One, Two, Three Big Events ... Take Note

April 10, 2008
Occasional Letter #35
From Stephen Camp

            This occasional letter is written to encourage you to remember three important upcoming events and one additional item of importance in the life of the Southern Conference. I hope you and your church will fully support these efforts. Each is designed to deepen faith and strengthen our covenantal life in the Southern Conference. Please do what you can to promote these ministry efforts in the life of SOC.

            First, let me encourage you to register early for our upcoming Annual Gathering this year. Most know that this Annual Gathering will be a special and exciting time in the life of the Southern Conference. Each church should receive, this week, registration materials in the US postal mail. We anticipate that the Hilton Garden Inn, in Suffolk VA., will fill quickly this year, so we encourage you to register early when the information is received. Participants will need to call the hotel directly to reserve a room at the special conference rate. Extra banquet or Christian Education luncheon ticket can be purchased through the conference office along with your registration for the event. We anticipate they will go quickly. So don’t delay, send in your registration and other conference annual gathering requests promptly. More information can also be found on our Southern Conference website, soc-ucc.org, or call the conference office. 

            Second, we encourage the participation of all of our clergy and interested laity this year at the annual clergy retreat. The presenter will be the Rev. Dr. Randall Bailey, a noted scholar in New Testament studies but also the area of sexual ethics. He is a professor at Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta. Dr. Bailey is very engaging and will do an extensive study during this clergy retreat time, in offering some useful and insightful tools with biblical depth around sexuality and the bible. Now that our local church conversations around sexuality in our covenantal life is not charged with rancor or angry disagreement, we will use this time to take a serious and sober look at this subject at this retreat. It will be well worth your time. I very much want each clergy person to support the retreat this year. Please be present. Call the conference office or see information in the recent mailing as you consider registering for this event as soon as you can.

The third event is a “church day event” at Black Lake Retreat Center on April 26, in the brand new Leonard Lodge. This event is a first since the Rev. Nora Diver Faust has assumed leadership at the retreat center. Your local church will enjoy this day long event and you will be helping Black Lake too. It’s only ten dollars per person which includes lunch. Information has been sent to every local church or telephone the conference office for details.

Finally a letter has been sent to each church under the signature of your Southern Conference Board of Directors President, Rev. Dian Jackson. The request is for a congregational donation of $6 per member toward our ongoing “Conference Ministry Fund.” Many will remember that this fund was established two years ago to help make ends meet in the life of the Southern Conference. Every dollars stays in the Southern Conference and for the ministry of the Southern Conference. This special offering is vitally important for the financial stability of the Southern Conference, especially during these challenging financial times. Currently for example, the conference is about $10,000 behind in receipts from last year. It is hoped that your church will do all that it can to be consistent with its gifts to Our Church’s Wider Mission and the Conference Ministry Fund. Each gift will make a difference. 

            As always, I celebrate the partnership that each local church has with the Southern Conference and the wider United Church of Christ. We are seeking to do all that we can to strengthen the connection and deepen our ministry together. Please pray for me and the staff for the work we seek to do. Know that we will continue to keep you in prayer in these days too.

Advertising in the Southern Conference (April 2008)

Get ready, it is coming. It is something brand new, exciting. The next installment of advertising in the Southern Conference will soon happen. We in the Southern Conference will do the advertising ourselves. We will use the “God is Still Speaking” materials offered from past national campaigns and newly created ads, to be used conference wide in the month of March. The campaign will be financed by donations from our Live the Vision capital campaign. The Southern Conference advertising campaign is designed to use several kinds of media to help get our message out and help all of our churches with evangelism locally.

The advertising will include television commercials in selected markets, print ads, some radio spots and maybe a billboard or two. Each association will be touched by this advertising. Your local church will benefit as you welcome new church prospects to local church doors.

Each local church is encouraged to link your local webpage to the Southern Conference webpage. Contact the webmaster for detail or call the conference office. Some of our advertising will drive people to our webpage to help prospective person find our churches.

