Dear Friends,
Let me start with some good news: on November 19, Exodus Church installed our own ruling and teaching elders to become a “particular” church in the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. Bryan Chapell was our guest preacher and spoke on “Church Expansion” from Acts 13:1-5. Elders from churches within the Presbytery of Northern Illinois charged and prayed for our ruling and teaching elders after leading them (and our members) through the appropriate vows. And Megan (with many others) coordinated a hopping (for Presbyterians) reception afterward. Here’s a three-minute video capturing highlights from the evening:
All of this came on the heels of many other ministry highlights of the fall:
Getting to know members and regular attenders of Exodus on a deeper level
Coordinating Exodus’ fall discipleship offerings in the evenings and Sunday mornings
Reading a half hour Tuesday and Thursday afternoons with 5-6 of Megan’s 2nd graders
Meeting weekly for Tuesday staff meetings with Pastor Stephen to plan and pray
Meeting weekly on Wednesdays with Artie in the morning and Mark in the evening
Preparing for and teaching ten Thursday symposium nights on Christian ethics
Attending monthly Men’s Fellowship Bible studies and other weekly group studies
Redesigning Exodus’ website and Friday News & Notes newsletter (please subscribe!)
Helping lead worship and preaching on Blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52 in September and The Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:1-14 this coming Sunday
Making visits to see Pike County friends and families in Springfield hospitals and at home
Fundraising Update
As you may remember (or if you don’t, you can read about it here), in order for me to serve full-time with Exodus, we needed to raise $20,000 for our first year in Springfield (July ‘23-June ‘24) to supplement the income ($1,000 each) pledged from Exodus and the Presbytery for my salary of $3,500/month. Once this goal is met for year one, the expectation is to raise another $20,000 for the second year (July ‘24-June ‘25), the hope being that the church grows enough during this time to take on (and possibly increase) my salary in full.
Since we started raising funds back in April, we’ve seen $29,150 in financial support come through from 48 different giving units, which means that, by God’s provision through our generous donors, we’ve met our year one fundraising goal and are halfway to meeting our goal for year two (the excess funds are being kept in our account for appropriate future distribution).
We’re so humbled by the generosity of so many who have walked with us as we’ve taken these steps of faith. For those wanting to make a year-end donation toward our year two goal, we very much welcome your support, all of which is tax-deductible.
Two ways to give:
1. Through Exodus Church’s secure website:
2. Mail a check (made out to Exodus Church with “Craig & Megan Dunham” in the memo) to:
Exodus Church
6207 S. 6th Street
Springfield, IL 62703
Thank you for supporting our efforts to establish Exodus Church in hopes of seeing future Reformed churches planted in central Illinois. And thanks as always for reading Second Drafts.
Craig (for Megan)
PS: For those following along via Facebook, Megan’s father, Mike, had triple bypass heart surgery this past Monday after experiencing a heart attack the previous week. After celebrating Thanksgiving on the farm and spending time on Friday with three of our four girls in town for the holiday, Megan has been in Tulsa with her father and sister since Saturday.
In God’s graciousness, after a successful surgery Monday, Mike is doing well but is still in a lot of pain. We’d appreciate prayer for him, for Megan’s drive back to Springfield on Saturday, and especially for her reunion with her Springfield Christian 2nd graders Monday.
Far As the Curse Is Found
Be glad I didn’t send this on early Monday morning when I started writing it.
If I had sent it then, the title was going to be “Have Yourself an Angry Little Christmas,” which is a pretty darn good title, if I do say so my darn self.1 I was going to make the point (or at least I was at four in the morning, when I was lying in bed “writing” it—First Drafts, if you will) that we can’t fully appreciate the gift of Jesus’ nativity and ultimate sacrifice unless we actually get angry enough about the hell that humanity has made of our world to require it.
“Good news not being good news without knowing bad news” kind of stuff.
“No lies detected” kind of stuff.
“No, Walter, you’re not wrong…” a la The Dude in The Big Lebowski kind of stuff.
It was going to be epic, I thought. Epic!
Then I fell back asleep.
