How can our ministries develop leaders that have fluency with a changing and complex future? Under the auspices of the Christian Futures Network, some 13 Christian leaders gathered in San Francisco on July 20-21, 2003 to examine how to raise up leaders of vision, creativity and foresight, through both formal and informal training. The participants represented theological think-tanks, global study centers, ministry associations and doctoral studies programs -- and a couple of lowly Episcopalian congregational development folk.
Here is a brief Summary by Rick Luoni (who attended with me), drawn from notes by leader Jay Gary:
1. Why Faith Needs Foresight
Jay Gary, president of PeakFutures in Colorado Springs suggested that a new
field of 'Christian futures' was now needed to help faith serve the purposes of God in our generation. In view of acclerating change, he appealed to 2 Peter 1:4-6, saying we
must add 'foresight' to our faith. To respond to the challenges before us, Gary claimed we must increase our 'response-ability' by adding foresight to our hindsight and insight.
2. The Foresight Principle
Dr. Richard Slaughter, foundational professor of foresight from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia defined 'foresight' as an in-built ability of humans "to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and forward view and to use the insights arising in organizationally useful ways." While individuals might reflectively use foresight in their daily lives, foresight in social groups is less practiced. Slaughter shared how businesses in the '90s such as Nokia or Interface became industry leaders by overcoming this shortsightedness through the use of "strategic" foresight tools, such as environmental scanning or trend analysis. Beyond this pragmatic use, he shared how "social" foresight operated progressively, to give leaders the tools to redesign society beyond the industrial age. Slaughter invited us to become program champions in our organizations and nurture them as "institutions of foresight" that could "highlight dangers" or "create social innovations" and thereby participate in the "deep design" of our society at the "civilizational" level. Slaughter encouraged leaders to revise leadership paradigms and embrace the forward view as a significant domain of study and action.
3. The New Context of Christian Futures
Dr. Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Seminary, offered a review of 20th century literature, illustrating how faith had thought about the future. While many writers had considered the future of the church, they had largely approached the issue from a impressionistic, pietist, or pop futures framework. Despite efforts by missiologists, such as the late David Bosch, few Christian leaders had engaged in the kind of
depth analysis of the church and society that foresight demanded. The previous evening, Dr. Ted Peters, director of the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkley, Calif., had shared about his work in bio-ethics and how theologians were working to prevent genetic discrimination. Until ministry leaders become future fluent they will continue to be prey to repressive populist movements that seek to legitimate themselves through religion.