Eastertide is upon us now…

Occasional letter
from Stephen Camp
March 23, 2008                                                                           

            We are now in the afterglow of the season of resurrection. I hope your services went well. While this season has meaning particularly for followers of Jesus Christ, it is a story of note worthy similarity to the news of our day and within our present United Church of Christ. Consider the bound and tied Jesus, moved after a bogus trial to a particularly brutal form of capital punishment, a sentence carried out without regard for either the truth or the implications of the execution act itself. The thought was to kill the message by killing the messenger, but by faith we know that neither happened nor succeeded.

            A few news cycles have passed and we are clearer now, and we know that the words of Jeremiah Wright were pointed, riveting and fiery – yes -- but in no way deserved the form of punishment he, Trinity Church or his church member Barack Obama received. A few of the words spoken, I would not speak from the pulpit or I seek never to use the particular words anywhere, but he used them regretfully. We can only hope that a promising candidacy for president will not be destroyed by the actions and resulting actions of late. If Obama is denied election to this singularly high office, it should be because of his position on issues or his own character or lack of competence revealed. The same goes for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. In military terms, Obama has been the real target of attack, while Wright and Trinity Church are really the wounded or collateral damage; damage that we can not deny happened, but damage that will be denied success.  We will witness yet again, by faith and perseverance in this story as in the ancient story, resurrection.

We now know that the context of the sermon that received the most media attention, namely the one where he said, “the chickens have come home to roost” were not even his words but the quote of a US ambassador to Iraq, words the ambassador uttered to a Fox News reporter during those dreadful and difficult days following 9/11. They had to know it when they went after Wright, because they owned the tape, had the whole interview in their archives. Everyone including me was trying to make some sense out of that irrational act, speak truth to power and comfort to the faithful, in the aftermath of 9/11. Preachers including me were trying to call people to the remembrance of faith and hope beyond those moments. Our churches were full that Wednesday night and the following Sunday morning as our stunned nation sought to handle the confusion, grief, anger, and the jumbled emotions bottled and harbored inside of us. On YouTube you can find the longer version of the sermon and hear Dr. Wright’s words for yourself. It really was a masterful sermon. He was speaking to his flock in a way only they could uniquely understand. After 35 years of service he knew them well. He spoke in the poetry and poignancy they were familiar with, and along came a Fox and their friends and lifted just enough out of that sermon, 10 or 15 seconds, to make their case that Dr. Wright was evil and unpatriotic; but the real target I suspect, was the candidacy of Obama himself. Dr. Wright received a bogus trial in the media over the next several news cycles, his reputation was assaulted, he was the butt of jokes and more, but when the words of the sermon are heard, the words will still ring true and for Wright.  I am hopeful that he will be able to say, this too shall pass – that he will live again.

So what do we do about all this, as faithful people of the United Church of Christ? In the Southern Conference do we allow this incident to divide and conqueror us? My answer is no. This is a time to offer prayer and support to Trinity Church, to each of the candidates for President of the United States, as all three seek to offer their own perspectives on race and gender in this election cycle, and encourage the national conversation in healthy ways. It is also time to pray for Rev. Wright, that he might know peace and feel the support of a caring and loving church, the church we know as the United Church of Christ. We are not people of crucifixion in the United Church of Christ; we are people of resurrection. In the Southern Conference we shall seek to show that fact by our faith. We are not a people who condemn but a people who believe that new life is possible and real, if only with Jesus Christ as our guide and our Sovereign. Let’s go forward with clear understanding that Eastertide is upon us, it is upon us now!            Christ is risen, Christ has risen indeed!

Occasional letter to the Churches of Southern Conference
from Stephen Camp
March 14, 2008 

            Serving as your Conference Minister over these last five plus years, I have sought to address difficult and weighty issues that present themselves with honesty and forthrightness. The discussion currently in the national press concerning The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright (recently retired pastor of a presidential candidate, having served Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for 36 years) has caused many a sense of pause. These are challenging times, but let’s look at what is really at issue here for us.

            As many of you know, Jeremiah Wright is scheduled to be Southern Conference’s Annual Gathering speaker this June. For this reason, and in light of the recent media hype and judgment, let me share a few things. I continue to be thankful that he will be in our midst. First, I am grateful that he has agreed to be with us at our Annual Gathering for several reasons, not least of which include his tremendous gifts in ministry. Second, many of you know Jeremiah the person, rather than the media figure, from his previous visits to the Southern Conference. He was our Annual Gathering preacher about ten years ago, offering a presentation that was well received (many of your have shared that with me). You know him to be a gifted pastor, prophetic preacher and person with a clear and longstanding support for the United Church of Christ. The genuine Jeremiah Wright has not changed because of thirty-second sound bites in this time of media challenge, and nor should our support for him as colleague and friend of the United Church of Christ.

            Many know that Jeremiah’s support has reached outward with training and sending of more than 60 people through seminary and into ordained ministry within the United Church of Christ. He has put forth through Trinity Church over 3.7 million dollars in benevolence giving, especially to the United Church of Christ. In recent years he has encouraged his local church to launch some 60+ ministries in the south side Chicago community, offered day care for young people, senior housing, and so much more. His ministry has started at least 15 new congregations in many cities and conferences in the wider United Church of Christ. The Trinity membership during his years of service has grown from 75 members when he arrived there 36 years ago to numbers in excess of 8,000 today. He has been a consistent voice for encouraging African-American people in the church, and in this country, to embrace without shame African-American self worth and value in the sight of an inclusive God. His congregation has always been a church that uses the language and ways of the black community, but has never been in any way an exclusive community. All are welcome at Trinity. Given the racial and political history in this nation, what has been accomplished by this United Church of Christ congregation and through the leadership of its leader has been most commendable.

            I know personally that Jeremiah Wright has a history and track record of doing good, solid ministry, speaking truth to power, serving as extraordinary pastor and showing care for the least, the lost and the left out in our modern day society.  I am pleased to know him as a colleague and a friend. I was honored that he would come to the Southern Conference when I invited him several months ago for this year’s Annual Gathering. Many of you know that I served a church in Chicago some years ago. What you may not know is that Lincoln Church was only a few miles away from Trinity and was the church that birthed Trinity and four other congregations. Trinity became the church that experienced phenomenal growth and continues to have amazing vitality due to Rev. Wright’s efforts. It was Jeremiah Wright, in many of my early days of ministry, who offered me encouragement and support. As I sought to figure out how to help the struggling congregation I was seeking to pastor, it was Jeremiah Wright who helped me to help them find relevance in a changing congregational climate. Rev. Wright’s ministry goes far beyond a thirty second sound bite. It goes far beyond any notion of racial rhetoric from which some want to condemn and distance themselves. We would be well to remember that amid all the hype stands a gifted and committed Christian leader.

            I hope that you will welcome Jeremiah to the Southern Conference in June. He will surely be worth your coming to Annual Gathering this year to hear.                                             

Steve Camp preaches at Glenview UCC in Chicago on Martin Luther King weekend...

January 20, 2008

Martin Luther King Jr.'s words "The Fierce Urgency of Now" resonate anew in 2008 as Barrack Obama utters this phrase.
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New for this New Season….

February 4, 2008
from Stephen Camp

            This new season brings with it many new opportunities for us to do creative and imaginative ministry together. This year we will begin a new church development effort that will transform the Southern Conference in many ways. We are pleased that the Southern Conference has received a significant grant of $200,000 from Local Church Ministries of the national setting, to do church development work, which includes starting 6-9 new churches and helping several of our churches in the work of revitalization. This money will be supplemented by some of the proceeds of the Southern Conference Capital Campaign being used too.  Every local church will be able to celebrate and contribute toward this conference wide effort in 2008 and 2009.

