Cities and Communities Conference Call
June 21, 2007
Host: Rev. Glenn Barth – President of GoodCities

Topic: Convening a Regional CIR

Guests: Phil Miglioratti and Tom White, Former CIR Conveners
and Conveners from several CIR Regional Meetings (Paul Hoy, Dennis Fuqua, Copi Valdiviez, Benjamin Anayacho and others)

Glenn welcomed callers. Many were on early. George Ordway was asked to lead in prayer.

Announcements:
► Next Cityreaching Call: July 19, 2007 – Guest: Pastor Josh Beckley, San Bernardino on “Pastors on the Premises” - how pastors and city leaders are impacting schools by prayer walking. The drop-out rate dropped from70% to next to nothing with the personal and spiritual impact of Christian leaders on the schools and community.
► Externally Focused Church Leadership Communities – email Glenn@cityreaching.com
► Motive Entertainment is looking to fill a few (paid) promotional positions. The contact is Paul Waller. Motive Entertainment promoted The Passion of the Christ and Narnia. Email Glenn if interested.
► CIR 2008 – Boston, MA – The Braintree Sheraton Hotel, April 14-16, 2008
► Forum on CIR’s – Neil Cox has a new wiki website, www.cityreaching.org. A wiki is where people contribute their knowledge and experience defining how to do things. If you want to edit the page, use password cityteam. It’s simple: hit the blue edit button at top, enter password, make your entry and hit save.

Glenn introduced Phil Miglioratti and Tom White. Glenn expressed appreciation for Phil’s National Pastors Prayer Network (NPPN). Phil was an early pioneer in helping Christians communicate, compiling helpful resources he emailed on, sharing his expertise and leadership around the nation. Phil is now a National Facilitator with the Mission America Coalition (MAC) serving as Coordinator for Loving Our Communities to Christ (LC2C). Tom White is a well known leader and author, leading Frontline Ministries in Corvallis, and has often led prayer summits. He has written on spiritual warfare and other topics. His most recent book is on citywide prayer movements, One Church, Many Congregations. Tom was Convener for CIRs in 2004 and 2005, moving the CIR movement forward. He travels around the world teaching on prayer, city movements, and practical prayer processes.

As we get started with this call, let’s review some basics. What do you see as the mission and purpose of the CIR?

Tom: I would use this phrase: I would call the CIR a big tent, an inclusive learning community, city reaching/city transformation of city leaders, pastors, leaders in prayer, in justice issues, people with a passion to see prayer impact a city. There are a variety of ways and a number of individuals. Whether a national or regional CIR, I look to see where the Spirit is moving. When I go to these city impact gatherings, I look for inspiration. What is God up to? The bottom line is that as practitioners, we get inspiration, but eventually we come back to our own Jerusalem and have to walk this out. Secondly, implementation. How will I work this out with those I am walking with in my city?

Phil: In between inspiration and implementation, I would add inter-action. That is what makes CIR unique, as others discover the importance of inter-action. That happens around the round table and in other ways. That inter-action is one reason why people show up. No matter who is speaking or presenting, there will be substantial time of inter-action, which is essential to making a CIR a CIR.

Glenn: It’s not an up-front presentation, but inter-acting with people at the tables, praying together, sharing, reflecting, and writing down. I currently serve as Convener. I would like to add that we don’t call it a city transformation roundtable, (that would be presumptuous) but we want to move toward that. Everyone present gets involved. Together we come to understand the mind and heart of God.

2. With this in mind, what are some of the key elements of a CIR? (i.e. participants – who attends and what can they expect the experience to be like? Speakers? Roundtable discussions? Prayer?)

Phil: When Tom speaks of big tent, we’re not talking politics. In one of the regionals I was at, an individual was touting his political party line, but you could see others disagree with that perspective. Whether regional or national, we look for a microcosm of the church – pastors, leaders, wide, diverse, male/female, as many ethnic groups as possible, many streams of the church. For most who come, it’s the most diverse meeting they come to during a year. That is part of the experience.

Tom: I would note relevant, stimulating speakers, in-put-ers. We’ve done regional meeting the past 5 years in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. Last December we invited George and Lisa Otis. George is a practitioner of a particular approach, but we wanted Lisa for the perspective of a woman and intercessory prayer. It was provocative, a spiritual challenge. It is important to find someone who can articulate thought that gets people talking around the tables. Also networking – what happens in the hallways, over coffee, networking with people of like minds. It’s having the freedom in the learning community to share our failures as well as our successes. Sometimes we learn from hitting a wall. This is a climate where that kind of learning can happen.

Dennis Fuqua: Another thing I see is the value of stories, having a city come and tell what God has done in their community, how God led them in the process, the people, the events involved. There is something inspirational about hearing a story. What we need to guard against is imitating. But there is real value in having stories told.

