success—if we humbly follow the cloud and remain faithful. That's what I aim to do, and I know that's what you aim to do as well because our goal is the Kingdom of God, and we want to be there and glorify our Father in heaven.
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