Faith leaders emphasize personal accountability during ‘State of the County’

Presenter With Lane County Commissioner David Loveall presiding over the festivities, faith communities were well represented at the State of the County speech Jan. 5. Chris Cirullo:

Chris Cirullo It’s such an honor to be here. I’m nearly a lifelong citizen of Lane County. I basically had a brief stint away, outside of my time in the military. And so it’s a pleasure and an honor to be here and to be able to talk with all of you and to be able to share. 

I would like to pray and then share a short thought of encouragement, as we kind of open our time together today. And so let’s do that now. Let’s pray. 

Heavenly Father, we come humbly before you today to worship you as creator of heaven and earth and the only one worthy of our honor and praise. You created man so that you could walk with him through all of life as he partners with you in the righteous rule and stewardship of the earth. 

But you also love us enough that you gave us the ability to make choices. You didn’t want some kind of drone or clone or robot. You wanted a man, a being who would love and obey you willingly and not by compulsion.

And so Adam and Eve sinned, and in that fall, human nature was corrupted. Sin has now become an inevitability for all of us. And as we continue freely and willingly to do whatever is evil in your eyes, each of us deserves death as we stand before you, a holy, pure and righteous God. We deserve the penalty for our sins, but you in your mercy, grace, goodness, and majesty before the foundations of the world started working the most amazing plan to make a way out for all of us caught in the penalty of our sin. 

Your word says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God, you came in the flesh, the form of a man, to live the perfect, sinless life that none of us could ever live, to secure a righteous standing before the father and give us that righteousness, and to take on our penalty—dying a brutal death on the cross meant for criminals. 

You died, rose to life again, trampling death, hell, the devil, and the grave. You ascended to the heavens to be seated at the right hand of the father, and to rule and reign over all things, making your enemies a footstool. And now, because of your great mercy, all who believe in you, surrender their whole lives to your lordship and bow their knee to your good, loving, pure, and righteous rule, will be redeemed and saved to spend eternal life with you in the new earth after you come again. 

So I plead, father, open the eyes and the ears of those listening who are not yet surrendered, and help them to see and hear the truth for the first time ever, and to respond with full surrender so they too can walk in the blessing of the creator, rather than the eternal pain for their sins. You loved us enough to allow us to choose freely and the brokenness in our city, county, state, country and the world is our fault. Come and heal Lane County, one heart at a time. 

You are lord of all, including Lane County. Me. And in the end, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is lord. But for some it will be too late. I just pray that the people of Lane County don’t wait. All praise, honor and glory are yours and yours alone. We ask all this in Jesus’s name. Amen. 

So as we move forward together in 2026 and beyond, we should remember that God’s design for healthy community has always included both compassion and responsibility. 

In the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites not to harvest the edges of their fields. That food was left for the poor, but the poor had to go glean it. They had to work. Provision was made, but effort was required. And the point of this was so that dignity could be preserved through providing opportunity to work. 

The New Testament reinforces that same principle plainly by saying in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: ‘If a man does not work, he should not eat.’ Scripture calls us to this. We are called to care for our neighbor in need, but it also calls each of us to take responsibility for our own lives, our own families, our own conduct, and our own contribution. 

A thriving community does not come through comfort, handouts, bailouts, excuses, or shifting blame. It comes when people are willing to be accountable for their choices, their work, and their care for other people. 

It will take every one of us doing our part to build something better. So let us repent of our sins and bow before a holy God, reject comfort, reject passivity, and commit ourselves to the hard, honest work of loving our neighbors well and taking responsibility for our lives. If we do that together, we can build a stronger, healthier, and more flourishing Lane County in this year ahead. Thank you.

Presenter From Everyone Village, Gabe Piechowicz:

Gabe Piechowicz (Everyone Village)  Everyone Village is a very unique story out in West Eugene, where we have created a place in our community for private business enterprise, nonprofits, government entities to all come together in a real, genuine partnership space and begin lifting up the most vulnerable of our neighbors in our community, back to flourishing. 

When we don’t hold people accountable, we’re silently saying, ‘You’re not capable,’ and we never want to do that. We never want to assume that the next person that moves into Everyone Village from the street isn’t key to the response of the whole community being successful and flourishing in the future. 

And I’m here to tell you that as a member of our community, as a Lane County resident who’s likely not experiencing homelessness, you would be blown away by what we’ve learned at the Village—that when you pick up the least of these and you bring them into that fold of a community that is about healing and accountability, things happen that you would never expect. 

As I’ve learned personally, when the least of these have healed at the village, they have helped me to grow. They have helped me to move forward in the community. They’ve given me the support I need to be a great leader in the community and vice versa. 

And we see all sorts of amazing outcomes in reduced homelessness, increased health, managed behavioral health addictions, beat and defeated, and then folks coming back into the fold of the Village, back into the fold of the community and saying to those that are now moving into the Village that are still in the street, I did it, so can you. Believe in yourself because they believed in me.’

And now we get multiplication. We must be multiplying. And in order to multiply, we must take everyone in the story from those that are leading the county, from those that are leading organizations like Everyone Village and others, to those receiving services. Everyone has a part to play in that spectrum in making Lane County the healthiest and most flourishing county it can possibly be.

Presenter  Lane County Commissioner David Loveall:

Commissioner David Loveall So where do we go from here? Onward. I believe this is where we need to be heading as a county in 2026: 

We need to maintain and mentor strong leadership, and encourage and get behind those willing to make realistic, tough decisions to do the best that we can with what we have, with what’s in our hands. 

