September

For complete text of each story, click on its headline.

To subscribe to the United Methodist Reporter.

The posture of grace

by the Rev. Peter Lovell,
Rockford District
Superintendent

(Sept. 26) Lois was fighting for recovery. She wanted her life to be as active and full as it had been before her stroke. She knew it would be different. With great effort she worked to open her hand. The stroke had caused it to curl like a grasping claw. She focused on her hand and concentrated on straightening each finger. Slowly her hand opened. Then she relaxed, and her fingers snapped back to a closed position. She opened her hands several more times and said, “I didn’t realize how much effort it takes to open your hand.”

Yes, it takes a great deal of effort to open your hand. The open hand is a posture of grace. Open hands, hearts and spirits are necessary, not only to receive the gifts of God, but also to gracefully share them with others.

I celebrate those individuals and congregations within the Northern Illinois Conference who have made the sacrificial effort to open their hands, hearts and minds. Churches, large and small, have struggled in difficult times to allow the love and care of Christ to flow through their connectional giving as they have joyfully and faithfully paid their apportionments. They have opened their eyes to see that our giving is not just to programs and ministries. Our giving is for the “solitary individual” whose needs are met through the programs and ministries we support. Each dollar given touches both those individuals who carry our gifts and those souls who receive them.

Jesus said to the one imprisoned in the silence of himself: “Be Opened!” We too are called to be open. We are to open our eyes, ears, hearts and hands both to receive and to give. In order to do so we need to first let go of those things to which we cling that prevent us from being open to God’s grace. As we look at our own hands, what is it that we cling to that prevents us from being open to God and freely opening ourselves to give? Open your hands to God and put your burden down.

Upon us all God continues to pour the bountiful gifts of love and grace. To receive these gifts we too must be open to receive God’s healing and strengthening Spirit. Only then can we joyously experience the new life God offers us. Open your hands to God and receive God’s love and grace.

The posture of grace is one of both receiving and giving. With hands open, we receive the grace of God. Open your hands to give and share God’s grace with one another. R. J. Foster writes: “Giving frees us to care. It produces an air of expectancy as we anticipate what God will lead us to give. It makes life with God an adventure of discovery. We are being used to help make a difference in the world, and this is worth living for and giving for.” (The Challenge of the Disciplined Life, p. 44)

May we remember with open hands to give of our time, our talent, our treasure so that others too may see God’s love and grace and be thankful. We have been blessed to be a blessing so that all may know through our giving that life is “worth living for and giving for.”

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home

NIC to run Igniting Ministry
TV commercials in September

(Sept. 19) The Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) is conducting an "Igniting Ministry" television advertising campaign during September on TV stations throughout northern Illinois. The campaign will supplement advertising being conducted by the United Methodist denomination on cable television networks throughout the country.

Commercials are airing in the Chicago, Rockford and Davenport/Rock Island/Moline television markets.

In greater Chicago, commercials can be seen Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays on WLS-ABC TV (channel 7), WMAQ-NBC TV (channel 5), WFLD-FOX TV (channel 32) and WGN TV (channel 9).

In the Rockford area, commercials can be seen Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays on WTVO-ABC TV (channel 17), WREX-NBC TV (channel 13) and WIFR-CBS TV (channel 23).

The Iowa and Illinois Great Rivers Conferences are funding TV commercials being shown in the Bureau, Whiteside, Carroll and Joe Daviess counties.

The NIC advertising schedule is posted on the NIC web site. The denomination’s advertising schedule on cable networks is posted on www.ignitingministry.org.

Cost of the NIC advertising campaign is $86,200. The Conference was awarded a $43,100 matching grant from United Methodist Communications to help fund the campaign. The NIC 2003 budget had allocated $20,000 to the advertising campaign, but in order to comply with the Conference Council on Finance and Administration’s recent request to reduce spending, the NIC Communications Commission reduced that amount to $17,000 and is attempting to raise $26,100 from local churches and individuals in the Conference.

