Executive Summary

Springboard Gathering #3 – Junaluska North Carolina – November 30-December 2

The third Springboard Gathering of the Order was the largest gathering yet with over 40 participating either around the table or via Skype. Especially significant were the two young ladies from ICAI who brought a fresh perspective to many of the discussions and enabled reconsideration of how language is critical in speaking to a 21st century audience.

Besides the numerous people who were attending for the first time, there were many highlights not documented in the products that are available on the Repository. Jack Gilles opened with a period of silence to honor the death of Don Clark and then we sang the Doxology to Ghost Riders in the Sky followed by Those Who Wait On the Lord.

Jack’s gave a contextual spin on the journey of the Springboard gatherings and the accomplishments to date. He used the image of serving the “Blessed Unrest” as one way to define our task. One exciting image added during reflection was that of two sweeps of history; the ending of 400 years of renewal of the Historical Church, in which we trace our origins though the establishment of the Order Ecumenical and the new 400 year sweep of history that will be the emergence of Profound Humanness.

We then had a serious conversation and writing exercise on “What we are becoming?” that began with reading a greeting from Joe Slicker who reminded us how critical it was to be aware that the 21st century was not like the 20th and we should be careful not to poor new wine into old wineskins. After sharing and reflecting on our writings, the remainder of the evening was a celebration of our roots and early history of Fifth City and the EI through the eyes of a CBS program called “Look Up and Live” in which we saw the early community gathered in 1965. Long sections were devoted to hearing JW Mathews talk about the need for radical renewal of the Church. These DVDs are available from Marshall Jones or by a membership in ICAI. Finally, Marshall took us on an awesome journey of the history of Methodism and how the site we were on was hallowed ground.

Most of Saturday we spent in working groups based on our collective brainstorm of what we saw needed to be accomplished together. A very insightful workshop/discussion of what our name might be allowed to see that although we indeed represented the Order dynamic, it may be that our name will not be connected to the word Order. We will be an inclusive body, but at the core will be a covenanted group with marks that we need to decide regarding our profound identity. Working groups included: a. The guild, its formation and task b. The order, our declaration and form c. Suggested events and gatherings to sustain and expand participation d. Historical trends, visions and contradictions to be addressed e. Personal pages -- posting information on the web that lets us connect with one another f. Study: Looking for historical examples of what we are aiming to do g. Competencies and Stories -- gathering our experience in dispersion to see the key skills and competencies we have developed.

Our seven groups took this work and the Declaration draft produced at Abbey North gathering and created a powerful statement of our Declaration of Intent. We think this is ready for all of us to consider. We passed around a yellow page of paper for folks to sign and welcome others to signal their engagement with Springboard via email or posting your personal page.

The final plenary reporting and the closing reflection happened on Sunday morning. It was clear that we will be experimenting with giving form to how we Care for each other in this new body we are becoming, and all those who Care, especially in proto-Guilds we are working with as well as shaping our response to invitations already before us to enable massive development of a new breed of leaders. An example would be, assisting Eleanor Kibrick in the Nightingale movement of nurses dedicated the bringing a healthy world by 2020.

Looking to the future, we wish to invite your reflections on the work thus far. We view the documents as “living” and working documents – not a blog, but documents we will continue to refine and welcome the global feedback that will help that to occur.

For our next gathering, we have been invited by the Executive Director of ICA-USA, Mr. Nino Tillman, to allow him to host us in Chicago. We have set a tentative date of March 28-30, 2008 for that gathering. Conversations with Mr. Tillman will allow us to see if this is a viable option for us. We expect a much larger gathering and we intend to invite participation from younger people as well as those who do not have our historical memory and context.

On behalf of those gathered at Lake Junaluska Jack Gilles

06 Dec 2007