Lifelong Learning Center: an immodest proposal

Okay. So you are standing on the set of God's "Let's Make a Deal" and the Apostle Paul is the highly caffeinated show host. As the main contestant for the NW Area Christian Churches you've just been given the option of door number 1, door number 2, or door number 3. You know that part of your "prize" is 160 acres of land in Lathrop, Missouri. What lies behind each door is what God will do with that land. The only clue given to you is a reference to the passage where Jesus tells the parable of the talents. Which door would you choose?

Door number 1 is the one-talent option. God blesses the 160 acres with lots of hay. Occasionally, folk from area congregations go to visit but unless the hay is cut there really is little to see or to do. It is pretty, though and the sound of the wind in the tall grass is almost hypnotic.

Door number 2 is the two-talent option. Behind this door is a view of the NW Area Church Camp about 5 years from now. It looks a lot like Camp Crowder at Trenton (where we hold church camp now). There is a 15 acre area with a house, barn, kitchen and mess hall, several cabins and a craft hall. There are about 80 campers, counselors and staff members this day and everyone looks like they are having a great time.

Door number 3 is the five-talent option. Open this door and what you see 10 years from now takes your breath away. Over by the wind turbines and solar panels a tour group of engineers from Japan is hearing Ken Jameson explain how we developed an international award winning green camp and conference center. On their way back to the state-of-the art conference center (filled with employees of Cerner for their annual corporate retreat), they pass a cluster of ranch-style buildings arranged in a cul-de-sac that hosts a unique End-of-Life Camp for children diagnosed with end-stage cancer and their families. On the 20 acre lake, senior citizens from Osborne are taking kyack lessons from one of the staff while a preschool class learns to fish on the opposite side. Almost hidden are several one-room studio cabins where, on this day, a pastor is outlining a sermon series, a single mom is struggling to find balance in the midst of chaos, and an artist is working on what will become a piece that will one day hang on a wall in the White House. The music of midday prayer wafts from open windows in the glass walled chapel as several staff members and guests praise God and intercede for everyone being served on the campus. The chef on duty is preparing 5 different lunches with interns provided by a local technical school to be served in a simple but beautiful set of dining rooms - each with their own theme. When our international guests leave to board their plane at KCI, they will take the campus shuttle which will drive on roads paved clear to the Interstate.

If you could ask God for one of these three scenarios, which would you choose?

We are in the process of recruiting candidates for a long-range development team that we will ask to form a 501.c.3 not-for-profit corporation dedicated to serving a wider public described in option 3. A short-term development team is already hard at work preparing the campus for your arrival on September 6 (or sooner if you happen to be a volunteer). Their commitment is primarily to serve congregations and to prepare a place that will be used often by members.

We have made (and plan to keep) a solemn pledge to keep the neighbors in the loop and to be responsive to any concerns they may have about noise and traffic and other difficulties.

Unless we hear differently from you, we'll keep working hard and praying that God grants us what is behind the door that will require the most from all of us and from partners within beyond the Church.

Blessings,
Bill R-H

Don't Just Stand There, Do Something!

We must engage in conversations around mission at least 20 times a week. Much of the talk is about how tough it is to motivate "them" to greater faithfulness, missions with greater impact, and more consistent compassion.

Some complain that there is not enough (fill in the blanks) coming from (the area office, the regional office, the general office, etc.) to help us move from where we are to where we think God want's us to be.

Most certainly, I am the worst offender. It is acceptable, even fashionable, to indulge in scapegoating as a way to cover up my own inadequacies or under-performance.

At some point, however, I have to take responsibility for the outcomes I live with.

Note that I did not say that a disappointing outcome is my fault. It is, however, my responsibility. It will change for better or for worse to some degree based upon my own engagement with it.

If I don't like the way things are shaping up in the church or if I yearn for something more, I have a responsibility to engage proactively.

If I find that there are too few companions with whom to make those changes, I have a responsibility to find and to invite more committed colleagues.

If there are not enough resources, I am responsible enough to change that rther than to let lack determine outcome.

This week your area staff and executive officers took a hard look with Dick Hamm at what we are doing to support pastors and other congregational leaders.

We cannot take much credit, nor can we completely accept blame for the way things are, but we can choose to be responsible, and we have.

Staff and officers have taken on new homework assignments and we have agreed to take some risks to improve the quality of our service to you.

No one told us we had to do that. It is simply a part of what it means to be responsible.

If you'd like to help your staff or team to deepen its sense of responsibility, join us for the Quickening Preview on Sunday evening, August 31. Click here
to learn more and to register on-line.

What Is Our Place in the Body of Christ?

Imagine for a moment that Disciples of Christ have discovered a new sense of purpose rooted in serving and supporting other Christians.

We wake up one morning and realize that we don’t really enjoy competing for the dwindling number of existing church members in our local communities . . . even if some of them are members of that weird church across town.

We are weary of being the denomination of last resort. “Hey, Disciples of Christ don’t require you to believe or to do anything beyond Baptism. We can get our weekly dose of whatever we need and leave the rest behind.”

Lately our own people admit to feeling spiritually restless. They want something more from their religious life than keeping the congregation running on fumes.

Our hope in a vision coming from a small group of people who make their living going to meetings has cooled a bit and we are becoming more adept at looking for what Christ is doing locally.

We have observed that when Jesus does something big in our home town, the effort requires the investment of more Christians than attend our worship services . . . or the Methodists or the Baptists (combined).

A review of our denominational history suggests that we were originally all about reclaiming the oneness of the Body of Christ and with 33,000 known Christian denominations, sects, and cults; we have our work cut out for us.

But oneness in what? A coalition of denominations that welcomes all comers? Wasn’t CUIC supposed to accomplish that? (It hasn’t.)

Churches in our community decide to raise money so that Cindy can have that liver transplant that her family cannot afford. They work with civic clubs to organize after school programs for kids whose parents have to work minimum wage jobs. Whenever those missions get going, or need to begin, the one ingredient that is essential is someone (or a group of leaders) to help get very different people working well together.

Why is it that so often those community project organizers are Disciples of Christ? It is not as if we have a lock on that kind of work but it does fit so well our DNA.

So, what if we got far more intentional about calling and equipping new saints – not only for the more common, congregational missions, but also for the missions that local communities of Christians will do together?

What if our worship services made room for celebrating what Christ is actually doing locally (as well as globally)?

If our Sunday Schools and Bible studies included a weekly focus on how we could better support the folk who actually do the work of these community missions, might they be more vital and dynamic?

How about those beloved symbols of summer – the Vacation Bible School and the annual youth mission trip? Imagine if instead of offering competing programs we committed to help local Christians to organize and carry out one program with excellence for all the local youth (or at least most of them)?

And if you have a better idea about how Disciples can become clear about God’s preferred role for our denomination within the larger Body of Christ, what’s keeping you from sharing that with the rest of us?

Bill Rose-Heim