"When we had to decide whether or not to go ahead with the advertising campaign, we had already raised nearly $16,000," said the Rev. James Galbreath, chair of the NIC Communications Commission. "Because this is such an extraordinary opportunity to give beneficial support to the work of local churches in our conference in partnership with the general church, we prayerfully decided to go ahead and have faith that congregations and individuals will contribute the $10,000 we still need to cover the remaining costs."

"Igniting Ministry advertising provides a very exciting opening to reach out to the unchurched through television and invite people into our churches," Galbreath said. "We hope that congregations and individuals will continue to contribute generously to this campaign. Any amount will help."

For more information about the campaign, contact Linda Rhodes, NIC director of Communications, at (312) 541-1602.

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home

In celebration of the polity of John Wesley

by Dr. Donald Guest,
Chicago Southern District
Superintendent

(Sept. 19) When Elijah came near the town gate at Zarephath, he saw a widow gathering sticks for a fire. ‘Would you please bring me a cup of water?’ he asked. As she left to get it, he asked, ‘Would you also please bring me a piece of bread?’ The widow answered, ‘In the name of the living Lord your God, I swear that I don’t have any bread. All I have is a handful of flour and a little olive oil. I’m on my way home now with these few sticks to cook what I have for my son and me. After that, we will starve to death.’

“Elijah said, ‘Everything will be fine . . . The Lord God of Israel has promised that your jar of flour won’t run out and your bottle of oil won’t dry up before he sends rain for the crops.’

“The widow went home and did exactly what Elijah had told her. She and Elijah and her family had enough food for a long time. The Lord kept the promise that his prophet Elijah had made and she did not run out of flour or oil.” —1 Kings 17:10-15

In the first chapter of the study entitled Polity, Practice and the Mission of the United Methodist Church (Abingdon, 1997), Dr. Thomas E. Frank summarizes John Wesley’s understanding of Grace for the early societies: “The point was subtle but critical: Participants in Methodist societies were not trying to earn points with God, but to enter more fully into a life of love — love of God and neighbor — because ‘God has first loved us.’ This could not be achieved alone (though personal prayer, study and action were essential), but only in a community of mutual support and accountability.” (p.46)

The widow in the story from 1 Kings is a model for Israel’s obedience to God. The story is not just about her faith-motivated sharing with Elijah, but about the mutual support and accountability that should characterize the community of faith. Elijah was reminding the widow that even in the midst of famine, God’s grace, i.e., God’s provision, was constant and sufficient. He asked her to feed him because he knew that acts of generosity, motivated by faith in the goodness of God are contagious and can reverse the objective social conditions created by poverty.

"Throw us for a loop"

The famine had temporarily shaken her faith and removed her from the sense of being part of a larger community. Often traumatic events such as the death of a loved one, divorce, incarceration, being “downsized,” unemployed, losing one’s home, stocks, retirement nest egg, college tuition, etc. can “throw us for a loop.” That which we believed would never change, that which would remain constant, that which we had taken for granted — meaning literally that which is agreed on by God to be ours in life — is suddenly stripped away from us.

Wesley understood poverty to be an enemy of a people’s sense of well being. He wrote and spoke as ardently and fervently against poverty, class distinctions and disease as he did against slavery, and was most critical of the government in not doing all it could to eradicate all four. He understood that human faith is severely challenged by these conditions — conditions that do allow for a human solution — when national leaders are also guided by that same sense of mutual support and accountability.

When our family moved from the Woodlawn community in the early 1960s, the nation was experiencing an economic recession. We moved to a neighborhood where most of the homes were new and unpaid for. Nevertheless, no one lost his or her home. The families of our community did as many families had done during the first and second migrations from the South and the depression of the 1930s. They moved other family members in to help meet the mortgage payments, teenagers worked part-time jobs, as my brother and I did.

