An Unofficial Report on the Cooperation Delegates. What Happened in Anaheim.

What Happened in Anaheim... By Mike Taliaferro This last weekend (Oct 6,7) was the International Leadership Conference for the ICOC. Held in Anaheim, California, roughly 1300 leaders gathered from around the world to pray, listen to classes, and build friendships. The conference began on Sunday, October 7. I think it was an incredible success. Before the conference started, delegates from cooperating churches met together on Saturday and Sunday morning. Their purpose was to discuss several possible avenues of cooperation that would benefit our churches. Around the world our churches are grouped into approximately 30 families of about 10 to 15 churches each. These circles of churches send two or three delegates each to the meeting to represent their churches. Texas, for instance, sent Todd Asaad and Tim Huffman. (I participated as a Steering Committee member). We also had a few brothers and sisters from “non-affirming” churches who had requested the chance to come as observers. About 70% of our churches have affirmed the Plan for Cooperation (UPC). For more background on the UPC click http://www.icochotnews.com/?q=node/10. There were many important topics that needed discussion. Hope Worldwide gave an update, and made an appeal for funds. There was also a discussion about Hope for Children, the adoption service based in Georgia. A brother from Chicago presented a directory and email service that we could all use together for better communication. Roger Lamb discussed the new Disciples Today website and our limited web presence these days. DT will run out of funds late in 2008 if we all don't take some action. The delegates job is to communicate back to their churches about these issues. Hope is asking for $1 per member per week to help start projects and pay for overhead. They are doing an awesome job. I hope we can all support them. Right now only 40% of our first world churches give to Hope Worldwide in Philadelphia. Disciples Today is asking each first world church to give $6 per member per year to help maintain and expand our web presence. All agreed that Disciples Today needs to be a website without subscription fees. Of course, the delegates have no authority to tax anyone. They will simply appeal to the local congregations for support. The delegates voted overwhelmingly to make this appeal to our churches. These are good causes, in my opinion, and I hope that we all pull together to help Hope Worldwide and Disciples Today. Another discussion centered on our committees. Last year the delegates had commissioned the creation of several committees, which had worked hard to serve our churches in a variety of areas. For instance, the Teen and Campus Committees worked hard to prepare and host some excellent conferences. This year we enlarged our official committees to ten, and voted in a chairperson for each one. These new committees will get a lot more people involved in tackling some of these important issues that face us. These committees include (with their chairperson)

• Teen (John Porter) will bring teen ministers together for both regional and int'l conferences, as well as strengthen our teen ministries.
• Campus (Mike Taliaferro) will plan the Int'l Campus conference, and work to improve our campus ministries around the world. NEW ORLEANS will be the venue for the 2008 campus conference. Seattle and Hampton Roads will host the 2009 conferences.
• Shepherding and Advisory (Sam Powell) will consist of elders who will help in situations of church conflict, as well as advising the other committees on the issues confronting us.
• Singles (Todd Asaad) will look to advocate the needs of singles in our ministries, as well as host the first Int'l singles conference in Dallas in 2008.
• Mission Coordination (Andy Fleming) will strive to help mission churches that are under funded.
• Women's ministry (Robyn Williams) will strive to bring before the delegates the women's views and needs within our churches and leadership ranks.
• Teachers and Education (Steve Staten) will be working to expand our ministers education needs. This is a huge need. We have some excellent programs. Can we not plan for our own Bible College in the next ten years?
• Communication (Roger Lamb) will work hard to communicate the goings on of the delegates via the new website for the coop churches, as well as Disciples Today.
• Hope Worldwide (Mark Templer) will both communicate the accomplishments and needs of Hope Worldwide, as well as work to expand its operations.
• Church Builders committee (Mike Fontenot) will search out and commission others to write articles describing success stories around the world. Whether it is the story of Lagos, Nigeria becoming self supporting, or Mexico City's success planting churches, this committee seeks to bring before us all the great news and success stories among our churches. They will also work hard to encourage quality building practices. The significance of this task moved the delegates to vote in every member of this committee. The committee is made up of Dinesh George, Mike Fontenot, John Louis, Douglas Arthur, Scott Green, and Shawn Wooten. Mike Fontenot was chosen to Chair.

All of the delegates were very excited about these committees. We have watched for years as our valued organizations like Hope, Disciples Today, Hope for Children, and our Campus and Teen Conferences began to shrivel up and wither. There was general excitement that these committees would truly serve our churches by cooperating in these 10 different areas. After the meetings, several of the churches who do not yet participate discussed the possibility of participating. I am excited to see more churches seriously considering this. Our cooperative efforts are bearing fruit, and it is very exciting to see the committees serving the churches. The delegates have no authority. They cannot order a church to do anything. They only possess the power of persuasion and communication. Still, most people are seeing the need for cooperation. While a small number of people have dismissed the delegates as just 'politics', those who have taken the time to investigate know that Hope, Disciples Today, campus, teen, and singles conferences have been a huge blessing for thousands of disciples. Teaching initiatives, mission coordination, and instructive articles will bless thousands more. These institutions matter. (One dear brother attended and praised the conference, but dismissed the delegates’ cooperation efforts as "church politics." I tried to explain to him that without some kind of cooperation there can be no conferences!) No one wants to have a central governing body. Most everyone wants to cooperate on a few important issues. Toward this goal we are progressing. Personally, I am thankful to God for the delegates who came early to serve like they did. They served without pay or title, but instead with passion and love. It is another sign that the churches are getting back up on their feet and moving on. Each committee will work during the year on their respective tasks. The next meeting of the delegates will be at the ILC in Kiev, Ukraine, in October of 2008. Until that time, the committee chair people will conference call occasionally to keep the whole process moving. The old "gang of nine" steering committee has passed away. A new "coordination committee," made up of all ten of the committee chairpersons, will gather the agenda for the next meeting in 2008. Please be praying for our cooperation efforts. We desperately need God's help to continue the revival that is sweeping across our churches.