            To staff this new initiative we will reconfigure our staff to include Rev. Vertie Powers who will spend most of her time as our Southern Conference Church Developer and church planter. Rev. Powers brings significant knowledge and skills in this specialized ministry and will bring great energy and intellect to this large and demanding ministry in the life of Southern Conference.  We will also hire part time, the Rev. K. Ray Hill and Rev. Phil Hardy as Area Conference Ministers in ENCA to help Vertie Powers cover the ministry needs in Eastern North Carolina. Rev. Hill will cover the eastern part of the Association and Rev. Hardy will cover the western part of Eastern North Carolina. As stated Rev. Powers will remain the Associate Conference Minister and manage the ENCA work with this new staff help.

            The Southern Conference will also begin in the month of March a major advertising campaign in several markets around the Southern Conference. We intend to have billboards, TV, radio and newspaper advertising in selected market in the boundaries of the Southern Conference. Our Southern Conference capital campaign will finance this effort to tell the good news of our churches through the God is still speaking advertising available through our national setting. Your local church can help be getting linked to this webpage, so people can find your welcoming church around the wider community. Call the webmaster, Curly Stumb if you want to get your church webpage linked to this webpage.

            The Southern Conference staff is now meeting with several Christian Education leaders from across the Southern Conference. The meeting will be a first in several years and it is hoped that the result will be the beginning of shaping a new emphasis in Christian Education in our churches conference wide. What would be helpful to your local church in the area of Christian Education? What materials will you need to teach about the polity and history of the United Church of Christ? What programs should the Southern Conference shape to teach and nurture our young people and young adults in the life of the Southern Conference? This year Christian education is important work to be strengthened in every local church.  

            Sounds like a lot, well it is… We ask your continued support and prayers as the Southern Conference moves forward with these and several new and innovative programs and initiatives. This promises to be a banner year as we all pull together in service and look to the Still Speaking God.

BIG NEWS for the Southern Conference!

Camp's Notes / Southern spirit
from Stephen Camp
February / March 2008 Edition

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you;
and lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28: 19-20

The news is big! The Southern Conference is starting new churches, many of them. For the next two years it will be our priority and our focus. It is work that all of us can be a part of and contribute toward its outcome. It is the mandate of our Savior, essential work that will offer new vitality and numerical growth. The Southern Conference is in the business of developing brand new churches. Every Association and local church will have a part to play. Each association will see new church growth. It is fundamental and significant work to get done.

Just recently the Southern Conference has received the first installment of a two year grant to build 6-9 new churches through 2010. We are grateful for our partnership with the national setting of the United Church of Christ; particularly this grant from Local Church Ministries as it shows confidence in our work and continues to encourage us to engage in a future that is revitalized and exhilarating, not divided or alienated from one another in our work. The $200,000 LCM grant along with $190,000 over the next two years from proceeds from our own Southern Conference Capital Campaign fund raising effort, will give the conference a significant head start in this vital work. This new church development effort coupled with the existing new churches started over the last few years in the Southern Conference will make the Southern Conference have the greatest number of new church development efforts in all the United Church of Christ. As we look toward the future, the outlook is better than ever.

The plan calls for one new church to get started in each Association in year one and six additional new church starts across the conference the year after. There will be workshops and seminars for new leaders, led by experts in church development, money for a new church start up kit with each new project, support for our existing new church planters and advertising across the conference to make our efforts more visible to the public along with the efforts of all of the churches in the Southern Conference known better.
In this new church development effort, all three Association Ministers have helped to develop our guidelines for this work ahead, and will be important to the implementation. Furthermore, the SOC Board of Directors has also been an active partner. Planning in many areas will continue as we move forward with this very important work.