"Quarter parties"

Some families held “quarter parties,” what was earlier known as a “rent party” during the depression. Everyone who paid a quarter was admitted. No one was ashamed to attend or give a quarter party. I vividly remember asking a teen-age friend why we had to pay to come to her party. She replied, “I gotta help my parents pay the mortgage this month.”

We went to those parties even when we did not know or barely knew the families giving them. We went and paid the quarter and enjoyed ourselves, or we lived harmoniously with cousins and even with persons who were not blood relatives, because our sense of mutual support and accountability was still in tact. We had not yet succumbed to the isolated “rugged” individualism that has so obliterated any real sense of community in our nation, leaving so many to suffer in isolation.

It is my personal belief that one reason President Bush’s popularity soared after 9/11/01 was that for a brief period of time Americans again experienced that positive sense of community, i.e., account-ability and responsibility for the well being of our nation and each other. The story of Elijah and the widow cannot be explained away as an appeal to some facile formula such as “God blesses those who give.”

A real community of faith does not give out of obligation, or out of an expectation of being “blessed,” but rather because fundamental to the life of the community are acts of gratitude, which suggest our interdependence as children of God. We can yet claim and reclaim this dynamic understanding of faith for our churches and our great nation.

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home

Mission fair, bus tour showcase
Conference outreach ministries

Oct. 5-8 tour will visit NIC mission sites

The Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) fall Bishop’s Mission Bus Tour will be Sunday to Wednesday, Oct. 5 to 8.

The annual tour of mission and ministry sites within the NIC features worship and discussion led by Bishop C. Joseph Sprague. This will be the Bishop’s final stint as host before he retires in September 2004.

This fall’s tour will begin Sunday evening, Oct. 5, at North Central College in Naperville where participants will have dinner and get an overview of NIC program ministries, learn about North Central College’s history and hear presentations on campus ministry and the United Methodist Mission in Dakar, Senegal.

On Monday, Oct. 6, the tour will visit Winfield Community UMC to hear about that church’s partnership with Gary Memorial UMC in Wheaton, the NIC’s Russia Initiative, South Asian Fellowship UMC in Winfield, and the India Reconnect portion of the Conference’s Millennial Challenge.

Next destination will be DeKalb and the Wesley Foundation on the campus of Northern Illinois University where tour members will learn about United Campus Ministries, the work of Centro Mi Pueblo in LaSalle and the DeKalb District’s Hispanic ministries.

The tour will move to Poplar Grove UMC to learn about the North Boone Co-active Ministry, which comprises Poplar Grove, Blaine and Hunter UMCs.

In Rockford, the itinerary will include Brooke Road UMC, Rockford Urban Ministries and Rockford New Hope.

Tuesday morning, the tour will travel to Chicago and visit First Vietnamese UMC, United Church of Rogers Park, Broadway UMC, East Side UMC and First Wesleyan Academy UMC in Harvey, learning about the ministries of each of the congregations.

Wednesday, Oct. 8, will be spent in Aurora. Stops will be made at Wesley UMC, Hesed House homeless shelter and Nueva Vida UMC. Presentations will cover cross-cultural appointments, leadership of laity, the Bishops’ Initiative on Hope for the Children of Africa, leadership development and the Millennial Challenge’s children’s issues.

Cost to participate in the mission bus tour is $150, which includes three nights, double occupancy in the Hampton Inn and nine meals. Single occupancy is available. Persons may register by contacting Natarsha Gardner at the NIC Elgin office, 217 Division St., Elgin, IL 60120, or by phone, (847) 931-0710, ext. 16.

For more information about the tour, contact Harriett McCabe, coordinator, (630) 355-4617.

VIM Extravaganza to be presented at Sept. 28 mission fair

The Northern Illinois Conference Mission Fair and Volunteers in Mission (VIM) Extravaganza will be Sunday, Sept. 28, at First UMC, 801 N. Sycamore, Hinckley. The fair will feature worship led by missionaries the Rev. Al and Mavis Streyffeler, General Board of Global Ministries mission interpreters in residence for the North Central Jurisdiction.

