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Persons + Two Days with Time to Think = Energy Click here to return to the Church Innovations web site. Pastors from two congregations, leaders from four church bodies, and a director of a church institute joined four Abilene Christian University deans and four faculty members in Abilene’s College of Biblical Studies for a two-day Think Tank, hosted by several Church Innovations’ staff members at Luther Seminary. The group included persons from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Kansas, Iowa, Germany, South Africa, Ohio, and Minnesota. These 20 very different persons dwelled in Luke 10 together, ate together, and worshipped together. Some participants attended a three-hour presentation, Missional Church 101, tailored for both academic and church leaders. This presentation laid out the early history of the church and academia, the development of the fact-value split out of enlightened thinking, and the resulting rise of the modern university. It then traced how these developments led to current ways of training leaders for all professions, from medicine and law to ministry and education, and society’s expectations of such trained leaders in both academia and the church. It also highlighted the reasons modern persons place faith in the private sphere, making it nearly impossible for us to speak of our faith without thinking that such sharing is an immoral act. The discussion that followed centered on the questions of where this history places us now and what leaders of churches and schools might do next. The Abilene Christian University participants worked on two projects: one making the school’s resources more available to the churches they wish to serve, and the other structuring their university’s curriculum so that graduates can be better equipped to think critically, globally, and missionally. Simultaneously, the group of leaders from congregations and church bodies shared their experiences of how congregations and the systems that support them might better order their life and work to intentionally participate in the mission of God. As Church Innovations’ staff persons facilitated the groups’ work, we were awed at the high energy and focus of these leaders. People managed very quickly to forge solid learning relationships within their working groups and across those three groups that we hope will move into the future. Abilene’s people treated us to a wonderful worship in the open atrium of Luther’s Northwestern Hall where participants shared evening song, scripture, and prayer. Our meals together gave us time to connect in personal ways across many lines. Coming to lunch or dinner, one could have found oneself seated with a bishop, a local church pastor, a church executive, or a dentist-turned professor and dean. It turned out that we had many things in common: our sense of Christian vocation, a longing for the church to be faithful in taking up God’s work, and a fondness for dwelling in the Word and learning from one another. The outcome of the Think Tank was a sense of much conversation, questioning, and hard work accomplished in a new setting amongst others doing the same thing, all with an eye toward being sent out in community, delivering hospitality to one another, and finding times and places to declare that the Kingdom of God is near. Pat Taylor Ellison, Ph.D., is the managing director of research for Church Innovations. |
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