In addition to the grant we as a Southern Conference have to contribute toward this effort with significant Southern Conference dollars. Where does the money comes from, it come from you, especially if you have been a contributor to our Southern Conference Capital Campaign, or if your church gives to Our Churches Wider Mission! Your gifts make a difference! If you haven't or your church has not made its pledge toward the capital Campaign or OCWM for 2008, please do so. It is not too late! Your gifts are needed. Just call or write the Conference Office if you need additional information.
All of this is big news for the people and churches of the Southern Conference. After a long season of conflict and difficulty, the Southern Conference is engaged in an effort that will lift all of us to higher and elevated ground. It is work we can all engage in and share in the outcome. Your prayers and support for this priority work of the Southern Conference will help ensure our success. After all it is our mandate from our Savior. It was Jesus who encourages us to “go” “make disciples” and “teach,” and for this work Jesus promises to be with us to the end of the age.

Occasional letter
from Stephen Camp
October 1, 2007

Just 1% more, imagine that!

We are at a time in the life of the Southern Conference when all of us will need to show our best expressions of support for the Southern Conference in tangible ways this fall. Each church and member will need to be a participant in helping to find solutions to our financial concerns, but also step forward to offer service to their own local church, the Associations and Southern Conference in ways that are unprecedented. It is not just more money that’s needed, but the work of strengthening our covenantal relationships that is needed too. Each church should make every effort to attend your Association’s Annual Meeting this year – it is important. Not only that, each delegate should do what they can to let their local church know of the important work ahead for all of us.  

These are times of challenge, but also times of great promise for us in the life of the Southern Conference. Never before have we had this unique opportunity to see a future that many past and present members have only dreamed of, or seen in some distant land of their own imagination. We have hoped and hoped for a new day and now that hopeful day is here. We have a chance to finally make church development and church revitalization for example; more that an item on our wish list, but now it has become a vibrant ministry for all of us to celebrate. We can and are training new leaders for our church’s future through our Pastoral Leadership Development Program and we are sending more students to seminary, sending more students now than we have seen in recent years. Financial support for them is vital. Clergy are participating in more intensive conversations together now, fearlessly engaging each other around topics that are difficult and demanding. Their bold efforts are worth the support of all of us. We are gearing up to launch an advertising campaign the size of which this conference has never seen before. There is much to celebrate, and each one of us is asked to give real support toward these and many other ministry and mission efforts now underway in the life of the Southern Conference.

Our staff deserves to work without the pressure of worry that health insurance and pension payment will be missed or paychecks will not be forthcoming on time. They give all and deserve a basic level of assurance that their work is appreciated and valued and will go uninterrupted. These times have challenge, but with faith and our efforts, still show great promise. It is time to step up to the challenges that are uniquely the Southern Conference.

If every local church, not just some, but every local church were to give just 1% more than they currently give, the financial woes of the Southern Conference would be arrested or at a minimum. That goal only works when we get 100% of our churches making at least a basic $1000.00 gift toward (OCWM) Our Church’s Wider Mission. The churches of the Southern Conference give generously toward local church and community efforts. We ask that same generosity toward the Southern Conference. Only 2.4% of the total dollars given in offering plates across the conference goes to help with Association and Conference ministry. With only 1% more given to association and conference ministry the difficult financial situation would be considerably eased.

So many outside, yet very worthy ministries that are supported by local churches enjoy continued and often increased support, while the work of the Conference or our Associations languishes for lack of funding and low priority among many. What I am calling for is an attitude adjustment on the part of most local churches and their leaders, heightened awareness of members in our conference. It is a time for our best expressions of support to be offered. We can build this Conference and our Associations together. We are at a golden and fluid moment in the conference’s life. We can make a difference. Yet we must build relationship and strengthened the covenant that binds our work together.

What a time this is in our Conference life. No longer is the center of conversation, sexuality. We are now engaged in a variety of subject, seeking to do justice and work for peace in important ways each day. Won’t you help us get to the next level of service? Just 1% more toward the mission and ministry of the Southern Conference…, imagine that!