I woke up a few hours later. My wife and daughters had departed two days before, having been called to travel to different places to deal with others’ hard things. I had a sermon to begin prepping on top of a week’s worth of work to get done. And later that evening (and much to my surprise), I had a most out-of-the-blue opportunity to love two people whose broken families have absolutely broken them…yet God seemed to bless—and seems to be blessing—my awkward attempts to come alongside and help.
By the time it was late Tuesday afternoon and I revisited this newsletter, I discovered I had a bad case of literary amnesia from the morning before. I couldn’t remember all that I wanted to say (and how to say it), and I had a choice: I could work myself back up and whine anew about how bad the world is and how even more badly it needs Jesus the Savior. Or, I could just deal with the little corner of the world God has called me to and save my breath to cool my coffee.
I just poured my third cup (and it’s hot). Since there’s plenty to do, I thought I’d write you about some of that instead.
Risking the Scam
Last September, when I began thinking seriously about becoming a pastor and beginning on the path of formal ordination, I started an additional journal to record thoughts specific to ministry. On November 15—four days before Exodus was to particularize—I wrote this on the heels of initiating several conversations with strangers on an hour-long Springfield Mass Transit morning ride-along around town:
“Found myself struggling this morning and wondering how I can believe I can help anybody? I wonder if I’m too judgmental for this job. No, I don’t wonder; I am too judgmental for this job.
God, what am I doing here? What are you doing here? How does the church help Springfield when we are coming up against so much mental illness, corruption, and absolute disregard and disillusionment for your law and grace and love?
It all seems too much, and way above my ‘pray’ grade; it’s two steps forward and 1.9 steps back. People are going to people, and no one seems willing to entertain the thought that there are better ways.”
I was pretty discouraged the rest of the day. But then that night, as I was getting ready to head out for a one-on-one with a hungry guy who wants to read the Old Testament to better understand how it points to Jesus, I fielded a call from an older woman asking for help. She said she had agreed to take in her two grandchildren to keep them together and out of the foster system due to her daughter’s meth addiction.
And she needed help.
My heart broke for the levels of grief this poor woman was surely feeling. And, though Exodus has a small amount of funds set aside for diaconal ministry, we have no ordained deacons (yet—that’s next on the list) to vet and handle such requests. So, I spent the next half hour on the phone trying to better understand her situation (it was complicated) and recorded a few details:
“Older grandkid needs Depends undergarments and baby food because he has spina bifida and a shunt; is incontinent and can’t eat real food for three weeks. Grandmother also needs cash for gas to go to St. Louis tomorrow for his appointment at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.”
I told the woman I thought we could help, but it wouldn’t be until after nine o’clock that we could make it over. She expressed thanks and that she’d wait for my call. I asked Megan if she could spare a half hour from her school lesson prep to go to Walmart to pick up the requested items (she could), so I went ahead with my appointment in the Old Testament that night (which was great). When I got back, we set off for the address of the woman’s apartment and met her in the parking lot.
From our two years of providing foster care in Oklahoma (as well as from Megan’s work with Love, Inc. in Bozeman), we’ve seen our share of scam attempts (just because someone is poor and needy doesn’t negate a deceitful heart). Because we were a little suspicious as to whether this was an actual need, we said we would carry the goods up to her apartment (sometimes people request expensive items so as to return them to stores for cash), but we never saw the kids. Nevertheless, as it was late, we took her word they were asleep and walked back down to the parking lot with her.
She then asked about cash for their St. Louis trip. I had purposely not brought that up in order to see how much of a focus it might be (especially after she had said her son was driving over from Decatur to help). When I asked if her son was going to be able to provide transportation, she flew off the handle about us not providing the requested cash for gas, which again gave us pause. After settling her down and getting a little better understanding of her son’s situation (which wasn’t great), since Megan and I had $40 we personally needed to tithe, we gave her the money, prayed with her, and wished her safe travels. When we got home, I wrote in my ministry journal:
“Either got scammed big time ($80 worth of Depends and baby food; $40 in cash) or did right by them in helping. It’s hard helping the desperate, but I want to get better at it. Will call tomorrow to try to validate her story. I hate being cynical when trying to love people.”