The fair will run from 2 to 6 p.m. and feature displays and presentations from VIM trips to the Philippines, Panama, Chile and Red Bird Missionary Conference. There will also be a display and sale of Red Bird crafts and quilts.

Blue Jeans Praise Band will be among the musical groups performing. From 3 to 4:30 p.m. there will be a pig roast accompanied by sweet corn and apples from Jonamac Orchard.

DeKalb District mission projects will be highlighted, including Food for Sharing, Centro Mi Pueblo (LaSalle), Jennings-Lyon Day Care (Sheridan) and Prayer Rivers Native American Ministry (LaSalle).

All mission programs within the Northern Illinois Conference are invited to set up displays about their work.

For more information, call Dr. Sondra King, Conference secretary of Global Ministries, (815) 758-8702.

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home

2 programs designed to start new
churches, revitalize existing ones

by The Rev. J. Martin Lee,
Director of Congregational Development
and Redevelopment

My 10-year-old daughter, Joy, was thrilled to have special visitors in her Sunday School class: two girls who had moved from Detroit. At home she talked excitedly about her new friends and how she wished for them to come back. When they did not come the following Sunday, Joy was so disappointed.

But five weeks later the family returned, telling my wife, Grace, that they were initially church shopping in the area. Five churches later, they came back because of their daughters’ insistence that their parents go back to Joy’s church.

Over time the girls have become the best of friends with Joy, enjoying numerous activities and sleepovers while their father attended the J. L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

“Need-oriented evangelism”

My 10-year-old daughter turned out to be a key instrument for “need-oriented evangelism.” In the midst of this family’s busyness, they were lacking passionate spirituality. Through the empowering leadership of the church’s pastor, Rev. Kim, their spirituality deepened. Through the system of holistic small groups the congrega-tion had developed, they could find an intimate community, practical help and intensive spiritual interaction. Eventually, this past spring, the family was baptized.

After graduating this summer their father received and accepted a job offer from General Motors and they moved back to Michigan. Two weeks ago the blackout in Detroit brought the family on a brief return visit to Chicago and the church where they were baptized. Later the pastor told me that the family gave the father’s first paycheck, first fruit, from General Motors to the church for the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ.

I believe that giving is a spiritual matter. Money is one of the sacred tools for the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. We have to use this tool wisely, and we are accountable to the Northern Illinois Conference and to God.

Institute for Congregational Development

This past year, the Office of Congregational Development has proposed to implement two new programs in the Northern Illinois Conference to support churches in their vital ministries to families like this one. In addition to programs already in effect we have begun the Institute for Congregational Development and the Congregational Redevelopment Process.

The purpose of the Institute for Congregational Development is to provide support and professional growth opportunities for pastors serving new and developing congregations in the Conference. To provide a ready pool of clergy prepared to start new churches and to take a leading role in redeveloping existing churches, 43 pastors are participating in this intensive two-year program. The Conference apportionment dollars have helped this vision become reality.

Congregational Redevelopment Process

In October, a three-year, Congregational Redevelopment Process will be launched to lead congregations that are in or beyond their “prime of life” toward a revitalized and renewed ministry of health and growth. The Redevelopment Process has been designed to better equip leaders for the transformation of the community both within and outside the congregation. Each of the 18 participating congregations involved will commit to send an “Implementation Team” of seven to nine, including the pastor, to four yearly Saturday sessions where they will create a plan for congregational redevelopment.

Each church will receive a matching grant of $10,000 in project support towards the accomplishment of its plan. Each church will also be supported by the ongoing contract the Northern Illinois Conference has with Percept, a private company that provides demographic information, surveys and resources for churches to develop mission and ministry strategies.*

We are living in an ever-changing, ever-uncertain time. The economy is down, unemployment is up, and the ongoing crisis in Iraq looms in the background.

