Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin Regional Assembly

• Two years ago our economy was riding the crest of one of the most bullish stock markets ever, and now it is one of its lowest ever. Earnings income from permanent funds are down. Retirement accounts are now insufficient. Jobs are being lost daily. Plants are being closed everywhere. Organizations are downsizing. Recession is now a huge concern.

All that at the same time as when we were half-way into one of the most aggressive and important capital funds campaigns we have ever launched -- a campaign to undergird efforts at starting new churches, revitalizing congregations, supporting our higher education ministries, and reaching out to our youth, our elderly, and the disabled.

The economic downturn has hit this Region hard. Fourteen months ago, this Region had some 23 people on its payroll. Today, we have 11. We lost, to a lower bid, the contract on the Tri-County Meals-on-Wheels food program which the Camp had admirably serviced for some two decades. Immediately, that was eight jobs gone. The ease of maintaining a full-time cook staff for our summer camps, gone. And, a net loss of around $35,000 per year toward the Camp’s capital improvements. We also had to cut another $70,000 from our operational budgets, 86% of it in personnel costs. Therefore, we had to eliminate three Administrative Assistant positions and two part-time Associate Regional Minister positions, which included closing the North and South satellite offices. Trust me ... none of these changes were wanted nor well-received. And, the reality is not much of our ministry or demands in our work has significantly diminished. Add to that the sorrow and loss we felt with the death of our longest-tenured (23+ years) staff member – Virginia Harper – who succumbed to a rapid and aggressive cancer.

• Two years ago we had no clue about the disillusioning extent to which greed and corruption had gripped corporate America as well as the serious malfeasance and cover-up in the Catholic Church. We have a leadership crisis in America, because both of these phenomenon have combined to turn people further and further away from believing in truth, trust, and integrity and toward believing those kinds of values are not welcome nor present in politics, business, or even the Church.

Our world has RADICALLY changed in these last two years, has it not? And not for the better, I am afraid!

Now I think one of the very real responsibilities of leaders -- especially in the church -- is not only:

to understand and give accurate and perceptive descriptions of one’s “current reality”

but also, and at the same time:

to be in serious discernment and prayer about a vision of what God is calling us to become and to proclaim that word of hope to the world and to the church.

Friends, we do need hope! We do need Jesus to shine! We do need to experience our hearts set on fire! We need our churches to lift their eyes from inward, maintenance issues and turn those eyes outward toward a world and its people that are hurting, are seeking spiritual truth, and are desperately in need of the Gospel – and though -- or better, especially because -- they are particularly distrustful, non-receptive, and resistant to it.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, which essentially shattered the stability and comfort of American lives, it was both

a great joy to be so keenly aware of where people turned in that time of crisis and instability -- they turned to communities of faith and to religious institutions for comfort and insight. Worship attendance was up some 25% in that aftermath.

But it was also

a profound sadness to read that while “millions of nominally churched or generally irreligious Americans were desperately seeking something that would restore stability and a sense of meaning to life....and they turned to the church; unfortunately, few of them experienced anything that was sufficiently life-changing to capture their attention and their allegiance. They tended to appreciate the moments of comfort they received, but were unaware of anything sufficiently unique or beneficial as to redesign their lifestyle to integrate a deeper level of spiritual involvement.” The research assessment was “churches succeeded at putting on a friendly face but failed at motivating the vast majority of spiritual explorers to connect with Christ in a more intimate or intense manner.” [according to Barna Research Updates, 11/26/01]

My friends, in these past two years we have had a significant “wake-up call” about the need to enhance our mission and multiply our efforts in outreach and in discipleship. We seriously need to care about the unchurched people outside our doors. When newcomers come to our churches and return home, they need to be saying “WOW! Jesus was shining there! Their spirits are on fire!! I need that transformative power in my life.” We cannot let continue be heard what was reported about those same post-9/11 seekers who were saying, “Now I remember why I don’t go to church anymore!”

IT IS GOOD WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY, because in these last two years, our world has RADICALLY changed and our call to mission is greater today than ever before. I am confident God is at work, God has not given up because of these human issues and sins, God is about doing new things, and God continues to call the Church to wake-up.

So what are we to do?

One obvious place to start is right inside the Bible. I’ll suggest one of my favorite books and passages (Romans 12):

“....so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them....”

