Live from CCDA

Day 1 Notes from the CCDA Conference in Portland, Oregon

Oct 03, 2024

What’s up, everyone? I’m writing to you live from Portland, Oregon. I’m currently at the Christian Community Development Association Conference. Many of you know I started a coaching and consulting company called Tribes Leadership, which helps leaders find, connect with, and grow their tribe. We are helping leaders live out their mission with clarity and in community.

I’m here serving as a conference consultant, which means the conference provides space for attendees to sign up for free 30-minute consulting sessions at no additional cost. It’s a tremendous blessing to serve others in this way.

This is my third time at the CCDA Conference, and I’m excited to serve. I wanted to do something a little different this time for everyone who read this newsletter and who has supported me along the journey.

When blogging first became popular, people used to attend conferences and summits and live blog through them, so I decided to share my experience in real-time using my Substack and social media feeds.

Day 1

Common Hymnal is leading the music and worship times. I love this group. I first discovered their music at the CCDA Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, last year. They create protest and praise music that captures the call of so many who are leading in communities across America. They also take songs that people are familiar with and add a new twist to them. Here is their rendition of Amazing Grace that they led us through last night:

The night opened up with a land acknowledgment and Mending Wings and their Founder and President Corey Greaves leading us through a Native American song and dance. Out of respect of this ancient practice Corey asked us not to record and for the conference not to record it either, becuase it is sacred to their culture. It was a beautiful reminder that not everything is for large scale consumption.

The theme of the conference is HOME from Jeremiah 29:5-7.

⁵“Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. ⁶Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. ⁷Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.”

Jeremiah 29:5-7, CSB

The first Plenary session speaker for the night was Mayra Macedo Nolan the outgoing Board Chair for the CCDA Board. She spoke about living and ministering in Pasadena, CA and what HOME means to her. She spoke about as people seeking the welfare and flourishing of our communities we have to learn to live in the tension of being peacemakers.

She shared personal stories of lose and contradictions that make up the life of those who are called to serve the city by making their home in it.

The final speaker of the 1st night was Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil who spoke on the theme: Repair Begins At Home. She utilized the conference text from Jeremiah and Nehemiah 2:16-18

¹⁶The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, priests, nobles, officials, or the rest of those who would be doing the work. ¹⁷So I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned. Come, let’s rebuild Jerusalem’s wall, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.” ¹⁸I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me, and what the king had said to me.

They said, “Let’s start rebuilding,” and their hands were strengthened^[^a^] to do this good work.

Nehemiah 2:16-18

Her plenary talk was a whole vibe. She started by singing Anointing Fall On Me, because she said before you talk about God you should glorify God. Her talk focused on healing the wounds of our homes: The Places and The People. Here are a few quotes from her talk:

“Some things need to be fixed at home.”
“Home is where you knock on the door, they see who it is, and let you in anyway.”
“We can’t build community if we are not rooted in that place. Too many people don’t take the time to allow their roots to go deep in places.”
“Reconciliation is Relational”

People she quoted:

“Without community there is no liberation.” ~ Audre Lorde
“To reshape our cities and neighborhoods into places of ‘divine belonging’, we must be Christian in the ways we locate our lives together with outher people… When we only or even primarily experience belonging in homogeneity—racial, cultural, religious, or otherwise — then we are tragically missing out and falling short of the deeply transformative divine community that must accompany authentic Christian discipleship.” ~ Dr. Dave Leong

She ended with this encouragement:

RAISING UP A NEW GENERATION

I believe that you are uniquely positioned to bring hope and healing to communities that so desperately need it. I believe you have every thing within you to go both deep and long in your journey to open minds and change hearts. And I pray that as yo seek to help others, you yourself will be transformed, which is the truest measure of success.