Hardest year of my life

This has also been perhaps the hardest year of my life. I have survived a car accident after visiting a church on a snowy January day and came through emergency surgery in April. My life, like many others, was under the dark shadow of uncertainty. Yet through this crisis my faith in God was strengthened.

I like the Chinese symbol for the word “crisis” that consists of two words: “danger” and “opportunity.” I believe we can view each crisis of our lives as individuals and as a church community as a new opportunity, and we are able to respond to our crisis in faith rather than in fear. With certainty I can say that God is our help and God mysteriously moves, even through the lives of the 10-year-olds in our midst.

Grace and Peace.

*Please login to www.link2lead.com, the address is available to 10 people in each local church.. Please click “My Community.” It gives the latest demographic information by Zip code selected. It provides 10 basic facts in four categories: People, Generations, Race and Ethnicity, and Faith Preferences. The site provides demographic information, surveys and resources to help churches reach out to their communities.

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home

Clair Christian field of dreams
turns into senior-citizen housing

(Sept. 5) A field of dreams became a reality last month when members of Clair Christian UMC joined dignitaries from Chicago, the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) and the North Lawndale area to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Clair House senior-citizen housing. More than 150 persons attended the ceremony, which was accompanied by tours of the facility.

Members of Clair Christian had looked at an empty field they owned adjoining their church and dreamed about “something that is badly needed” in the neighborhood: safe, affordable senior-citizen housing. Now their dreams have come true as a six-story brick structure housing 62 low-income senior citizen units has filled the field. And even before the ribbon cutting, the units were fully leased with a waiting list of others seeking residences.

U.S. 7th District Congressman Danny Davis was among the dignitaries at the occasion that included 24th Ward Ald. Michael Chandler, Chicago Southern District Superintendent, Dr. Donald Guest, and NIC Treasurer Lonnie Chafin.

Clair Christian UMC members, led by Gladys Shelton, chair of the Building Committee, and North Lawndale residents turned out in force Aug. 18 for the ribbon-cutting ceremony that marked the completion of the independent living complex for senior citizens on Chicago’s near west side.

Clair House is on property adjacent to Clair Christian UMC at the corner of 14th and Pulaski. The 62-unit project was sponsored by Clair Christian UMC and NIC Affordable Housing Development Corp.

Chafin worked closely with Clair Christian members in bringing their dream to fruition. He said at the ceremony: “The church’s members looked at an empty lot and saw it filled with hope. Today, that hope triumphs.”

“A vision has been realized,” concurred the Rev. Lillian I. Gibbs, Clair Christian pastor. “It’s almost as if God heard our prayers. We now have a safe environment for seniors in our neighborhood. We are giving hope to those with special needs.”

Gibbs said the Northern Illinois Conference has been very supportive of the project and helped in funding. “The facility will have a sign with a cross and flame on it to signify our presence in the community,” she said.

Another person representing the NIC was Chicago Northwestern District Lay Leader Lillian Childs, who had also participated in the ground-breaking a year ago.

Clair House units are about 600 square feet each. The one-bedroom units are handicapped-accessible. The first floor of the building includes community space and rooms for crafts and doctor visits. Grounds offer space for tenant gardens. A full-time social services professional is on staff of the facility, which is managed by HSR Property Services.

Gibbs said the church started with five lots and acquired six more to ensure space for the building and parking. She said the lots were sold to the development corporation, Clair House NFP.

“We intend to be very visible here, though,” Gibbs said. “We’ll be very active with our neighbor. This is definitely still an outreach for our congregation.”

The facility was funded through a $5,873,500 grant from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Federal Home Loan Bank grant of $250,000 awarded through Community Bank of Lawn-dale. Chicago Community Loan Fund provided a bridge loan during development of architectural plans.

