I first noticed the phenomenon when, almost three years ago, we invited Andrew Weaver to spend a day with us training clergy in the St. Louis area about how the religious right, through the manipulations of the IRD, was infiltrating our churches and disrupting their life as a community of faith. Having only sent out a flyer in the mail, with some e-mail follow-up (pretty standard communications techniques for an office as under-funded and under-staffed as we are), I was shocked to learn that the IRD had flown in a mole from Washington, D.C. to document, record, and report on the event; that ABC news had flown in a TV journalist to cover the day's happenings; and that members of the United Church of Christ's IRD related renewal group - the Biblical Witness Fellowship - had also sent representatives to the training to monitor and disrupt the proceedings.

That day alerted me to just how seriously we were being watched. It no longer felt like another day of training for our clergy - something we in judicatory offices do all the time without anyone taking notice.

About a month ago, I flew to New York to do a workshop with Andrew Weaver for an Interfaith gathering, and once again the IRD sent a mole there to record and report our actions.

In the last couple of weeks leading up to the training event in Philadelphia, a number of reports have come to me about preparations for this day of training by those who are feeling threatened by what I will be doing. Once again, the IRD related Biblical Witness Fellowship is orchestrating some sort of presence at the event - some of which is not necessarily nefarious, as I am sure that some of the clergy in the area who would be invited to attend have an affiliation to and affinity for the work of the BWF.

But they have gone beyond just attending and listening to and responding to whatever I might have to reveal about attacks on our churches. They have asked that they fly in their own representative to counter anything I might say. And their Executive Director, Rev. David Runnion-Bareford, has written a letter that I am told went to all of the churches in the Conference - and was intentionally not sent to the pastors, but to their lay contacts in the church. I have asked for a copy of that letter, and would like to report more about it next week. But as this news was shared with me just this morning, I have not yet seen it.

This is a tactic we have encountered many times from those active in the BWF. Letters are written to churches without the Conference knowing about it; and to church members without the pastor being aware of it. It is a serious breech of what most would recognize as covenantal, ethical, and professional boundaries - and bespeaks a level of underhandedness for which we have come to know the BWF.

All of this suggests that we are being watched and monitored very closely. It also suggests that we are hitting pretty close to the mark, and have become a serious threat to a couple of organizations that have been functioning under the radar for far too long.

It suggests, at the very least, that our work has just begun.