Plenary
Ecumenical Institute, Chicago
March 28, 1972
| MOVEMENT
CONTEXT | CONTINENTAL | |||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. We have just completed a nine week trip visiting
five geosocial continents and meeting with the leadership of the
Church in those areas. I want to share with you some things out
of the trip and then conclude with a summary of our global strategies.
We have no report in the sense of some sort of climax to convey
to you. We would like to convey to you the happening, and that
comes out just in sharing. We talked about the global trip as
being a prelude to gathering data for the next twenty years, and
the next four years, as a time to blast loose into the global.
We have talked about church renewal being finished. The past twenty
years in all of its hard work and indeed all of its glory has
ended. The thrust toward church renewal is finished and behind
us, though there is still much work to be done. What it means
to live out of a disciplined community in the form of the religious
life in the 20th century is the given. The tactical systems have
been welded out for renewal of the local congregation and the
troops are ready to move across the globe. And indeed the established
church is now out in the forefront calling on the troops. They
are aware of the need and are most willing for other troops to
come and help do the job. So church renewal is finished for the
revolutionary.
2. Thus we shift our emphasis now and the shift is
radical. You recall our history in the Christian Faith and Life
Community a number of years ago. Our task as we saw it then was
to impinge upon the church to renew it, and the church in waking
up could impinge upon the world and thereby renew the world. That
has been our operating theme ever since. Our basic task was to
renew the church so that the church could take its rightful place
in the center of the civilizing process and renew the world. We
also said that we need to move out and impact the world so that
a banner could be raised which would show concrete possibility.
Then the established church could see that renewal of society
could be accomplished and therefore it would move.
The radical image shift is that now our primary task
is to move into impact the world. That is where the next twenty
years will go. You will recall that we have "bracketed"
the international program up to this moment. This came about primarily
after the visit to Upsala, where we were asked questions about
where those local churches are that are being renewed or awakened/
where are you grounded spiritually, and finally what are you out
to accomplish? My, my, how the answers to those questions have
been fulfilled beyond our wildest dreams.
4. The local congregation has come to fruition. After Summer '70, and the instigation of the local church project that in principle is solved. As for being grounded spiritually the work we have done since summer 67 on the New Religious Mode has given us a methodology so that in every situation we touch the spirit and move much deeper into the midst of Being itself. This seems to be compounded and compounded each year. So that now we can see that every fat lady in every congregation across the globe, or wherever she is whether she is in a congregation or not, in principle has the possibility to Be and participate in the Other World. Now is the time to impact the world in terms of the social vision, the new evangelism and in terms of the social thrust and the New Social Vehicle. What we have on our hands is not to awaken the local church. That job is finished. We are out to see that every human being may know that life is significant and that every moment bubbles up within him with that truth. This is the job that we have before us.
5. Now I would like, if I may, to share with you
a series of fivepoint programs that we hammered out on the
trip. In many ways these are still tentative. Starting with the
global program, they probably will be strategic points and as
they get down into the area of regional programs they will be
more toward the tactical. In the global dimension they will be
long range. As we move down into region and metro they will get
more immediate.
GLOBAL FIVE POINT PROGRAM
6. The first thing we need is to build a GLOBAL MOVEMENT.
He have been primarily up to this point working on the "geo"
dimension of the geosocial grid. This has to continue with
penetrationpenetration in SeaPac, and SubAsia
where we have been working, penetration in North hfricaMiddle
East, penetration in Africa, penetration in Europe, in Latin American
and on and on. Primarily the ITI is the tool here for penetration.
The ITI's are sometimes preceded by formulation and penetration
teams and they are certainly followed by penetration.
7. Not only is penetration needed here but we see that building the global movement also means authentic collegiality coming into being. Authentic fellowhood takes place and the spiritual is present in the global movement. We have tapped the depth reservoir of the spirit deeps. We have a common universal language now that cuts across all barriers of the globe Here authentic collegiality can take place." I get so angry at those who are still talking about the barriers that block this kind of spirituality or this kind of common language, "No, It is already given." Authentic collegiality or fellowhood is present wherever you go because a spiritual relationship is already given and a common language is already there for us to use.
Then next we will need to build a global organization.
We need to avoid thinking of organization in a bureaucratic sense.
The form is necessary, though if you want to start building a
global organization maybe you would not even talk about form but
rather about images and other kinds of relationships. For instance,
you would speak of always operating out of the comprehensive.
You operate out of a forty year vision, instead of a two inch
vision. You do not fire your first round just as soon as you get
your gun loaded but you wait until the time is right. A global
organization or form has to be built on these kind of images and
relationships.
9. And then we have to establish a global symbolic
centrum. For better or for worse Chicago serves that function
now and in the visible future. Here has to be some sort of symbolic
centrum for a global movement to operate. You have to have glue
and it is up to this centrum to see that the glue and the nurture
system is provided. A nurturing process and a rotational assignment
system has' to' take place. The centrum provides the kind of image
relationship from which the rest of the movement operates.
