[Oe List ...] Questions about the "Turn to the World"

[Isobel and Jim Bishop]

Hello David and colleagues,
Thank you for re-visiting our earlier work. It is fun as Joan Knutson  
says, to go and have a look at ourselves in the earlier times.
I have been trying to remember your face David. Interesting that you  
too were/ are a Presbyterian, like us, and some others, although our  
Denomination was represented in the Order, rather less that the  
Methodists, I recall.

  I remember when the Primal Community Experiment came up on the  
listserve about three or four years ago-  you referred to the S'70  
programme, and Jim and you and John Baggett in Room A...!  So here it  
is once more.

Jim is now 81, and very well- he says he will probably put some of  
what you have said in his memoirs- these are drafted sporadically, as  
between us, we still are engaged in a fair bit of grand child after  
School care.....Nevertheless, thank you for prompting him once again  
to get something written down!

Thankyou very much Randy and others for raising these questions.....

Grace and peace to you all,
Isobel Bishop.
On 05/08/2011, at 2:12 AM, David Walters wrote:

>
>
> The Summer Research Assembly in ’70 produced the working documents  
> for the Local Church Experiment, This followed many years of  
> involvement with the local church, principally through teaching RS1  
> and PLCs. I spent the summer in Room A with John Baggett and Jim  
> Bishop. Somewhere during the 1st week Bishop had an epiphany. This  
> model was backwards. Cadre, Congregation, Parish wasn’t going to  
> work. It didn’t to be Parish, Cadre, Congregation. His great  
> insight was that the parish was the door into which we must enter.  
> He would go up to the priors meeting in Room E each evening and  
> make the same argument that the model was wrong. Nobody would  
> listen. We can’t switch horses in the middle of the stream. We all  
> worked like trojans and finished our work.  Then everybody went  
> home to launch their LCXs.
>
> The next spring there was a great gathering in 5th city of priors  
> and pastors from the LCXs. It soon became painfully obvious that  
> the experiment was not working so well. Somebody got up later and  
> said all is perfect and good we have GRA coming up on the New  
> Social Vehicle to get ready for. And so we did. We worked through  
> the first three weeks with glorious abandon.  We were called to a  
> breakfast held in the courtyard on the westside campus where Joe  
> Mathews explained that we had made as bid booboo in the 1ste week  
> which meant that all the work of weeks 1, 2, and had to be done  
> over. And we proceeded to do so with the time left. We never did  
> get to do the work slated for week 4 which was to write a manifesto  
> similar to the Declaration of the Spirit Movement.
>
> I didn’t to the GRA in ’72 but one my next to the Atlanta House,  
> they all abuzz about some new thing called the Primal Community  
> Experiment because they were turning to the world. Everything I  
> could find around the house about the PVX sure looked like a quick  
> rewrite of Summer ’70 in secular language. There was a big chunk of  
> geography that looked like a parish, not much of a congregation,  
> all the house members and some neighborhood people who must be the  
> cadre.
>
> I missed the next couple of years when we shifted to ICA, moved to  
> Kemper and launched the Band of 24 around the World.
>
> Jim Bishop was right. I have often wondered what would have  
> happened if they had listened to him in Room E. We would have all  
> been going aroundsaying the parish is the key. Well……….it still is.  
> ICA needs to return to its roots.
>
> -David Walters
>
> --- rcwmbw at yahoo.com wrote:
>
> From: R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com>
> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>, Colleague  
> Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
> Subject: [Oe List ...] Questions about the "Turn to the World"
> Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 03:23:49 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> In 1972 the Kemper Insurance Co. gave the Ecumenical Institute its  
> 8-story office building at 4750 N. Sheridan Rd. in Chicago.  In and  
> around that year the Institute of Cultural Affairs was incorporated  
> and EI/ICA moved its headquarters from its "seminary campus" on the  
> west side to its "insurance building" on north side.  Subsequently  
> we drew a circle around the wedge blade and announced we were  
> making a "turn to the world."
>
> Here are some questions regarding "the turn:"
> What was going on in the world and internally with EI/O:E that  
> precipitated the "Turn to the World?"
> How did "the turn" affect our story about who we were and what we  
> were doing? (For example, what did we understand we were turning to  
> and what were we turning from?)
> What were the strategic and practical implications at that time?
> What are the implications today for ICAs around the world?
> The primary reason for asking these questions is, the Board of  
> Directors of ICA-USA, when it meets in Chicago each November,  
> dialogues on the issue of the long-term strategic direction and  
> approach of the organization.  This piece of our history could have  
> relevance for that dialogue this November.
>
> Please don't be restricted by the questions.  Any remembrances and  
> insights that you are willing to share will be useful and most  
> appreciated.
>
> Thank you,
> Randy Williams
> Acting Chair, ICA-USA Board of Directors
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