CHRISTIAN FUTURES Consultation
Is Ministry Ready for the Future?"
July 20-21, 2003 San Francisco
Hyatt Regency at Embarcadero Center

How can our ministries and faith communities develop leaders that have a fluency with a changing and complex future?

This day and a half consultation examined current theory and "best practices" in raising up leaders of vision, creativity and foresight, through both formal and informal training. We met immediately following the annual conference of the World Future Society. Leaders came and shared their institutions' experience in leadership development.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Educators, Trainers, Ministry CEOs, Leadership Consultants, Christian College or Seminary deans, Foundation officers, anyone who is seeking to help their institution add a "foresight" track to their training, degree program, or continuing education unit based on "futures study."

PROGRAM:
This is a working consultation limited to 19 participants. The consultation starts Sunday evening, July 20th. We will gather at 5:45-6:00 p.m. in the lobby of the Hyatt Embarcadero and then go to dinner together out on the town. Our focus that evening will be on getting acquainted and introducing the challenges. We will start back up at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning at the Embarcardero and go to 3:00 p.m. that afternoon.

SPEAKERS:

"Why Faith Needs Foresight"--Sunday Evening
Jay Gary, consultation convenor. Director of Christian Futures Network, and President of PeakFutures consulting, in Colorado Springs. Former conference planner with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. Lead developer of the popular Perspectives study program. 

"Designing Futures Education to Raise up Leaders with Foresight"--Monday morning
Dr. Richard Slaughter, educator. Director and Foundation Professor of Foresight, Australian Foresight Institute, Swinburne University of Technology, present chairman of World Futures Study Federation, general editor of the 4-volume Knowledge Base of Future Studies, the premier graduate textbook worldwide in this field. Click here for a .pdf model of the forward view.

"Where Do Our Ministries Go From Here?"--Monday afternoon
Dr. Todd Johnson, missiologist. Director, Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon Conwell Seminary and co-author of the authoritative World Christian Encyclopedia, second edition, 2001. Also co-author of World Christian Trends. Has served as a consultant to the long-term church planning arm for Youth with a Mission since its inception in 1983.


COST: $115 per person. To pay by check, send payment to the address at the bottom of this notice.

MEALS/HOTEL: Meals and housing costs are on your own. San Francisco has an excellent "BART" or rapid transit system. The Hyatt Regency is at Five Embarcadero Center, just across from the Market and Drum street exit of the BART-Embarcadero Station. For those traveling into SFO, the BART system will connect directly to the airport (after June 22nd), featuring a 21-minute travel time to the hotel.

If you would like to stay at the Embarcadero, we suggest making reservations through the WFS reservations page, as group rates are lower from $175 to $199 a room w/out tax, and 50% of the attendees will have checked out by Sunday evening. The Hyatt Regency Embarcadero San Francisco is convenient to Ghirardelli Square, North Beach and Union Square and is situated on San Francisco Bay in the Financial District and part of the dynamic eight block Embarcadero Center business and retail complex.

ESSAY: Read Exploring Christian Futures, a background paper on why this meeting is being held. For more context on Future studies and Foresight, browse these introductory papers by Dr. Richard Slaughter.

This is the first of a series of meetings over the next two years to bring shape and definition to the field of Christian futures as related to schools, congregations and mission agencies. A pre-consultation collection of speaker's essays will be sent in late-June to registered participants, allowing online discussions before the meeting.

Our next meeting will be in Virginia Beach, VA in late September, and in Atlanta, GA in November 2003 in conjunction with the AAR/SBL. If you would like to host a roundtable of this Christian futures track, please contact us.

SPONSOR:

Christian Futures Network
"helping faith communities cultivate foresight"
Phone: 719-636-2000
http://www.christianfutures.com