General Secretary Jeff Weston presided over communion during the final worship service of the 2008 World Convention. Photo: Ted Parks (click to enlarge)

By Ted Parks, DisciplesWorld contributing writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (1/13/09) — An unresponsive U.S. immigration system impacting its top leadership and a failing economy undermining its finances, World Convention — an organization strengthening ties worldwide within the Stone-Campbell family of churches, including Disciples — has announced it will replace its full-time executive director with a part-time position and cut other staff as well.

Based in Nashville, World Convention announced in its December e-mail newsletter ChristiaNet that Jeff Weston, executive director since 2004, will leave his position this spring to return with his wife Rosemary to the couple's native Australia. Assistant to the executive director Clint Holloway will conclude a six-year part-time position with World Convention at the end of January, his departure resulting from a lack of funding. 

Communicating by e-mail from Australia, Weston said the U.S. government had denied his application for permanent residency, a status that would have allowed him to serve World Convention indefinitely after his initial five-year work visa expires this year. Weston was overseas visiting family and planned to return to Nashville at the end of January for the concluding months of his tenure as executive director. 

While Weston has permission to reside in the United States until his work visa expires this spring, Rosemary's residency period ended in 2007. She applied for an extension and waited a year for a response only to learn that officials had denied her request and given her six months to leave the country. 

With the bulk of World Convention's gifts coming from the United States, the ministry needs a leader who can live near the individuals and organization that form its financial base, Weston said.

"If I was resident in Australia, travel costs would be enormous for me to undertake all the promotion that is needed," the executive director explained.  "We ... need to have a person who is visible in the churches and able to attend conferences and conventions in the U.S." 

Weston will conclude as executive director at the end of the World Convention board meeting in mid-April unless the organization is still looking for a replacement, he said. 

Complicating the Westons' immigration problems have been World Convention's financial struggles.  

Like other non-profits, the organization has suffered from diminished giving and smaller investment yields from its endowment, said Rick Reisinger, vice-president and treasurer of the Disciples' Church Extension and volunteer treasurer of World Convention for the last 16 years.

With the Nashville-based ministry sponsoring international gatherings for Stone-Campbell churches every four years, the last two meetings — Brighton, England, in 2004 and Nashville last August — have finished in the red, producing a deficit of $100,000, Reisinger said. 

The amount of the shortfall is about the same as World Convention's annual budget, according to the figures furnished by Reisinger. With about half the yearly operating costs covered by support from the Disciples Mission Fund and gifts from individuals, contributions by congregations and returns on the endowment comprise the remainder of its budget, the treasurer said. 

Funding for assistant Holloway came at times from World Convention itself and at times from churches, with a Nashville congregation of the Christian Churches / Churches of Christ furnishing support until recently.

With Holloway's departure, the organization has one remaining paid employ other than Weston, part-time office coordinator Julia Keith, who will remain after Weston leaves. 

World Convention leaders are searching for an interim director, Reisinger said. Coordinator Keith said that the responsibilities of the new director will include "communication and networking" and emphasize fund raising.  

Leaders expressed regret over Weston's departure while underscoring the role World Convention continues to play in bringing together believers with a shared heritage in the Stone-Campbell movement, which in North America includes Churches of Christ along with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Christian Churches / Churches of Christ. 

"Jeff has done a great job ... , so the World Convention board is extremely disappointed that his ministry has come to an end," Lyndsay Jacobs, general secretary from 1993 to 2004, said by e-mail from New Zealand, where he and his wife Lorraine, associate general secretary during the same years, now reside.  

Current World Convention president and Zimbabwean church leader B.J. Mpofu said by e-mail that Weston "has given visionary and creative leadership to the ministry." Mpofu added, "Whenever the executive officer of an organization leaves, there is a big hole to fill."  

In his more pessimistic moments, assistant director Holloway worries about World Convention's future. "I don't know that World Convention can ... survive this period," he said. "But optimistically, I know that the Lord is capable of doing far more than I can ever hope or imagine." 

Holloway observed that World Convention is the only ministry seeking to connect the diverse Stone-Campbell family globally, pointing out that the number of countries with churches in the tradition has grown from 30 when World Convention started nearly eight decades ago to 180 today. "The imperative to say, 'Look, ... we're a world body of believers,' is greater now than it ever was," he said. 

Office coordinator Keith sees chances for World Convention not only to emerge from its setbacks, but improve. "Sometimes obstacles are placed in your way to make you rethink ... what you are to be about," Keith said. "I think if we approach it that way, that our prospects are excellent."