We must seek with great sacrifice, building a culture of service and resilience into our community by leading with the best example of who we are—not with our politics, not with our tribes, not with our preferences. These are what’s fueling great divisions, those we find ourselves beating against the wind and getting in the way.

To make the important difference in 2026 it must demand our ultimate goal is to improve lives as what we say as our mission statement and to say: This course is the only focus of what we do. In 2026, I pray we quit making excuses, stop blaming someone or something else and continue to do something ourselves, each one of us.

Government isn’t the people’s savior. I believe some 2,000 years ago somebody already took that job.

In regard to my housing comment, according to Kevin Dahlgren, independent journalist in Portland who has been over 30 years on the street dealing with homelessness, he says the truth is: Local government will not end the homeless crisis. Bureaucracy, lack of vision and political paralysis have ensured that. This they will never admit. What they do say: ‘If only they had a bigger budget, we could end this crisis once and for all.’ And we’ve seen where that’s taken us. 

What will make a difference are ordinary citizens who volunteer to walk the streets, see the suffering firsthand, and act with compassion instead of waiting for permission. Dahlgren continues: ‘The reality is passionate volunteers can often achieve more than paid professionals because they’re not bound by grant restrictions or political agendas. Many other social workers today are radicalized, blaming homelessness and addiction on capitalism rather than addressing the suffering right in front of them. Their focus isn’t ending homelessness, it’s ending capitalism.’ 

His point is also my point. To improve a life, we must stop making excuses, stop blaming, and do something ourselves. 

This past January, when I took over as your board chair, it was an overwhelming amount of fear spoken in those first number of meetings: Fear from marginalized community members, fear of new administration, fear of needs outpacing the money, fear of certain people who may hold different values than those who continue to show up in front of the microphones. Fear started to be the tool that was controlling the conversation, and then ultimately, it would control the decisions. 

I’m not calling people out. I mean, I’ve used fear myself as a motivator, as a flimsy guardrail to betting against myself when faced with high stakes challenges. Just before making a decision, I typically think of the worst thing that could happen. And if I could handle the worst thing that could happen, and if I could, then I’d make the decision to go forward. I’d plunge in and make those tough decisions. 

But using fear as a foundation to navigate is a lie. What I’ve discovered over the years as I’ve used this flawed method with fears imagined or otherwise, that not a single one, not a single fear, ever has came close to what I dreamt of. Why? Because we will by nature do something to avert failure and our worst fears, before they ever arrive. We’ll work so that they don’t. 

Over and over, fear proves to be wasted energy like a thief which steals the strength of the day. Fear steals courage too. Fear paints the wrong picture of what could be, and villainizes others in judgment who haven’t yet entered the story. 

Fear has no place here in Lane County, for I believe that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind. Courage doesn’t come from the absence of fear. It comes when we decide something matters more than the survival of our preferences and person. Moving the needle happens when we see another as someone worth risking our very selves for, to make their life better. 

So we all need to be on the same page, be on the same team, heading in the same direction for 2026, press on, fearless, on task, and united. 

As your board chair this past year, I strove to bring back a piece of inspiration and motivation to keep us more fully on task for the work we do. It’s the right work for all the right reasons. 

So to all of those doing this great work of improving lives in our organization, producing measurable fruit to our community at a cost to themselves: Keep it up. I have your back and you have my abundant gratitude. Blessings to you all and thank you. 

In closing, I’d like to call up Dr. Guy Higashi, New Hope pastor and our beloved chaplain of our Sheriff’s team.

Dr. Guy Higashi (New Hope)  I’ve been here at Lane County for about close to 17 years. I’m originally from Hawaii and Hawaii, we don’t have really north or south or east or west in particular. It’s a mountain or ocean. It’s pretty easy. So I have to look at my compass quite often when it says head north, head east. And so I’m always trying to find out what true north is. 

And so, being here, I realized that in 2026, the call is to find and and follow true north. It’s an internal compass of values and purpose and spiritual orientation that remains a powerful exhortation for us as personal and in our leadership development. 

True north is not a destination. It’s but a fixed point in the spinning world and a unique combination of our deepest values, beliefs, and guides us in our decisions, and when our external circumstances seem really turbulent.

In the spiritual context, for me, being a chaplain and a pastor, my true north is Jesus and the kingdom of God. But in business and government, true north serves as a shepherd guiding purpose to keep teams resilient, moving in the right direction. It’s more than a marketing slogan. It’s living a culture that drives our every decision. 

And so with that in mind, I know for myself I have a guiding principle of true north. Will you bow your heads and pray with me? 

Heavenly father, I thank you for the many blessings that you have provided us, above all, our wonderful family and our friends and neighbors that you allowed us to live our lives with. We are grateful for the opportunity to gather together, to serve others as you’ve taught us, to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

1 Timothy 2:1-2 reminds us that we should offer prayers for all those that are in authority, that we might live peacefully in unity and integrity in truth to our true north. We humbly come before you and seek your guidance. 

Thank you for our mayor, our city officials, our county commissioners, and entire body that is assembled here. Grant them the wisdom they need to navigate the complex and various interests that are brought before us. Give us the discernment to do what is right and just for all people. 

Unite us for all of us, that we might add value to others and love and serve the common goal. Guide our leaders and our conversations with grace and respect. In the midst of disagreement and difficult deliberation, Father, we ask that you would allow us to promote peace, safety, unity and justice in our community. May their work be a reflection of your love, your grace and commitment for a better tomorrow. You are our true north. 

We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. We say Amen. (Amen.)

Presenter David Loveall assembles a powerful lineup of Christian pastors for the 2026 ‘State of Lane County’ address to share a message of personal accountability.