wfn.org | Future Church Envisioning Work Group Reports

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>]

Reply-To: pcusanews list <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>
20-July-1998 
98214 
 
   Future Church Envisioning Work Group 
    Reports Initial Findings to the GAC 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C.-The commonly called "Blue Sky Committee" - or Future Church 
Envisioning Work Group - of the General Assembly Council (GAC) shared its 
vision of the church of tomorrow during its report to the Council here on 
June 11. 
 
    The 10-member think tank was authorized by the GAC in February to 
envision the status of the denomination in the future. The committee has 
been mandated to operate for two years and report its findings and 
recommendations to the GAC at the end of that time. The committee does not 
have any planning or implementation authority. It has been charged to look 
beyond the normal scope of the GAC's activities and envision what the GAC 
should be doing well into the new millennium. 
 
    "We are conducting a new type of visionary thinking that may be less 
apparently [or] immediately practical," said the Rev. Tom Fisher, Future 
Church Envisioning Work Group chair. "We have to talk about the future and 
think through whether the future will represent a simple continuation of 
the past and present or are there going to be radical discontinuities. 
 
    "It's not that we're trying to anticipate God's activity before God 
does God's thing," Fisher told the Presbyterian News Service. "It's more 
like `How do we get ourselves in position to be properly discerning of what 
God is doing in the world and appropriately respond?'" 
 
    The "Blue Sky" group held its first meeting in May in Louisville, Ky. 
During that meeting, Fisher said, committee members identified four primary 
concerns relevant to the church's future. Committee members determined the 
PC(USA) of the future must 
 
   * learn to stand in solidarity with people on their own turf and relate 
     to them on their own terms 
   * create within the church an "ethos of experimentation" or a "culture 
     of creativity" where no one is denied the joy of being part of the 
     creative enterprise as it pertains to envisioning her or his future 
   * work more to promote churchwide sharing and thinking, with 
     particular emphasis on informing members of the initiatives of the 
     "Blue Sky Committee" at the congregational level 
   * pay increasing attention to ecumenical and interfaith concerns in 
     the context in which the committee operates. 
 
    The other "Blue Sky Committee" members are Patricia Brown, moderator of 
the 209th General Assembly (1997); Youngil Cho, GAC chair in 1996-97; the 
Rev. Fred Denson, GAC chair in 1997-98; Cathy Chisolm, the current GAC 
chair; Travis Britten, youth member (Presbyterian Youth Connection); Andy 
Browne, youth member (GAC); Adelia Kelso, Congregational Ministries 
Division representative; the Rev. Marian McClure, Worldwide Ministries 
Division director; and Peter Pizor, Worldwide Ministries Division 
chair-elect. 
 
    Additional "Blue Sky" meetings are scheduled during September, November 
and March. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by PCUSA NEWS
  to the pcusanews list <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>.
  Send unsubscribe requests to pcusanews-request@pcusa80.pcusa.org