Occasional letter
from Stephen Camp
September 6, 2007

Labor Day has now passed in the Southern Conference and the busy fall schedule begins. Meetings are scheduled on varied topics around the conference and Annual Meeting are just around the corner. Please know that the summer has been a lean financial time for the Southern Conference and demands for cash to pay monthly bills, salaries, and helping Black Lake Retreat Center over the summer has made our financial need great this September and into October. If you have not heard, Black Lake has needed the Southern Conference to help them with an acute financial concern, draining significant cash from us. We have done what we had to do to help and the camp is now out of immediate danger, but the actions have left our dependance upon your OCWM giving great right now.
Please help the Southern Conference now. Send in what you can as soon as you can. It will make a differnce. To date in 2007, 136 congregations have sent in something toward Our Churches Wider Mission. That is over half our churches. Some of the churches that gave, did so for the first time in several years. Some made gifts toward OCWM that was above their giving a year earlier by this time of the year. Some merely kept pace with last year and we are grateful for those churches too.
If your church has given toward OCWM in the first half of 2007, please accept our thanks for your generousity. It has helped us keep our salaries and bills paid and paid on time. If your church has not yet made a gift for this year, we ask that you do so now. Many congregations send in monthly gifts. Some make quarterly contributions. A few make year end gifts, and we understand if that is your custom, but would encourage your church to consider your gift in part or whole during this quarter this year.
It would also be helpful if your church (every church) would consider a special gift through a special offering designated toward OCWM before thanksgiving. The suggestion is not simply to raise money for OCWM, but also to raise the awareness with our generous laity about the importance of giving dollars for mission and ministry in the wider church, particularly toward the Southern Conference. Please tell them that we have a first rate training program now in the ministry we call Pastoral Leadership Development. Tell them that we have been helping several of our churches though workshops and training sessions in the area of church development and starting new churches. Tell them that we intend to start several new churches and help several established churches find new life with a program we hope to unveil soon. Tell them that we have a wondersful and gifted staff that deserve your church's best prayerful and financial support. Tell them that the Southern Conference, is their conference striving to offer helpful ministry through scholarships, grants and so much more. Please tell them that we need their help now to continue this vital ministry this fall and beyond. To those churches that have not contributed, the nearly one hundred others, tell them we are counting on them in 2007.
Collegues and friends, please help us encourage your congregation to make a gift toward Our Churches Wider Mission. Every gift will be appeciated and make a big difference. In advance I thank you for your continued faithful giving. May God bless you for your attempts to be a blessing to others, not just in the Southern Conference, but in the ways your gifts stretch around the world. Together and in Christian service, we will meet this real challenge before us.

Occasional letter #30    
from Stephen Camp                                                                                                             
April 4,  2007
 
Is the conference glass half full or half empty?
 
The challenges continue in the Southern Conference, but there is good news to share with you in this occasional letter. Ownership of our new office space in Burlington has been delayed due to the inability of the seller to finish promised work in a timely way. We believe the delay will be a month, still within our timeline of vacating current space by this summer and still ensuring that we get a quality building for our present ownership and long term use. The current owner has a bigger incentive to fix the issues we have before transferring possession. As we buy the building, we hope the seller will address our concerns in a timely way. Our staff is really ready to move, but will be patience as these last items of concern are addressed.

Some have asked, “Why purchase a building when we face such financial challenges?” My response is that we should put the money we would surely spend paying rent into an investment for Southern Conference’s future. Over the last few years we have been paying significantly less than the square foot value of the space we occupied. We had hoped it would be space we would occupy for years into the future. That reality changed, and we were asked to leave at a difficult financial time due to plans that Elon Homes for Children had for their space which did not include us. We were surprised, like many, with the news of our need to move, but we have sought to make lemonade out of the lemons we have been given. If we moved into rental or leased space, our rental amount could have easily tripled. For the Southern Conference to pay significantly more rental dollars, in a space that would take thousands of dollars to renovate to fit our needs, made no financial sense. As we looked at all the options, we saw that the best choice was to purchase a place of our own. We have plans in place for repayment of the loan we have secured and are hopeful that the impact upon our current budget will be small; or if parts of our plan don’t work out, at least manageable. The good news is that the building will become an asset for us, if we ever need to move again or sell it in the future.