Glenn: That is a good point. Dennis has been active on the Pacific Northwest Leadership Team, and is President of IRM. One thing I might add to the story element: we look for real stories. We want them to be inspirational but also real, recognizing there are places where we have failed, we are looking for growth. Understand that failure is part of what leads us to success. God uses failure to teach us. We don’t see failure as an ultimate flop but as a learning experience. We want folks to be willing to take risks, and tell us how they took risks multiple times, came back and did it a different way.

3. How can a Regional CIR benefit a church, a ministry and the body of Christ in a city or region?

Phil: those who come to the table - whether they are proactively interested or told to come to the meeting - they get a kingdom view of the church, perhaps make some new contacts and relationships, catch the vision, the work of the Great Commission. Even if our particular slice of the church is active and doing amazing things, we won’t reach the whole city. Hopefully a paradigm shift takes place. Also, for the cityreaching mindset (not a denominational mindset) they may find others, perhaps some they didn’t expect, who are on the same path.

Tom: Whether you are a congregation or an organization, it gets you out of your own foxhole to see the wider field of battle. It’s very healthy. Ask what we could do together that we can’t do alone. I believe there is great value in increased exponential power of the Spirit when we walk together. You see the wider picture. I can’t do it alone. We get so focused on our own market share. There is value in looking at how we increase our effectiveness walking together.

Phil: There is value in a Regional CIR. It can be just a city or could be like Pacific Northwest, doing 3 states. A benefit is you can go from city stories and inspiration, but you are usually one of the few who are representing your city. You can begin to take action steps. You will see those folks next week, you may already be praying together, perhaps working on NDOP or some initiative, or it may come out of interaction around the table.

Glenn: So ongoing relationships locally – you never know where those relationships may lead. If you are at a regional, you value insights, you can email each other. You have a new friend or resource.

4. Where can someone get information about hosting a regional CIR? Who can they talk to for advice?

Phil: www.cityreaching.com has a page about CIRs. Under the “get connected” tab, click on the drop-down for City Impact Roundtable. It’s a long page. Scroll down. It goes back to early 2000 with reports, a lot of information, much of it quite specific about how to plan and design. It’s not for one individual planning it, but the collective mindset. For the national, we have 8-10 people working together. It’s guided and guarded, but not overly controlled.

Glenn: Go to cityreaching.com - there are tabs across the page. Put your curser on “get connected” – the last dropdown is City Impact Roundtable.

Phil: They can talk to you, Glenn, or to Tom or me, to Dennis Fuqua or Paul Hoy. Benjamin Anyacho is doing this in Austin every year, Laurraine Huffman in El Paso. Jay Richmond is doing one regularly in upstate New York. Email Phil@nppn.org TomWhite07@earthlink.net or info@cityreaching.com. Carolyn will put together a list of CIR regional leaders to send if people ask.

5. Let’s ask some of those who have had experience in hosting regional CIRs to share from their experiences. What results have come out of your Regional CIR?

Dennis: I live in Vancouver, but my identity is in Portland. I am excited about the number of people from Vancouver who recently got involved. It is important to sense God’s timing in the process. We’ve done several CIRs in last 5 years. Only 1-2 came from Vancouver each time, but this last time 15 came, and it gave us good traction and momentum. Out of that, we got together, from some stuff George had shared, we watched the Quickening video, then had gatherings the following 2 months. That has given momentum I haven’t seen before in our city.

Francis Balla, Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston: May I share a brief report on a leadership consultation we did in 2002. We got 200-300 pastors from all over the greater Boston area. We spent a whole day listening to stories of what God has been doing, watching videos, praying together. We were able to do a “Greater Boston Book of Acts.” From that point on, we met monthly, then quarterly. Several things came up during that consultation. As follow-up, we plan another InterCultural Leadership Consultation this fall (2007), expecting up to 600 pastors from all over New England. We will have 22 ethnic group leaders and pastors telling their stories.

Bill Chastain, TX: Phil, I’m trying to get together a session, maybe a pre-CIR, to get a few folks together going down the path. I was going to invite some people to come on July 17th. May I have your name on as guest speaker via conference call? Maybe I could get some attention having your name.

Phil: I think I’m booked in Jacksonville, but perhaps Tom or Glenn wouild be available.

Bill Chastain: I think there is a catalyst here that can help some of us first timers. We don’t have the stories like some of the others.

Phil: I remember leading the CIR in Cedar Rapids and we did a call-in kind of thing. It can be very effective. There is a big difference between a conference, where people come as an audience. The difference here is that interaction, the action steps – what can we do better together than separately? It’s where the rubber hits the road - how can we connect? I’ll be glad to talk to you offline.

Glenn: It doesn’t include everyone, but doesn’t exclude anyone. You start with the willing, and move to more and more as God gives favor to your CIR and citywide movement.

Ron McConico, Minneapolis: I thank my friend Neil for pointing me to this call. One of the thingsa local pastor said is “The division in Minneapolis is almost demonic - the competitiveness.” I don’t know if it’s exclusive to Minneapolis. How do we start breaking down barriers - the rich/poor, urban/suburban, ethnic?