The next day, I called to see how her trip to St. Louis had gone. She ghosted me on my first two calls in the late morning and early afternoon, but actually answered the third. She said the trip had gone well and the doctors were pleased with her grandson’s progress with the shunt. She then thanked me for the help we provided and promised to check back (she was working with another church to get winter coats for the kids). I doubt we’ll hear from her (especially not apart from another request), but I was satisfied from the specificity of her answers to my questions that we met a true need.
Then again, maybe we got scammed. Only God knows.
A Cry with Modern Echoes
One of the things I learned anew while teaching the Christian ethics symposium this fall was how much God holds responsible those in power for the plight of the poor.
In Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (the book I used as my primary text for the symposium), scholar Christopher J.H. Wright makes a powerful observation in his chapter titled, “Economics & the Poor”:
“The Law, the narratives, the prophets, the Psalms, and the Wisdom literature all insist that poverty must be addressed, that the poor must be cared for with dignity, and that those who wield exploitative economic or social power must change or be changed. They address the creditor, not the debtor (Deuteronomy 24:6, 10-13), employers, not day laborers (Deuteronomy 24:14); slave owners, not slaves (Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27; Deuteronomy 15:12-18).” (p. 174)
Later on in the book, in his chapter titled, “Culture & Family,” he writes:
“When Israel began to fall apart morally, spiritually, economically, and politically in the later centuries of the monarchy, you do not find the prophets blaming the families for the social ills of the nation. Rather, the reverse. They condemned those whose greed, oppression, and injustice were destroying familes. The destructive and divisive effect of poverty and debt and the sheer powerlessness of ordinary families in the face of ruthless econmic greed was later poignantly expressed in the plea of distraught parents to Nehemiah:
‘We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards...we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery...but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.’ (Nehemiah 5:4-5)
That is a cry with modern echoes.” (p. 356)
Modern echoes, indeed, which you’ll remember is what I was going to rail on as part of my “Angry Little Christmas” post. But in doing so, I probably would have been blaming (most of) the wrong people, and since God seems to be working on me to stop blaming people for their issues in general anyway, I didn’t.
And I won’t (or at least I’ll try not to).
We’ll See What Happens
Earlier this week, I had a meeting with the leadership of First Step Women’s Center, a crisis pregnancy center all of a mile from our home. Back in September, Megan and I (along with two other tables of Exodus Church members) attended First Step’s annual fundraising banquet, and they put out a call for help to develop a ministry to fathers. Apparently, of the women who come to First Step for help, a third of them arrive with the father (or who they think is the father—it’s not always clear) of their child. I volunteered to help think with First Step how to connect with and encourage dads to support moms in giving the gift of life to their babies.
We’ll see what happens.
Later today I have a meeting with our newly-installed elders to talk about Christian education plans for 2024, including Sunday School and weekly discipleship offerings to build off the momentum of what we did this fall. One of the main groups we’re going to be focusing on is children and (by extension) young parents and their needs.
Again, we’ll see what happens.
Finally, I hope to continue and complete what remains of my pastoral ordination process so as to become ordained in 2024. I won’t bore you with the details, but the biggest challenges include studying and taking five written exams (Bible, theology, sacraments, church history, polity), taking two oral exams (credentials committee and presbytery), preaching before presbytery, and receiving an official and specific call.
You guessed it: we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, and as opposed to the aforementioned alternative (though I still think it’s a great title/angle), Megan and I wish you a merry little Christmas, one in which Jesus is the reason for your season, the light of your world, and the joy that extends “far as the curse is found,” as the carol goes:
“No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found
Far as the curse is found
Far as, far as, the curse is found”
For, as John 1:5 reminds us,
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Merry Christmas.
Thanks for considering becoming part of our support team (all gifts tax-deductible).
Know someone interested in our ministry with Exodus Church in Springfield?
I think I may have inadvertently figured out where my preoccupation with cleverness began. Earlier this fall, while Peaches and I were on a walk in Washington Park, I did this random two-minute interview for a stranger’s podcast called “The Only One to Know.” Nothing profound for the general listener, but the observation was personally helpful. Cleverness can be an idol; that is, I know it can be one of mine. Enjoy.