Preaching to the ConvertedBy Sherry Lawrence
Taking a break from his summer commitments, Bono joined 80,000 Christian church leaders worldwide via videotape on August 11 for the Willow Creek Association's 14th Annual Leadership Summit. The conference was beamed via satellite to over 130 churches nationwide and will be broadcast in the next few months to another 51 countries. The interview was recorded about a month and a half ago.
Bono was invited to join the eight other presenters for the Summit "because of his ability to leverage his leadership and use it to influence world leaders to do something about global poverty and AIDS," according to Paul Braoudakis, Willow Creek's Communications Director.
In a mostly solemn, yet sometimes jovial interview lasting almost 45 minutes, Bono spoke to Willow Creek Community Church's founder and Senior Pastor, Bill Hybels, about how Christ will not allow churches to sit idly by with the AIDS pandemic, reminding people that there are 2,003 verses in the bible that pertain to the poor and disadvantaged.
Bono explained, quoting from Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus uses the parable of the Sheep of the Goats, "It's about judgment. That parable isn't a soft, warm, fuzzy feeling. 'The least of these,' you know. That's saying that's serious. That defines you or not as part of the kingdom or not. Your service to the poor, to the imprisoned -- this is serious stuff. And it makes huge demands of us. And what it's really talking about is equality. And that equality can be annoying."
Bono also spoke about his own spirituality, how he's a believer, and how he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. "Jesus was either Charles Manson -- an absolute nutcase, or in my opinion, who he said he was. We're faced with a very difficult choice, therefore, because this man went to the cross saying he was what had been prophesied about, that he was God made flesh and that God so loved the world that He tried to explain himself to the world by becoming like us."
FAMILY
Hybels asked Bono why churches have taken so long to wake up to the AIDS crisis. Bono replied, "The church has historically always been behind the curve. It's amazing to me -- on civil rights, fighting against the racism in the '60s and the '50s in the South in United States, and apartheid in Africa...I understand why, because a lot of very dangerous people have tried to use the church for political ends....The second part is less palatable perhaps, which is the church had been very judgmental about the AIDS virus in particular. There was this sense of 'Well, these people had been living sexually irresponsible lives and it was very expensive to come to their assistance,' and of course that is not acceptable. It certainly is not acceptable by God, and it will not be acceptable in history."
The interview, while mostly focused on Bono's commitment to the ONE Campaign and raising awareness of the issues ravaging Africa, also touched a little on Bono's family life. Bono apologized for not being able to appear live in South Barrington, Illinois, (Willow Creek's home base) for the summit as he had another commitment. "Well it's very important if you travel around a lot, there are periods that becomes sacrosanct for the family and with summers, we go to France and we have very careless times together. Lovely, irresponsible times. The right to be ridiculous is something we hold very dear in our family."
Hybels also asked Bono to talk about the trip he and his wife, Ali, took to Ethiopia with World Vision in 1985, as well as the impact that it had on their lives moving forward. "As a result for myself and my very young wife, [we] went off to Ethiopia and we worked there for a while in an orphanage. Just again, just under the wires, no cameras, just to try to figure out what was happening. This was a different kind of poverty. This was people with great dignity reduced to begging for food. Ethiopians are very royal people. They're [an] extraordinary looking and striking group, and to see them with their heads shaved inside the camp or outside a camp to see them queueing up to stay alive was something I was never going to forget."
Later on he admitted that he did put it out of his mind a little, "Well if I'm honest, and I'm trying to be, I probably tried to put it out of my head. I remember saying to Ali on the way back, 'We will never forget this.' And I remember her looking to me and going 'You know we will.' To carry this with you everyday is too much. But we were both clear that at some point we will be called upon to revisit these questions that, in truth, were probably too big for our young minds. So, roundabout the end of middle of the '90s, around '98, I was ready to receive the phone call, which I did from Jamie Drummond, who now runs DATA."
WILLOW CREEK CONNECTION
Hybels talked about how he and Bono first came in contact with each other. "A few years ago I had the opportunity to train some church leaders in Denmark. When I got back to my hotel room, there was a message light that was blinking on the hotel phone and when I listened to the voice mail, lo and behold it was the Irish rock star Bono trying to track me down. Now I'm a country music fan and so, frankly, U2 and Bono was no big deal to me. I really had only a vague awareness of what they were all about. I'd have been a lot more excited if Garth Brooks would have been on the line or Clint Black or somebody. But later on that night, Lynne and I called the kids back in the U.S. and mentioned casually in the conversation that we received a phone message from Bono. And all of a sudden I could tell that I was cool. Now, you've got to understand, my kids don't listen to my tapes, they don't read my books, they're not impressed with the people I run with, but they were all amped up and they were like, 'Dad -- return that call! Trust us, return that call.' So, true story -- Lynne and I Googled Bono. We knew so little about him in that day, and decided to return the call. And, when I did, little did I know when we first established contact there that God was going to orchestrate a friendship between a Dutch pastor and an Irish rock star, and I had no idea how much God was going to use this guy to open my eyes and my heart in new ways to the AIDS pandemic and to the plight of the poor."
Later in the interview, Hybels shared with everyone how Bono had stopped by his office one night and "vision-casted" he and his wife about the plight of those in Africa. Hybels went so far to say that Bono "came into my office and did everything but shake me down on this subject matter."
During the conclusion of the interview, Hybels said that Willow Creek's church members donated during their 2005 Christmas Eve services $1.1 million for their AIDS initiatives in South America and Zambia. "I think it was one of the finest hours in the life of our church. And when word got out about that in our community, it started to soften the hearts of the hardest cynics in our area."
Willow Creek currently funds programs that feed and educate 1,100 AIDS orphans daily.
CALL TO ACTION
No speaking engagement by Bono would be complete without asking people to join the ONE Campaign and educate others about what is going on in Africa. At the end of the interview Hybels said, "You can preach at them any way you'd like to, so here's a free shot from Reverend Bono." Bono joked saying "I think they've suffered enough. Feel free to sleep. Exits are that way, but if you leave, I will have to kill you." But then, in all seriousness, he gave those watching a few ideas on how their churches can help.
"What I would say is Bill has convinced me of the importance of the church in creating the moral as well as the practical infrastructure to deal with some of the biggest problems facing the world. People say there's no clinics where they can get AIDS drugs to people. Well, I say open the doors of your churches and make them clinics. I would say those of you who are in the United States and in Europe, I would say please make your congregation aware of the ONE Campaign."
At the end of the video, Hybels announced the creation of the "Courageous Leadership" award, which will be co-sponsored by World Vision each year and given to a church that demonstrates great strides in the area of AIDS awareness. The award also has a $100,000 prize to help fund the AIDS initiatives the winning church is undertaking. "This is an area that has become increasingly important to Bill and to Willow Creek," Braoudakis said.
Hybels brought it all home with some staggering statistics, "All of you know that every 24 hours, another 8,000 people die. Wrap your brain around it, it's true. Every 24 hours, another 11,000 people get infected with this disease. And at the rate the disease is spreading, by the year 2015, get ready, 115 million people will have perished from this disease. 35 million children will join the ranks of the AIDS orphans. The church just can not sit idly by or claim ignorance or rationalize non-engagement. Every church, every church should do something."
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