Good News/Good Deeds Network

Here are few words on Good News/Good Deeds Network from Chip Scivicque <Chip.Scivicque@uscm.org>. I was a part of these meetings in Colorado. It was interesting to see how this shift is taking place. I believe very exciting things are afoot.

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Leaders,

I wish every one of you could have been with us at Tango Lodge 3 weeks ago. The interaction (and food!) was great, and we all moved further down the road of understanding the "massive shift of tectonic plates" (Reggie McNeal's words) that is occurring in our world toward living out the Gospel in word and deed - "demonstration as context for presentation…from church-based leadership to apostolic leadership…from making disciples to deploying missionaries in a Kingdom movement." We also got a lot of work done re: next steps.

Reggie also encouraged us to "spread the virus" of combining the compassionate works and words of the Gospel in our ministry. I have had enough personal interaction with each of you to know that you are "infected," so this is the beginning of an informal network of infected leaders who can work together to spread the virus and help lead the USCM to make this shift wisely and well. Here's a slice of where we are and where we're going:

• Mark Gauthier, Marc Rudder, and Keith Bubalo are looking at freeing some leaders up to give more attention to the good news/good deeds shift - more later
• By Christmas, all the regional teams will have done the regional team exercise we proposed - discussing the direction-setting document, reading Katrina stories, and evaluating Katrina involvement from their region. The next step is asking local teams to do the same.
• A lot of staff and regions are experimenting with good news/good deeds efforts (e.g. GPI "Stop-out" to Thailand, combining campus ministry and tsunami work; Pete Kelly and his team connecting campus ministry with rebuilding the city of New Orleans; the Red River trying a community service-oriented Winter Conference, and a number of local initiatives)
• I have a list of things I'll be asking you to do during the spring that I believe will take only a little work but result in significant impact - I'll be in touch.
• We'll have website or blog (or both) up in few weeks with all the good news/good deeds documents on it, stories, a way for you to post things, etc.
  

I'll close with an Eric Swanson observation of "the new evangelistic question." Instead of us leading with, "If you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?" it's the unbeliever asking us: "Who are you? And Why are you doing this?" (Mt. 5:16). Hope you have a great weekend, and happy Thanksgiving!

Chip