Recently, Willow Creek’s Pastor Bill Hybels sat down with Bono at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit for a conversation, amongst other things, on the church’s role in the fight against extreme poverty. Reflecting on his conversation, Pastor Hybels wrote “What Bono Taught Me About Fighting Poverty” this week in US News and World Report.

“Nearly two weeks ago, I stood before 7,000 people—and an additional 60,000 connected via satellite feed—who gathered for the Willow Creek Association’s annual two-day conference the Global Leadership Summit to hear from diverse faculty on the subject of how to get better at leading whatever it is that we lead. Part of the assortment this year included Bono, who agreed to a follow-up discussion to our 2006 interview, during which he called out the local church for being inexcusably late to the game of fighting extreme poverty and treatable disease.

The evangelical church has taken a lot of justifiable heat in recent years for being vocal about the things we hate while staying silent about some of the most pressing needs in our world. There are times when I believe the church should be the conscience of our culture, but to Bono’s point, a reframing must occur, one where the divisiveness that once defined us as people of faith gets edged out by a unity around great societal causes. And what has to unite us in this day and age is the fight against poverty and disease. Faith leaders the world over expected this day would come. What we didn’t expect was that it would take an Irish rock star to demand the dawn.

Since Bono’s clarion call three years ago, well-resourced churches have banded together to take a bite out of poverty, pouring vast amounts of resources into building orphanages, clinics, schools, and sports fields through partnerships with underresourced churches around the globe. Not that the ultimate judge comes in the form of a leather-clad superstar in shades, but still it was gratifying to hear Bono’s assessment of progress to date: “I knew [the church] was a sleeping giant, but I didn’t know the giant could run so fast.”

In some parts of Africa, malaria deaths have been halved. Antiretroviral drugs are being shipping back because villagers have what they need. Education is having an effect. These are all good changes, but admittedly more must be done….”

Full article may be found here.

-Adam Phillips