10. Then secondly we have to build a GLOBAL HISTORICAL
ORDER. Beginning this summer we will move head on into that. In
one sense the historical order has been completed, yet it has
not. It is going to take another twenty years with a world wide
network of religious houses, I would say 324 but no, the number
is 1944. They must move from the regions into the metros and I
am not sure with the population increase in the next twenty years
that we will not have to move to the next level or we will not
make it. In a world wide network of religious houses, you can
see the setaside ones or the holloweyed or spirit
ones who stand there as the presence doing the task, knowing the
knowing that is intensified and is shoved into the transparent.
11. At the same time we must have a worldwide network
of local church projects built around the religious houses. The
key to the historical order is the local church experiment exploding
until there is spontaneous reduplication or replication
around the world.
12. Then you would need a worldwide network of popular
preaching. We have done a lot of work on that in the last year
and a half. In India we saw that preaching missions could come
back with new life. That tradition has been kept alive by E. Stanley
Jones. That would it mean to go into a village, a city or a suburb
and on a three night stand, with the churches doing door to door
knocking and getting the people out. You would not care why they
came. You would just be there to drop your curriculum bomb into
their midst each night. Or you might have a huge carnival to get
them there. Another dimension of popular preaching would be to
use the minute curriculum where anyone could have an effect in
the midst of any situation.
13. Another aspect would be a worldwide net of visitation
centers. By that, I mean the monk for a month program, or the
way station. Again, in India where the urban ashram (religious
house) has really only been in full force since last summer, there
were many people wanting to stop by and see what this was, to
spend a night, or a week. You can begin to think of systematic
ways around the world where people could spend a day, three days,
a weekend, a quarter, or a year. This would be part of building
the historical order.
14. Thirdly we teed to build a global training net.
You would be creating models for order training to be systematized
and expanded. One model might call for spending so many months
at base with your nose in an ecclesiola, a station and a team,
so many months in training courses and academy, so many months
in a religious house away from base, and so on. In this way you
could systematize order training, over a four year period preparing
people to fit any place anywhere in the world.
15. You would also need continental area training
institutes. These would be similar to our academy. In Seapac where
we have things turned on wide open you might have a training school
serve several areas which in SubAsia one would serve the
whole continent.
16. You would need a worldwide training model. Commonality
is crucial in this dimension. It keeps people from saying I was
trained by Peter or Paul or Barnabas or somebody else. You would
need common models and curricula by which people are trained throughout
the world.
17. Under the Global Training Net we also include
mass evangelism. You would need to train people and work out a
framework for obtaining forces and developing curriculum. Your
mass evangelism would be highly indirect. Today, you and I are
in a brand new epoch. The culture contact of the West has not
only impinged upon every dimension of society and every man's
world view wherever he is, but it has collapsed them and called
them radically into question. A horrifying vacuum is there. That
vacuum is being filled up at every moment. Reverend Jude Samson,
a colleague from the Marshall Islands, was talking with us and
said, "We in the third world are like a ship in the sea,
we are waiting for another ship to come by. And any ship that
comes by we are going to latch on to. We want you to come, we
are just ready , we are screaming for those who are ready to act."
Just as the scientific revolution crept up on the world and engulfed
it before we know it, it is with this spirit awakening for the
world. It is happening at this moment. It is as though history
has conspired that this revolution burst through at this time.
It could not have happened a few years earlier and it probably
could not happen a few years ';own the line. It is in this kind
of time we are called to mass evangelism.
18. Fourthly, we need to build a GLOBAL NEW SOCIAL
VEHICLE TACTICAL SYSTEM, This would require a research net like
we now have in its embryonic form. It would require tactical systems
themselves to be developed and would require practical demonstrations
as signs of the possibility. You would also heed a global permeation
curriculum, in order that the new social vehicle would have a
context.
19. Fifthly, we need to build a GLOBAL PERMEATION
NET. We have been emphasizing the geographical up to this time.
We need to penetrate geographically Africa, we need to penetrate
SubAsia, we need to penetrate all of Seapac, etc. and rightly
so, but now the shift must be to an emphasis on the social in
the geosocial. All the cultures of the Urs and all the global
religionsHinduism, Buddhism, Sinoism, Islam, and Animism,
will have to be penetrated. You an I have been reared on the contentless
Christ, and now that will be given back to us in a brand new way.
20. At the same time as we do this we need to move
into the Christian Judaic tradition: Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism,
Protestantism, the sectarian movement. We need to permeate the
new frontiers, ie. the new kinds of second stage revolutions.
There are the ones that are not out just spouting, but are those
who see that something ought to be done and quietly move into
genuinely do something. In this kind of permeating, I am sure
there will be selected dimensions to permeate. The Roman Catholic
Church for example, is turning out to be a great vehicle to permeate,
because you can find it wherever you go around the world. They
are there and they are ready to be impacted. Also they usually
pay you to permeate them, ie, you can many times get teaching
positions in their schools.