Yes that’s right Church – let’s use the gifts God has given to us.

Today, CCIW, I want to talk about six ways we can use our gifts, six directions, six thoughts for your corporate consideration .... six Big, Hairy, Audacious things ... six Goals if you will – what in the past, we have affectionately called BHAG’s (ala Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Built to Last).

It has been suggested to me that I might consider recontextualizing the BHAG phrase -- still call them BHAG’s but instead define them as “Big, Holy, Audacious Goals.” I don’t know why people make such a big deal about hair around me, but whatever! I do like Holy as well -- so either way works – because this is about six initiatives or directions for CCIW that hopefully will stimulate forward progress, will create a momentum, will help get people in our churches energized and going forward, that will be responsible for helping build-up the Kingdom of God in our midst, and us reaching into our local communities with Christ – that will “Set our hearts on fire!”

Six BHAG’s in CCIW organizational structures and congregations about –

1. Passionate Spirituality

2. The Eradication of Racism

3. Solid Financial Resources to Undergird our Mission and Ministry

4. Congregational Health and Vitality

5. Awesome Youth Ministries

You heard about the first three in 1998 during my first State of the Region Address and they’ve begun. Then two more were added in 2000 at our Region’s Sesquicentennial Assembly, and they’re beginning. Now, as I’ve lived into this ministry and have also bi-annually now been out on three rounds of Regional Listening Conferences, I want to suggest “Let’s add one more BHAG in 2002".

1. Calling our Best and Brightest Children and Youth into Ministry – that every congregation by 2020 will have had at least one young person in their midst whom they have nurtured, affirmed, and helped be ordained into ministry – that’s at least one hundred and sixty-two new ordained ministers from this Region alone in the next 18 years.

Now that is another worthy Big, Holy, Audacious Goal, is it not? Pastoral leadership in the years to come is a critical issue, and we need to call forth our best for this servant ministry.

So, let’s briefly talk about these for a few minutes. Note, I said “briefly” and “for a few minutes.” Stay with me, now!

FIRST, I want to thank the person out there who is asking the question – “Where in the world is this guy coming from?” You thought I didn’t hear you, didn’t you!!

Four years and seven months ago, when I started in this (what is often called) episcope or spiritual oversight ministry, I had just become a grandfather three months earlier. Robert is now four and a half. Here he is when he came to visit us for one week last summer when we went on an “Awesome Adventure” which included the St. Louis Zoo, the Magic House, and several other high-risk explorations. He’s great! Grandchildren change the way you look at the world, don’t they?

And another thing happened in those two years since we last met, we now have a granddaughter! Elisabeth is the first girl in four generation of boys in my family line. She’s absolutely adorable!! Just ask Duff!!!

And, here is Grandma Duff with her brood – Robert, two year old Michael, and 11 month old Elisabeth.

I am convinced more than ever, and doubly dedicated to, the proposition that we need to be about “Cherishing Christ’s Church for our Children’s Children.” I want the Church to be alive and vital and healthy and an important part of all our grandchildren’s lives, just as much as it has been for all of us and our children. We are the ones -- you and I -- who have to plant those seeds for the trees under which they’ll enjoy the shade. These BHAG’s, I suggest, set the direction for CCIW and align us in our work of preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They partner us with God in the creative new things of this time and for our particular geography.

SECONDLY, I want to thank the leaders and all the servants on our Regional Committees, and particularly our Regional staff – Associates Burley Herrin, Norma Roberts, Scott Woolridge, and Christal Williams; Administrative Assistants, Cindy Wagoner, Dana Worrell, and Beth Zumwalt; Staff Assistant Neil Sallee; and Camp Walter Scott Managers Becky Lewis and Bob Broeker. They are an awesome, talented team and a delight with whom to work. They and our Regional leaders are the ones who are helping to make all of this happen and facilitate its fruition.

AND NOW, I want to talk about specifics. In your program book, you will find reports from the Discipleship Ministries Team about our efforts in “Passionate Spirituality,” from the Anti-Racism Team about our efforts at eradicating racism and building pro-reconciliation, multi-cultural relationships in our church, and from the Capital Campaign Team you’ll find an up-to-date report on this partnership campaign as we seek to build solid financial foundations for the future. To date, CCIW congregations and donors have pledged nearly $625,000 toward our Region’s goal of $2.25 million, and we’ve help raise a little over $1.8 million for local church vitality and future-cherishing activities – all that so far, and we are just now entering the congregational phase of the campaign. I sincerely hope your congregation will want to be a part of this significant movement in visioning, planning, and capitalizing the future of our church.

