Reflection On The Vision: "Where Do We Go From Here?"
by the Rev. Dr. Richard Hamm, former General Minister and President

I believe we have together rightly discerned our mission: "to be and to share the good news of Jesus Christ, witnessing, loving and serving from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth." I believe thatwe have together rightly discerned the vision that God would have this church follow to the year 2020. It is right in concept: "to be a faithful, growing church, that demonstrates true community, deep Christian spirituality, and a passion for justice." It is right in particularity: "1000 new congregations, 1000 transformed congregations, the leadership development necessary to realize these new and re-newed congregations, all within a context of being an anti-racist/pro-reconciling church. A thousand new congregations and a thousand renewed congregations being and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

We have the right vision! So, where do we go from here? We follow the vision!

There are, of course, some key challenges in getting us to 2020 on time and in line with the Vision. I want to name just a couple of these this morning.

As the Vision itself suggests, the development of appropriate and effective lay and ordained leadership is key. But we're not just talking about culturally defined leadership, leadership that is merely pragmatic, that merely knows how to appeal to the culture, to beat the culture at its own game. If that's all we are talking about, we might as well hang it up now because we won't have anything more to offer than driftwood......we'll be children of the culture, "tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind." We need leadership that is culturally literate, culturally smart, but not culturally determined. We need leaders who know not merely how to give people want they want, but who can help people find what they need! "Faithful" and "growing" are key words that must be held together as we seek to live out the Vision!

This is to say that we must shape these leaders in the ways of the reign of God. Every institution is formed in order to conserve certain important values. If you wonder what those values are for Disciples, look at the general units and other ministries that have been created by the church.

We believe God intends the world to be a global community of faith and justice, so we have a Division of Overseas Ministries. We believe God intends for all Christians to recognize their God given unity in Jesus Christ, so we have a Council on Christian Unity. We believe God intends for the church to be a community of compassion and caring, so we have a National Benevolent Association. We believe God intends for the church to grow in numbers and strength, so we have a unit called Church Extension. We believe God intends for the church to grow within and to communicate the Gospel to the world, so we have a Christian Board of Publication. We believe God intends for the church to remember and honor its tradition as a guide to the future, so we have an Historical Society. We believe God intends for faith and reason to be held together, so we have a Division of Higher Education. We believe God intends for individual Disciples and our congregations to be spiritually and missionally strong, and so we have a Division of Homeland Ministries.

We believe God intends for Disciples to invest in the Reign of God so that their hearts may follow, which is why we have a Church Finance Council and a Christian Church Foundation.

We believe God intends for faithful ministers and employees to be cared for, and so we have a Pension Fund. As a General Assembly, we often make declarations for the sake of doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God. We are growing an anti-racist/ pro-reconciling initiative for the sake of these same values. The list goes on. These institutional expressions all represent precious values that we believe the church has been called to be about generally, regionally and congregationally. And the lay and ordained leaders we develop for the sake of 2020 vision must be shaped by these same values, many of which are despised or dismissed by the culture.

So, how do we develop leaders for new congregations who have a global perspective that informs their sense of community, spirituality and justice? How do we develop leaders for revitalization who understand that the church of Jesus Christ is one and who seek to hold faith and reason together and who give leadership that honors all these Kingdom values? It will require intentional planning and collaboration, working together. This has both structural and personal implications. It will require transcending, in all manifestations of our church, our propensity for autonomy and turf. We will have to move from being an organization, to being an organism....a true expression of the body of Christ. In a real sense, then, it will require the very salvation of this church as it currently lives.

God calls us as individuals to various tasks. But I have observed that while we are fulfilling those ministries, God is constantly at work in and through those challenges to work out our own salvation! Thanks be to God!

In order to "follow the Vision" then, appropriate and effective lay and ordained leadership is essential.

I want to mention just one other challenge this morning. Anxiety. Anxiety is the enemy of vision.
There is a lot of anxiety in this church today. Some of that anxiety is about things real and some is about things imagined. I believe we have failed to appreciate fully the impact of September 11th. We were certainly aware of our fears at the time. Many of us feverishly sought word about family and friends whom we feared might have been hurt by the events in New York and Washington DC. But, naturally, we have all tried to move back to "normalcy" as quickly as possible.