Another special arena would be to permeate the international
communities around the world. Primarily these are the English
speaking churches located in the major cities in each continent.
Those international communities are dead, no, that's not right,
they are in vaults, frozen so to speak. They love to be gotten
out and raised up. With a network of these communities around
the world you could finance the whole global movement. They have
the money, and the prestige and they are already geographically
located. You can also use these communities as a vehicle to move
into the national churches. That seems to be the best tactical
feature to use.
CONTINENTAL AND AREA STRATEGIES
22. How we move to the continents and areas with
some comments first about the general strategies. We are shifting
the main image or context from the continent to the area, primarily
in Seapac, although not yet in SubAsia. This is an important
shift. What it does is require radical rebrainwashing in regions
like Singapore. Singapore is one of the six regions in South South
East Asia but is the crucial city for that whole area to come
off with a single impact and image. Therefore Singapore must be
not only a region but the center of an area, and think areawise.
At the same time India still needs to hold to the continental
image, but sooner or later they will have to go to the area image.
In Pacifica you have 10,000 square miles in a region. There it
would be best to operate in regions or groups of metros (paremetros)
or even metros.
23. This kind of image of moving to the area is crucial
especially in Seapac where major movement work is being done.
What that will mean is that there will be a common focus related
to the area. Tokyo does not operate outside of its region unless
it is involved with Seoul which is one of the regions in the Northwest
area. And Davao does not operate outside of a relationship with
Taipei (one of the two regions in Taiwan). The finances also become
a part of the area operational image. You do not receive a stipend
in Davao unless it is related to the stipends and the tota1 operating
budget for that area including Taipei and Hong Kong. This kind
of area glue or image is crucial.
24. Then we want to expand religious houses to each
region except in Pacifica where we want a house for several metros.
Also it is crucial that we have a minimum of two couples for each
house, wherever you call them outposts or houses, What you need
is objectivity outside of your own immediate individuality or
family unit. Then also the houses have to be expanded to include
indigenous national people. Religious houses without national
people are not religious houses, they are not outposts. They are
simply a couple of us living there. They have to have the national
people there and these national people must be trained quickly
to be leaders in that house and in the region and area. In other
words the first prior of our religious houses should always be
a national or some indigenous person in that area.
25. Then we need to establish the local church project
in each region. And we must establish penetration and training
schools (i.e. ITI's and or Academies) in each continent or area.
Traveling penetration teams are not enough, they can awaken people,
get their saliva glands going, break open their vision, but they
cannot give them sustained training in methodology or blow them
loose so that they can internalize the methodology and embody
it in their everyday activity. Therefore, we need something like
a sixweek ITI. If we go to Latin America, our major penetration
tool will not be a penetration team but an ITI.
26. Then we need other training schools. We now have
advanced training in the ITI's for graduates, but this is not
sufficient. We need something like an eightweek academy
although we will not call it an academy. Even if you took the
academy exactly as it was last quarter and set it down overseas
it would not be an academy. It would be an utterly different dynamic
because of who the participants are and the situation. That is
why we need to call it a training school even though its construct
would be the construct of the Academy.
27. Each house or each area has to be utterly selfsupporting.
They cannot depend on money from anywhere else. Each region has
to raise money for the ITI's and training school and to account
for how it uses its money in each situation. At the same time
they have always to operate out of an image of poverty. Lastly
it has to build up a great backlog of funds in order to be able
to meet future demands. All you have to do is get a slight whiff
of this overall fivepoint strategy and you see what a large
amount of money we are going to need. In a separate report the
fivepoint strategy will be outlined for all the geosocial
continents and in detail for Seapac.
Joseph A. Slicker
Ecumenical Institute, Chicago March 28, 1972
| I. Build the Global Movement.
A. Emphasis on Penetration B. Create Authentic Collegiality C. Set up adequate global organization/form D. Establish a Global Symbolic Centrum |
| II. Build the Global Historical Order.
A. Set up a worldwide net of religious houses B. Set up a worldwide net of local church projects C. Set up a worldwide net of popular preaching D. Set up a worldwide net of visitation centers |
A. Systematize Order Training B. Establish continental/area training schools C. Develop worldwide training models D. Formulate a mass evangelism network |
| IV. Build the Global New Social Vehicle Tactical System.
A. Establish a worldwide research net B. Develop worldwide tactical demonstrations C. Provide concrete practical demonstrations
D. Build worldwide permeation curriculum |
| V. Build a Global Permeation Network.
A. Set up network on a global grid B. Permeate all social bodies on geosocial grid C. Impact the Roman Catholic Church D. Capture the International Communities |
I. Move to shift basic context from Continent to Area. II. Expand religious houses to each region. III. Establish a local church project in each region. IV. Establish penetration schools (ITI) and training institutes (Academy) in Continent/area. V. Undergird all operations with complete financial support. |