Financially we have been doing better than projected in local church giving to Our Church’s Wider Mission (OCWM). The first quarter of 2007 has been the best we have had in the last few years. Several churches have made an effort to give and to support the mission and ministry of the Southern Conference with tangible dollars to help meet our financial challenges. We only hope that the trend toward an increase in giving will continue. Our prayer is that more churches will start giving again as a few already have during this quarter. Three churches that have disaffiliated from us have desired to return. If the churches continue to give, monthly/quarterly to OCWM, we will see a significant turnaround in what has been a very difficult and frustrating financial challenge to weather over the last few years. Let me be clear that we are not out of the financial woods yet, but we are heading in the right direction. My thanks to every pastor or every church leader who has helped to lift up the importance of OCWM in your church and helped us to further our common mission and ministry in the Southern Conference. When you talk about OCWM to your members, gifts to the wider church become a priority and everyone wins. OCWM does so much good for all.

We have also been active in the sale of two pieces of property that the Southern Conference owns. The sale of these two parcels will not solve our financial woes, but help stabilize us for the immediate period ahead. With a projected 2007 two hundred thousand dollar budget deficit, these agreements will help the Southern Conference make ends meet. One of the properties will be sold for less than one hundred thousand dollars and the other will be leased to a congregation for one year so as to allow the congregation to figure out a financial package to purchase the building. This has been challenging work, but I think we have done the best we could, given the challenges we have faced with each parcel.

The Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Southern Conference have been active in trying to figure out a way ahead for the future of the Southern Conference. They have spent several quality hours wrestling with the Conference’s tough and complex issues. The board and staff met recently and determined a plan that has both short and longer term elements. A part of the plan calls for a meeting with the elected leaders in each association to meet this fall, to enlist the help and support of the elected leaders. It also calls for the three associations to focus on this concern in their Annual Meetings of the Associations this fall. The hope is to stimulate renewed commitment and support for our common life, to enlist a larger group of people who encourage giving to OCWM, and to have a larger body of local leaders understanding our financial situation with depth and clarity. It is clear that significant cuts in staff and program initiatives will happen if we fail to work together for the good of the beloved Southern Conference. We will have to consider several painful steps if we don’t act together and act this year. It is clear that we have little time to face these real concerns in our future.

In these challenging times we could throw in the towel, make cuts and gut the conference program and staff or continue to seek growth and do what is necessary to ensure viability in our future. I choose the latter. I will trust that God is with us each step of the way in these challenging times of change, helping us face up to impediments and obstacles. I will continue to seek prayerful ways ahead for us, and encourage those who sit on our sidelines to get in this game. These are important times for the Southern Conference. Each member of the Southern Conference has a stake in the future of the conference, can contribute to its success or must own its failures. I tend to see the glass half full, not half empty. The Southern Conference’s best days remain ahead of us. What about you? Is the glass half full or half empty?

The Year Ahead….. 2007   [January 3, 2007]

Thanks to each one who helped to make 2006 a good year, financially and in other ways. It was a year where we can all breathe a great sigh of relief, because we have done as well as we have done. I offer to each person who helped a tremendous word of thanks. Financially, we were somewhat better than expected and our budget shortfall was not a bad as had been predicted. As 2006 year end has come and gone, we of the Southern Conference can hold our collective head high. We paid our bills again this past year and almost met our line item/budgeted financial goals for our entire mission and ministry giving beyond the Southern Conference again this year. Some things were left undone, but they will not be forgotten in 2007. While it is not great news, it is good news! With the difficult predictions that we offered at Annual Meeting this past June, I am now relieved and more thankful.  

