wfn.org | "Blue Sky" Committee Dreams the Church's Future

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15-October-1998 
98337 
 
    "Blue Sky" Committee Dreams the Church's Future 
 
    by Bill Lancaster 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-The Future Church Envisioning Committee, better known as 
"Blue Sky," gave a brief report to the General Assembly Council September 
26, but plans to make its full report in February. 
 
    Characterizing the committee as the Council's "dream team," the Rev. 
Thomas E. Fisher of Athens, Ohio, chair, said the group had met twice and 
focused on four areas: 
 
   *   seeking better ways of  "standing with people on their own turf and 
relating to people on their own terms" 
   *   "creating an ethos of experimentation, a culture of creativity - 
what we're talking about is an empowerment of the church at all levels to 
be experimental, to be creative" 
   *   promoting "whole-church thinking and sharing what's going on in 
various places - what's working, what's not working" 
   *   attending to our ecumenical and interfaith contexts. 
 
    Fisher said the committee hopes to learn from focus groups and 
coordinate with other groups, but to think further ahead than other groups 
and not be limited by practicality. 
 
    He recalled a story told by a high school senior on the committee who 
said that her pastor father had once asked her what would have happened if 
Martin Luther King Jr. had said not "I have a dream" but "I have a 
strategic plan." 
 
    "We can all be in the business of dreaming," he said. 

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