Well, we aren't back to normal. The events of September 11th continue to send emotional, spiritual, political, and economic shock waves throughout the land. It looms in all of our lives like background radiation. It means, in part, that we over-react to everything. While we initially saw a new graciousness between Americans after 9-11, I think now that we have entered a period when we are becoming less gracious with one another, tempted to believe the worst about one another, tempted to focus on one another's weaknesses rather than one another's strengths, tempted to forget that most of us are trying to do the best we know how. At least, I have seen some of this in myself, and I think I have seen it in others.

I can tell you that among those whose ministries are dependent upon Basic Mission Finance, there is anxiety! We are wondering what will happen to giving in the next few years. We are wondering how the new mission funding system will work and how it will be received. Leaders of congregations have their own good reasons to be anxious. There is so much mis-information and uncontextualized information being sent out into the church by those with their own ecclesial, theological and political agendas.

Anxiety is high and anxiety is the enemy of vision because it distracts us and consumes a lot of energy.

How do we prevent anxiety from distracting us? We keep our eye on the big picture.
Some of you know that I am a licensed pilot, though I haven't been doing much piloting for a while. I hope to get back to it soon.

On the instrument panel there is something called a "rate of climb indicator." As the name suggests, it tells you how fast you are ascending or descending in feet per minute. When you are deliberately changing altitudes, it is a very helpful indicator. However, the instrument is very sensitive to changes in altitude and so the indicator needle tends to bounce around quite a lot even when you are in straight and level flight.

So, for example, if you pass through a little turbulence, you may rather suddenly increase your altitude by five or six inches. But the rate of climb indicator translates that into "feet per minute." So for a second, you are climbing at a rate of 500 feet per minute and the needle shows it. This is why there is an old expression in aviation, "Don't chase the needle."

Wanting to stay straight and level, students have a tendency to fixate on the rate of climb indicator and to "chase the needle." As a result, the student alternately pushes and pulls on the yoke, making the airplane go up and down like a porpoise and making the instructor sick to her stomach!

The temptation in a high anxiety environment such as the one we find ourselves in these days as a church is to "chase the needle." To become preoccupied with this or that crisis and thus to forget where we are called to go. While many of the crises are very real, we must remember always to "fly the airplane."

If we can keep our heart in the mission and our eye on the Vision, thus remembering where we are headed, we will be much more likely to arrive on time and in line with the Vision.

So keeping our eye on the "big picture," the Vision, is one way to prevent ourselves from being overly distracted by the current circumstances in which we find ourselves, the "turbulence," if you will, of church life in these days. As the song says, "Keep your eyes on the prize."

A second strategy to cope with anxiety is to build relationships with one another.....relationships built on trust, sharing, networking, communicating, and mutual accountability. This is what you and I together have been working at so much the past several years. We've been seeking to move away from turf and toward collaboration. This is hard for us, because we have the love of autonomy deeply ingrained in us. But in our heart of hearts we know that this is the face of the new church, the faithful church: true community for the sake of the mission, for the sake of being and doing the good news of Jesus Christ.

Relationship is most of what the agenda of this meeting is about.

Though it is not quite ready for prime time, the proposed new mission funding system is about being in a trusting relationship with each other, a relationship of mutual support and accountability.
The proposal regarding American Asian ministries is about our taking joint responsibility for this small but important part of our community.

The proposal regarding the Church Finance Council is about keeping in relationship with the whole while providing meaningful accountability. The discussion regarding The Disciple magazine is not for the purpose of embarrassing or chastising anyone. It is, rather, an opportunity to think together again about how we stay connected to one another and how we are accountable to one another. It is an opportunity to work out who we are and how we operate, which is the ongoing work of any institution. It is a discussion we need to have again and again.

Most of us don't feel very comfortable with disagreement. Sometimes it seems we have to work up a real head of steam just to express our differences honestly. We probably need to learn how to disagree with one another more openly and easily so that we don't overstate or overreact to our differences, so that we don't have to cover up our feelings of vulnerability with layers of anger and blame.

It is as we work at these relationships.....even when we must work at them through pain and disappointment......that we build trust and chase anxiety away. John says, "Perfect love casts out fear." Of course, only God's love is perfect. But as we work to perfect our love for one another, willingly accountable to one another, we build true community and we are able to do the mission and follow the Vision even when we live in an anxious and sometimes mean-spirited world.

So, where do we go from here? We do the mission and follow the Vision, developing effective leaders, and building true community that is marked by trust, mutual accountability, and grace.