In addition, in partnership with the Christian Church Foundation, during the last biennium, we have held a three-day Ministers Planned Giving Institute and five one-day mini-Institutes across the Region for lay leaders as they learn how effectively to promote, receive, and manage bequests from their members who seek to steward their accumulated resources. Twenty-five congregations sent sixty leaders to take advantage of this outstanding opportunity. Yes, I am stunned and sad that only 15% of our CCIW congregations took advantage of this excellent training – because all the feedback was appreciative and very affirmative. But I also know, things take time, they need to build momentum, and I’ll not forsake this BHAG! We’ll do it -- one congregation at a time if we have to! Every CCIW congregation needs to have a sound and proactive Wills and Bequest Policy in place and it’s most helpful before you start receiving gifts, not after. And, I still dream that every church member will accept the challenge to tithe their estate toward this goal of forever cherishing and supporting Christ’s Church for generations to come!

A final thought, on BHAG # 3 about funding, I have been deeply involved in a national team that has sought to find ways to transform mission funding which support the work of the whole church in undergirding, equipping, and supporting congregations in their ministry and to create multiple streams of mission funding to which you – the donors – feel deeply connected and inspired to support. Page 67 in your program book provides a chart about the changes in BMF as it now evolves into the Disciples Mission Fund and how the Special Day offerings will be linked to specific entities seeking to fulfill the whole Church’s mission imperatives. If you have questions, in workshops this afternoon that Bill Edwards and that our Moderators and I are leading, we can explain this in greater detail.

BHAG # 4, which is about Congregational Health and Vitality, has gotten the most focus this past biennium by our Long Range Planning Committee, by 27 focus groups this past May and June, and by the Regional Board in September when it approved these proposals on “Regional Staffing and Organizational Restructuring.” As we proactively seek to live out our mission of “growing Disciples congregations for healthy vital ministry” – four initiatives, and the creation of movements around them, will become our primary focus – (1) deepening the relationships and resources with our congregations, with such things as deployed staff in Area Ministries, Percept demographics, and Natural Church Development assessments on health and vitality; (2) transformational efforts toward helping “stuck” congregations redevelop and revitalize; (3) coming alongside our most effective and innovative congregations, enlarging that growth capacity therein, and facilitating their teaching of others; and finally (4) reclaiming the Great Commission in our lives, where we once again focus on reaching unchurched and pre-Christian people and where congregations are multiplying because reproduction is in our congregational DNA and our congregations are once again starting new congregations. The details of these initiatives are on pages 57-66 in your program book. You’ll see they received inordinately positive affirmations in the Focus Groups. We can talk more about this in Workshop 17 this afternoon, if you would like. I’m also willing to take this conversation on the road! I love talking with churches about this stuff!! It is our future.

And BHAG # 5 – Awesome Youth Ministries! I think all I need to say here is “Christal Williams” and that says it all! She has almost single-handedly set the youth, the youth leaders, and our congregations in this Region “on fire” about youth ministries – linking their lives and work to mission and to spiritually motivational events. Summit 2003 should have well over 1,000 kids in Decatur. Please! make sure ALL of the youth in your Church are there! It will be life changing. Summer Camp programming will also now be under the Youth Council’s coordination. I believe youth ministries will continue to be more and more awesome, touching more and more lives, and equipping more and more congregations for this vital ministry.

Which is also why BHAG # 6 is now so vital and needs to be added.

Do you want to know the two primary reasons why there is such a huge gap or age void in the number of ordained ministers right now? First, we quite suggesting and encouraging our young people to go into ministry. Many of those coming back into ministry in mid-life are doing so because they have always sensed a call, but never had it affirmed by others in our churches. Friends, we got to stop that behavior, right now!

