Henry Will 4: Leadership Summit: #8 Bono: "The Church, Three Years Later'

Friday, August 07, 2009

Leadership Summit: #8 Bono: "The Church, Three Years Later'

Leadership Summit: #8 Bono: "The Church, Three Years Later'

Note: I'm posting live from the leadership Summit (http://willowcreek.com/summit) satellite location in Ocean Grove NJ (oceangrove.org) which was chartered 140 years ago by the state of NJ "for the perpetual worship of Jesus Christ."I'm also tweeting live: you can follow (even if you don't have a twitter account) at:http://twitter.com/henrywill To see all the posts on the Leadership Summit, use this link: http://twitter.com/home#search?q=%23tls09

3 years ago when Bono was at the Leadership Summit, he was upset that churches were not more involved in the fight against global poverty.
Bono was asked what he thinks about how the church is working on global poverty now 3 years after that initial interview.

in 1963, President Kenedy said "we're going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade"
He lead!
With just a small piece of that, we can build humanity, we can get clean water - we can't solve everything, but we can make a difference
The church is now in the lead!
There are pediatric wards without children in them - we're winning!
Christians speaking:
We have no excuse, we need to reach out to people with AIDS in Africa
There are already people doing the work, we need to put resources behind it
People already want to give, but it's the leader's responsibility to cast the vision, and show them how
We need to make the missionary appeal appealing! Photography and other ways to inspire
People see them as unlovable because they feel they are infected, but they go to the field and hug a person with AIDS and realize it's a real person. Mother speaking "I loved my children in a new way and once you go there, you can't help but care for those children over there"
Our Savior is going to ask us if we did anything for the least of these

Bono:

When a song comes out, I just feel blessed. Like "The Streets have no name"
The lyric isn't really good, I wrote it quickly, I rushed it out. It annoys me that 20 years later that we still have to sing it
We're urging people to join the ONE campaign - we put up all the flags of Africa and while I was singing the song, I realized that I wrote the song in Ethiopia.
He wrote the lyrics in Agibar in Ethiopia. We was watching people who had walked all through the night. There was a mist. The people put their children down to die, or they were already dead.
As smart as someone can be: intuition is better than intellect: we do the best work when we don't know what we're doing

Christians

Worship Leader was upset when he heard Bono 3 years ago: why is the message coming from a rock star instead of the church
Pastor: Here's a rock star, people are you looking to you for leadership and the church had done nothing. They're looking to you for leadership, they're asking what they should do. I don't know what to do, ask Bono. I kept thinking that my daughter said "can't we build a hospital"
There was a girl in Malawi Africa who got aids. She became the face of our campaign.
Person of that church: we needed to raise $160,000. We couldn't figure out how we could help. Well, we would do little things, like cut back on lunch. Little kids set up lemonade stands "Lemonade for Africa"
Pastor: on Christmas eve we made the offering the last part of the service. The Christmas eve service offering was never the highlight of that service. We played Paul Baloche's song "Offering" and asked people to bring and tell what the story of what they did
Children: sold toys, sold jewelry
The stories were so emotional that the women counting couldn't count
$518,000 dollars collected
Had to announce it the next Sunday and start with that because nobody cared about anything else. And, more money came in after that!
Why did it start with a rock star? Why didn't I have the courage to stand up for the cause earlier?

Bill Hybels interviewing Bono:

Why can't countries come up with money to solve global poverty, but they can come up with $700B to solve the financial crisis?
Hybels "You said that the church is doing better, but Bono has kept as arms distance from a local church. That's frustrating to me."
Bono: "It's probably fear of denomination"
Hybels"but you are not afraid of anything"
Bono: "I've been afraid of denominationalizm. I've got one parent Catholic and another prostantant. I go where the life is, to different churches where I am. I'm equally happy on a beach.
I don't like complicated ceremony. It doesn't have to be inspirational, but has to be were everyone is welcome. Then I feel comfortable. People want you to be honest. They want you to tell what's going on in your life.

Lives Changed By Christ LCBC - Lancaster PA

We tell people to tell folks not how to follow Christ, but how we follow Christ, so they can see an example

Story: a soccer coach who built a pitch in Africa and named it after one of their players that died. The parents had given memorial funds from their son's death for the pitch.

Hybels: "do you ever feel like you can't carry it anymore"

I was in NY City central park. There was a guy with a plastic bag. He was talking to himself almost. He pulled out a copy of NY Times with headline "Man lands on Moon"
Don't take yourself too seriously like it's all dependent on you
But, you should realize it will not be easy
It's not charity, It's about equality and justice
Where does the sphere of empathy end for you?

My Take-aways: