Get Acquainted with Gary Dilley

The new Director of Global Ministries

Steve Dennie

September 2001

Gary Dilley grew up in the Hudson UB church of Hudson, Ind., which, for many years, was on a circuit with the nearby Corunna UB church. In 1977, Gary married a girl from Corunna named Rhonda.

Gary graduated from Huntington College in 1982. The same year, he completed two years as pastor of South Scipio UB in Harlan, Ind. He and Rhonda then headed off to Deerfield, Ill., where Gary spent three years earning a Master of Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

After that, Gary and Rhonda spent one year serving the Olive Branch UB church in Lakeville, Ind. Then Gary became pastor of First UB in Blissfield, Mich. He stayed there until 1998, when he became pastor of First Love UB in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Two years later, the 2001 General Conference elected him as Director of Global Ministries.

Gary has made three trips to Jamaica--one to the Yorktown-Content area and two to Blissfield's sister church, Washington Gardens.

In the early 1990s, Gary spent two weeks in Bulgaria with a person from Blissfield UB who worked in that country with International Teams. Part of that time was spent ministering to gypsies, who are widely despised and ignored. Gary remembers some group settings where they sat down and fielded good questions like, "Is capitalism God's plan for the economy?"

In 2000 and 2001, Gary traveled to Yoro in Honduras on the Central Conference work trip, helping to build a church there.

In 1987, Gary and several others from Blissfield traveled to Jamaica with a group from Michindoh Conference. It changed Gary's life.

"I began asking a lot of questions, like, Why have we been blessed so much, and what is God's purpose in that? And there was the realization that not everybody else was like me. As trite as it sounds, until you go, you're not confronted with the diversity of heaven."

At the time, we were starting our work in Macau. Gary realized that Blissfield, population 3500, had the same number of churches as Macau, with 3.5 million people. In light of that, what did God really expect of him and his church? What should be their priorities? He voiced these questions to his people, simply saying, "I'm not sure what the future holds, but I know we need to respond."

The result was that Blissfield began mobilizing for a major emphasis in missions. They participated in work teams, and then began sending out their own work teams. They created a sister-church relationship with the Washington Gardens UB church in Jamaica. They began to support people from Blissfield UB who were involved in mission work. And they kept asking, "We can't do everything, but what is it that God intends for us to do? What is our place in global ministries as a church?"

"We had to wrestle through the same questions many other churches face: If we give money away, will that hinder what we can do locally? We had to walk through that and realize that God's economy is very different from how we see things. As we gave toward things God was doing around the world, we watched God take care of us. Our budget didn't go down, and we could still pursue what we wanted to do locally. We kept communicating to our people that God was working in this way."

Youth pastors Bill Blue, Jim Holloway, and, later, Jim Fleming mobilized the youth in work trips. During Gary's last year at Blissfield, Jim took 34 youth and nine adults to Honduras to build a church.

Early in the process, under Bill Blue, they also began wondering how to get youth thinking about these issues at an earlier age, before they reach high school and may have already settled on a career and college. So they became involved in what they called the Pittsburgh Project, to more quickly orient teens to the idea that the world is bigger than Blissfield.

"We had to realize that the world is not made up of white middle class enclaves like Blissfield, but that we are the minority," Gary says. "Having middle schoolers paint a house for a 70-year-old black woman in inner city Pittsburgh gave them a cultural adaptation they couldn't get in Blissfield.

"When I take work groups out, I tell them my goals up front, and one of them is to broaden their picture of heaven. We tend to think heaven will be like our own little town--my neighbor over here will be this person, and so forth. In reality, it will likely be a Christian from Mozambique on one side, and a family from Honduras on the other side, all gathered in this multi-cultural heaven. So on the work trip I want to help them meet potential neighbors who may be the people in John 14 that God is preparing a house for. I tell them that since they might be living next door to these people someday, I just want them to get introduced early."

Previously, the missions director had supervisory responsibility over all UB ministry outside of North America. At least on paper. But with the adoption of the international structure in June, that role changed drastically. Gary is the Director or Global Ministries for the United States National Conference, with no administrative authority in the other national conferences (just as Paul Hirschy is bishop of the US National Conference, and not bishop of the worldwide United Brethren church, as was Ray Seilhamer before him).

Now, the various national conferences--Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Hong Kong, Canada, and the US--are in charge of their own affairs. And yet, the conferences beyond North American still rely on outside financial support. So, what does this all mean for the future of UB missions?

Gary says there have been misunderstandings in both the United States and in the other national conferences. He says some people have concluded that the US will no longer invest in these other countries, that they're on their own now. "That is not the case in any way," Gary says. "Rather, things have shifted from 'You are our mission field' to 'You are our national partner.' God has blessed us with financial resources, and we want to continue helping with financial assistance so that Psalm 67 can come to pass--to bless the nation so they can hear the Good News. We want to be part of that whole plan.

"However, they must take an independent look at their own future and develop their own plans. We will walk with them through the process. But Sierra Leone will be responsible for the future of the ministry of the Sierra Leone church, and Jamaica for Jamaica. We will continue doing what we can to assist in that, but they will take responsibility for where they go in the years ahead. Part of my job will be walking with them through that transition. It won't happen all at once. It's a paradigm change. Some are farther along than others. Some are more dependent on US support, and will need assistance and probably training on our part so they can assume the roles they voted to take.

"When it comes to the day-to-day aspects of what we're seeking to do, it doesn't change very much. A lot of what we've already been doing is partnering, which is a great thing."

Beyond partnering, there is pioneering. "We are asking ourselves where we will initiate beachheads in places that need the witness of Jesus Christ. In addition to assisting our partners in other national conferences, we are looking for places where God is calling us to work." There are places we might extend into in cooperation with other national conferences (as we did in Macau and Thailand), or places where the United States goes on its own to start something new (as in Haiti and Mexico).

Gary says, "At times, the denominational missions program has probably imparted the idea to our churches, 'We want you to help us in what we're doing.' We need to shift that idea. God has given the Great Commission to each of our local churches, and they must determine what it means to be obedient to the Great Commission and what God wants them to be involved in. Through our networking and abilities at the denominational level, we can assist them in getting the Great Commission accomplished. Do we exist for the churches, or do they exist for the denominational missions program? The point is, we exist for the churches. We're trying to encourage them to realize that each of them is in a place of responsibility toward God's call on them. We hope we can help by providing avenues for them to extend their outreach through the things we do corporately.

"For instance, how can we get local churches to develop a closer partnering tie with partial-support missionaries? The same thing applies to fields. Chuck McKeown and the Daytona UB church have taken a tremendous interest in Haiti. They're sending a work team to Haiti, seeking to be a blessing to those churches. Their connection gives them an incredible passion. So, how do we help individual churches, as well as individual conferences, have that kind of connection?

"Blissfield, like many churches, invested not only in UB missions but in missionaries who came out of that church but had no connection to UB missions. We celebrate the fact that our churches have ministry extending into many more places than we can even imagine--countries and arenas that have no connection to UB missions, but which God has laid on the hearts of people in our churches as they seek to be obedient to the Great Commission.

"We have our own projects on the denominational side. It is my desire that we will be one of the important places churches look when they decide where to invest missions dollars. But there are too many churches which feel chastised because they don't give a certain percentage of their missions dollars to UB missions. We need to put a compelling vision before them, communicating so effectively what we're doing in countries and lives that they say, 'Yes, we want to be involved in that.'"

Where to start?

"In this first year," Gary says, "I feel that I need to get acquainted with the leaders, the lay of the land, and what's taking place in each national conference or mission field."

Now that he has no administrative authority in the other national conferences, what will be his role?

First, he will explore with our national leaders how they and the United States can best work together as partners. Where do they need help, financially or otherwise? Gary also hopes to do some pastoral training, and provide help in other ways to help national conferences be more effective.

In Haiti, Mexico, and India--countries not yet organized as national conferences, but still under the supervision of the Global Ministries Leadership Team--Gary will take more responsibility when it comes to giving counsel and direction. But in the established national conferences, he will pull back.

"In the past, a country like Jamaica would look to me or the person in my position and ask what they should do in a particular situation," Gary says. "I want to have dialogue on their future. But my role will be to say, 'I'm willing to give counsel, but these are your decisions. When it comes to your future, you will make the call.' When those situations arise in these transition times, I will continue to pass this responsibility back to them."