“I feel wonderful about it,” said Myrtis T. Williams, 78-year-old member of the church who served for one year as chair of the Building Committee. “It is something that is badly needed here and something that I hope will answer the prayers of quite a few people.”

Neighborhood residents who toured the facility said the building “brightens the community” and described it as “gorgeous.”

Architect for the project is Environ Inc. Architects. General contractor is Joseph J. Duffy of Chicago.

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home

Pastors lead Chicago day laborers protest

(Sept. 5) Last week, Rev. Jose Landaverde, pastor of Amor de Dios UMC in Chicago, and the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto Memorial UMC in Chicago, led a group of day laborers to Chicago City Hall where they submitted a letter to Mayor Richard Daley requesting a meeting to discuss the city’s destruction of the Workers’ Center in Albany Park. The center, a former bus turnaround facility, had been a site where contractors and other employers could hire immigrants willing to work on an hourly basis. The city tore down the facility on Aug. 25 and told the day laborers to relocate to a vacant parking lot three miles away in Irving Park.

“Every time workers relocate, it takes months to establish a site with which contractors and other potential employers are familiar,” Landaverde said, “resulting in long stretches of unemployment.”

Landaverde said most of the day laborers are Latinos living in Albany Park, and they want a worker center near their homes.

Calling destruction of the center “dis-respectful” and “humiliating to people who only want to work,” Coleman said something must be done immediately “to redress the wrong that was done to them.”

Landaverde said the group will hold prayer meetings outside the mayor’s fifth floor office to protest the city’s action.

Stewardship is at heart of the Wesleyan revival

by Lonnie Chafin,
Northern Illinois Conference Treasurer/
Director of Administrative Services

(Sept. 5) This year, many of us are celebrating the 300th anniversary of John Wesley’s birth. There probably can be no greater tribute to John Wesley than to integrate the spiritual discipline of stewardship into our faith practices.

Stewardship is at the heart of the Wesleyan revival. Wesley considered giving an integral part of Christian discipleship. Like prayer and mission, giving is a means to understand grace and to practice faith. For Wesley, stewardship had its origin in the nature and mission of God.

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it…” — Psalm 24:1.

Wesley taught that God has prior claim on everything and wants all people to share in the blessings of creation. Wesley also believed that grace is at the very core of creation because God gives God’s own self, through creation, for the salvation of all. This grace, this gift, pervades all of creation, all existence. God’s will is for all to receive and respond to divine grace by generously giving to others. We share in God’s generosity by faithfully giving to the church for God’s mission to be fulfilled.

Isn’t it extraordinary that God invites us to participate in God’s own life and mission by being a steward? Wesley believed that God placed resources in our care to use as God sees fit. God wants all people to have the necessities for a full and abundant life as beloved children of God. God freely gives the created world to all, and God expects us to participate in extending that gift to everyone. It is our “way of being in the world” as beloved children of a generous God.

Stewardship is not a fund-raising campaign, or a “tithe.” Neither is it humanitarianism, nor charity, nor a movement, nor duty. Stewardship is a way of life, a way of being Godly. We thank God for the resources made available to us through God’s own gift of creation while participating with God in extending that gift throughout the world. We are stewards because giving enriches our relationship with God. Through stewardship and sharing, we show love for our neighbors, as God has loved us.

Wesley practiced what he preached, giving personally from his own pocket. His profits from book sales and other endeavors made considerably more money than he ever thought he would earn. The Rev. Richard P. Heitzenrater, general editor of the Works of John Wesley, reports that Wesley never took any of the money for himself, accepting only the same salary as other pastors from the London treasurer: a salary established at twice the poverty level. It is reported that at his 1791 funeral, six paupers were paid one pound each, thus depleting Wesley’s personal resources, to carry him to the grave.

Remembering Wesley’s birth is a perfect time to remember our second birth into a life of extending God’s generous, life-affirming, just, abundant community to the entire world. It is through stewardship that we can come to know God.

2003 Article Index |  Top of Page | Return Home