Tom: In the Minneapolis area there is probably a more heightened spiritual battle, increased initiative by key leaders, whether theological or ethnic. Headwinds may be stronger. The devil wants to divide and conquer. There needs to be increased spiritual endeavor to break down walls of disunity. I’ve been doing research Capital City syndromes in key cities, i.e. scrambling of communication, tension between leaders. If the devil gets that advantage and we don’t recognize that aspect of the battle, there will be theological controversy, negative inertia. It takes special research and prayer.

Glenn: I learned from Betsy Lee that you are coming to Minneapolis to do a conference on spiritual warfare. It will take place Fri-Sat, Nov 2-3, 2007 at Ridgewood Church in Minnetonka. See www.prayerventures.org for information to be posted soon.
Tom: It will include the syndromes of darkness that relate to influential cities.
Phil: Obviously people from Minneapolis will benefit, but is it open to others?
Tom: Yes. It also includes some on personal prayer and evangelism.

Ron McConico: To follow up on the question: as we move forward, trying to break down walls, I think it’s important that we not be self serving. So often it turns into “me and my ministry show.” That’s probably the worse thing we can do.

Phil: I agree. When you plan a CIR, one of the benefits is that the presenters can be local leaders. They have something to say. The difficulty is they sometimes begin to promote their agenda or their group. That’s one of the blessings and difficulties of doing CIRs. Several times we have been clear with people about how long to speak, we want interaction, etc. and sometimes you get folks who don’t follow that. It’s part of being persistent. We are trying to break down walls. Don’t start working on it if you don’t plan to follow through. There will be ups and downs.

Glenn: When you do a CIR, it is not something your ministry gets to claim as its own. It’s done in a collaborative spirit as the whole church. On the national planning team, we look for people coming from different streams. This past year we had four: the presence based movement (i.e. George Otis), evangelism focus, community development focus, and city transformation from the externally focused church. Try to bring different groups into the planning process. Voices are expressed in the planning, and they will bring their constituencies with them. This is a time to build bridges, not walls.

George Ordway: Maybe you could talk a little about how the design team emerges and functions.
Tom: I really enjoyed the two years I served as convener. I looked forward to monthly calls. We looked for no more than twelve. You want different voices: an emerging leader in the 20s, women, ethnic perspectives. It’s challenging to hear all these inputs, and then discern what is the best thing for the national CIR. If you are talking regional CIR, who are the innovative practitioners? Where is the Holy Spirit bringing out life? Look for a design team that will broadly represent what God is doing. You need a point person who can weave all of them together.

Phil: I completely agree. The difficulty of being the point person is the reason you were chosen - you have a vision and could probably plan the whole meeting. But when you have the whole team on the line or in the room, you job is to give everyone the opportunity to speak to the issues, not force your vision on them. I ask “who is not being represented here?” The prayer folks or Christian community development folks may feel bypassed.

Copi Valdiviez: Paul and I have briefly talked about doing another CIR. We did one three or four years ago and it was OK. Prior to that we had bi-monthly meetings from ten cities in Ohio. That was pretty cool. But I didn’t feel that our meeting was all that great, that there was much take-home. Today there is so much going on in each metro area. One thought we had was doing one every two years in different cities. Perhaps Columbus folks share. It would probably need to be a 2-day meeting. Then go to Cincinnati two years later, inviting all the cities each time, but highlighting one city each time.

Phil: Great idea. Gets folks into a different city. Maybe you do a bus tour as part of the CIR. But in the second CIR, get a report from the first city about what happened after their CIR.

Glenn: A 2 year cycle is hard thing to follow. If you go with a l-year cycle, there will be greater sense of urgency. I would encourage you to go ahead and do it every year. People will become more aware that God is doing things in Ohio when you do it regularly.

Phil: One of the ways you could go yearly, to defeat the sameness, is change the format. Maybe you change the format every other year. I think yearly is better. I think that’s why they are seeing success in the Pacific Northwest.
Glenn: Do you change cities in the Northwest?
Tom: No. We’ve always had it in Portland, even though we don’t have many come from Portland.
Sherry Lorentzen: Tom, come up to Tacoma!
Copi: I’ll tell Paul he’s got to do that.

Tom: This has been a joy. Thanks to all of you for tuning in. I’m upbeat, after being in the trenches in a lot of cities. We’re getting traction, forward momentum, seeing measurable results. We are beginning to see stories that are about changed lives, increased conversions, partnerships with city governments, mayors. We’re meeting with a new Mayor in Corvallis today. Sam Tillery in Santa Rosa is seeing great things. God is working as a result of our obedience.

Phil: I want to encourage you. Someone in your city needs to be the voice for John 17 unity, not just singing songs together, but praying together, beginning to collaborate together. CIR is not the only way to do it, but I’ve found it a flexible vehicle. Extraordinary things happen.

Glenn: Don’t forget to visit www.cityreaching.com or email info@cityreaching.com
Remember the call on July 17. Josh Beckley will be sharing about helping kids succeed in school, how they lowered the dropout rate. It is an exciting story to hear.

Copi Valdiviez closed the call in prayer.