Award Details
Three years ago, Rich Stearns (President of World Vision) and Bill Hybels (Founder and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church) came up with the idea of The Courageous Leadership Award (CLA). Its purpose was two–fold: to raise awareness and inspire more churches to engage in the battle and to honor churches doing extraordinary work ministering to people infected and affected by AIDS. The thought was that it would be a three–year award, with the hope that in those three years there would be measurable progress against the biggest health Goliath of our time: AIDS.
In its three-year history, hundreds of applications have been submitted. Each year church applications have increased in number, reflecting greater depth and breadth of ministry impact and Christ–like compassion. The Church is responding to the call. It has been exciting to see what God does when His people release the resources that He has given them for the benefit of those closest to His heart; the poor.
Through the CLA, over $600,000 has been directed to the frontlines of the pandemic, supporting existing projects and facilitating new initiatives. Invested holistically, those funds and the people who have provided them have offered a life–giving ingredient so often missing from the lives of those in need...hope. Successful prevention strategies have been initiated. Home-based visitors have been trained and equipped. Medical care and follow up support is being provided. And orphans are being nurtured in their communities, as support is being provided to their caregivers.
In addition, as poverty has been one of the main contributing causes of the pandemic, initiatives have been put in place to help provide economic viability to whole communities. Skills training in agriculture, education, fisheries, baking, animal husbandry, and more have come about as a result of the Church’s involvement. Microfinance initiatives have enabled people in those same communities to start small businesses that then go on to create sustainable industry.
Another important outcome of the CLA has been the expanded platform afforded to the winning churches to share their stories and raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic. Over these past three years, many more churches have been invited and begun to engage. In addition, raised awareness has become the impetus for coalitions of churches to partner together, creating exponential impact in the hardest hit communities in the world.
Although the award has completed its three–year mission, the problem it sought to highlight and address continues to destroy children, families, and entire communities. Both Willow Creek and World Vision are well aware that the Church is in the beginning steps of a marathon with regard to this disease. However, the “hands and feet” of Christ—the Church—has been awakened and we are confident that God’s people will “see this calamity to its end.”
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27)