And secondly, many youth had no interest in ministry as a career choice because they saw how dysfunctional so many churches had become – churches that had lost their spiritual passion and mission focus; and instead, starting fussing and fuming with each other and focused more on maintenance and survival needs. Well, we’ve to stop that dysfunctional stuff as well! BHAG # 4 is going to address that. It is time for church vocations once again to be honorable and desirable choices. We can do that if we are intentional about it!! Our mission partner Eureka College certainly is -- there are 11 students there right now who have declared ministry as their vocational choice. Two of our congregations last summer -- Central CC, Decatur, with Kelly Dick and First CC, Paris, with Rebecca Dixon hired those students as summer interns and among other things sent them to work in our camps. Go to the Display Booths for Eureka College and talk with Chaplain Terry Ewing about this dream or the DDH Booth and talk with Associate Dean Bill Crowl. Students will be there as well and later this morning they’ll be speaking. That’s just the beginning of what I pray will be a serious movement within CCIW churches nurturing calls to ministry.

So there you have it – a progress report and a challenge on six Big, Holy Audacious Goals we need to be about in our life together. The times hunger for these BHAG’s! Our mission and our vision demand them! We need to step out now and take the risk of engagement and involvement.

I want to close with a story I recently heard. I just love it -- it’s about risk-taking (from John Ortberg’s August 2002 Leadership Summit lecture and its source was the book The Darwin Awards by Wendy Northcutt). It is a story about a man named Larry Walters, a guy who had always wanted to fly, and was apparently willing to take whatever risks were needed to achieve that dream.

One day, Larry was outdoors in his back yard, sitting in his extremely comfortable Sears lawn chair -- and he got an idea. Immediately, he got up and went to the Army Navy Surplus store, whereupon he purchased 45 four-foot diameter weather balloons. He returned home and then tied the balloons to his lawn chair -- now dubbed “Inspiration One” – all in preparation for his flight launch.

Here was the plan – Larry filled the balloons with helium and strapped himself into that chair, along with some sandwiches he had made, a six-pack of Miller Lite, and his trusty ol’ pellet gun. At the appropriate time, Larry thought he would cut the anchor, then lazily float up to about 30 feet in the air, fly around a bit, take in all the sights while he ate his sandwiches and popped a few brewskis. Then, after a couple of hours, he would shoot out a few of those balloons and safely float back down to good ol’ terra firma earth.

Well, I am sorry to report, things did not work out quite as Larry had planned.

He did indeed inflate all 45 balloons with helium. His friends did cut the anchor rope that was tied to his truck. He did not, however, float lazily up to 30' as planned. Instead, he soared – like being shot from a cannon -- not to 30', not to 100', not even to 1000'. Nope, he finally leveled off at 16,000' in the air! All of a sudden, shooting out a few balloons did not seem like such a “good idea.” So Larry and his sandwiches and his beer floated up above the City of Angels (Los Angeles) for several hours, while he considered his options. I’m sure he even thought he was possibly going to be one of those angels!

At one point in this adventure, Larry even floated into the primary approach corridor of LAX air space. There are numerous recorded reports that came into the Los Angeles Control Tower from Delta, TWA, and American Airline pilots, all of which started off with the same phrase about this incredulous sight .... “You’re not gonna believe this!”

As night began to approach, Larry decided he had better return to Plan A, and so he shot out some balloons. And yes, he eventually did begin to descend; that is, until the balloon tether lines all got tangled up in some power lines -- which, by the way, knocked out electricity in a Long Beach neighborhood for well over twenty minutes. From there Larry fortunately was able to climb down to safety, where he was immediately met by the police and promptly arrested. When they were walking away, a reporter dispatched to cover this daring feat, asked Larry “Why in the world did you do this?” He responded, “Well, a man can’t just sit around!”

Now I agree – church folk, we can’t just sit around! We’ve got to take some risks...to step out and join God in our future. Admittedly, I hope we are a lot more strategic and use a great more brain power than our friendly example in Larry Walters.

The Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin is composed healthy Disciples congregation, filled with fully devoted followers of Christ, engaged in vital ministries from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth.

Clearly, we are certainly not yet there, but we also are getting to know well our Current Realities and How Needful Our World Is –

So, my friends, “we can’t just sit around” – we’ve got to “Close the Gap” between where we are right now and where we discern God wants us to be in our preferred future.

In this next two years and beyond ... let’s step out together into these wonderful new things God is doing in our midst!