This year has been the most challenging for me yet, financially, given the significant loss of churches and the several churches who continue to withhold dollars from our common mission and general funds. I appreciate that the affirmation of the Annual Meeting was that the exodus of churches and the challenges and divisions we have weathered over the last several years is not seen as my fault, but problems we have faced together. I think we are emerging from the struggle stronger each day. It remains a challenge to continue to find ways to meet our financial obligations in an environment of rising cost amid, in some places, a declining charitable response, and in others, a continued attempt to use finances as a political wedge. If those who are withholding would begin to give, (even at the 2003 level) in 2007, the Southern Conference ministries would be in much healthier shape. I must honestly ask, do the churches that withhold, really care about the conference they say they love?  We all make choices and those choices always have implications and consequences. I am hopeful that every church in 2007 will give generously to the mission and ministry we share in the Southern Conference. It is vitally important work that we seek to do together.

In this year we will be doing several new and imaginative things together. We will be giving significant time and energy to our renewing and new church projects across the Southern Conference in 2007. After a slow start we now have an agreement with Rev. Bennie Liggins to serve as a consultant to the SOC for Church Development for at least one year. While we had hoped that the position would be full time to start off, we are thankful that Bennie is willing to travel to SOC several times over the next year and offer us expert assistance with, particularly, our new churches and renewing churches. This is an exciting development for us and will be a tremendous help to all of us. As staff we are excited to have him aboard.

We also will be having a series of theologians/scholars/teachers to come to SOC for two day seminars with our clergy. The names will be announced before the end of the month of January. These opportunities promise to be a time to be enlightened and challenged. We seek to forge a new conversation in the life of SOC. The cost will be affordable for any clergyperson who wants to come and grow with colleagues in the faith. Stay tuned!

Third we are talking about having another harvest ball or banquet in the fall of 2007. We want to celebrate the great things that are happening in SOC and have some fun together. So get your tux cleaned and your gown hung out and ready, we will be planning a great time for all in late 2007!

Fourth, we are planning a time where we can have “a young adult event” for those who are between the ages of 23-33. This first ever event will feature outstanding music, speakers, preachers, workshops and more. We are hoping this will happen in the summer or early fall of 2007. Start letting your younger adults know of this happening and encourage them to be a participant. The whole church will be better when we make this event an important one in the life of the Southern Conference.

Fifth, we will be moving our conference offices in April or early May of this year. We have a place picked out and are seeking to secure financing now. We think the space will serve the conference well for many years into the future. The great news is that we will own it. We hope you will celebrate and pray that things come together smoothly for the Southern Conference in this needed and necessary venture. It will be a further financial challenge for us, but the goal is to do this large move without asking local churches for yet another extra-mile gift. While I confess it may need to happen, as of today I am not thinking we will need to do so. We do however hope and pray that every local church will make their pledge public and begin this year in giving toward the well publicized Capital Campaign. Please let Phil Hardy come talk to your group and let the Conference know of your decision to support the campaign effort in writing. We are counting on each church as well as individuals to support the Southern Conference Live the Vision Campaign.

Finally, this will be the year where we will celebrate the graduation of the very first class from our Pastoral Leadership Development Program. All of the hard work and determined efforts of so many will be celebrated in this year’s Annual Meeting. We will have a very special speaker for the event and the whole conference will have an opportunity to celebrate this conference-wide achievement. Please don’t miss this year’s Annual Meeting and this grand moment of celebration. In addition to the Annual Meeting this year in Elon, the Conference will also participate in the United Church of Christ General Synod in Hartford, Connecticut (my home town). If you can go to this anniversary celebration, you should. It will be a grand time of celebration and fun. Your faith will be inspired and lifted as we celebrate the unique witness of the United Church of Christ over the past 50 years. We hope to get at least two bus loads of youth to this event in Hartford. More about this in the next all church mailing…

Friends, we have much ahead and no time to dwell on what’s past. In 2007 we will thrive as a conference with your continued help. Please pray for the Southern Conference staff regularly as we continue to pray for your ministry and seek ways to always warm the partnership with you. Thanks again for the positive and meaningful things each one of you does to further the ministry and mission of the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ. Yes, God is still speaking and we are indeed listening!