Mission and Goals
Long-Range Project Vision
The Project is intended to motivate and equip Christians to be active and redemptive stewards of political cultures wherever they are found, with a special focus on the political culture(s) in which GFU operates: the United States of America and other nations, Oregon and other states, and Yamhill County and other counties. This includes:
a. Developing and articulating an understanding of political culture as part of God’s loving providence for humanity;
b. Engaging with the Christian community to develop and disseminate a vision of Christian stewardship of political culture, including enhancing civility while attending to the need for effective opposition to injustice, discrimination, and oppression;
c. Offering educational and inspirational structures to help people become better at tending their political cultures and communicating civilly, and holding politicians accountable for doing the same;
d. Developing and distributing accessible practical tools for the work of tending the political culture and expanding civility;
e. Continuous encouragement to those working to heal the political culture and build civility, possibly including
* fostering the creation and sustenance of working groups of political activists, office holders, citizens, etc., to cooperate across partisan divides to improve and strengthen their political culture;
* supporting students and others to find and pursue callings in this work.
* offering trainings and workshops.
* creating means of recognizing outstanding civility practitioners.
* convening ongoing dialogue about Christian ministry to political cultures.
f. Extending these developing concepts and practices about civility into local and interpersonal settings, including on-line, and into the most current topics, including equity and diversity issues.
Goals for 2021/22
a. Maintain and upgrade the Project’s on-line presence which:
* serves as an effective and continuous point of connection between the Project and its constituencies.
* offers new content multiple times per week selected from the following categories:
- academic and/or devotional reflections
- calendar and reports of events relevant to the Project
- practical training and tools to:
- understand and carry out stewardship of politics.
- conduct oneself civilly
- assess the behaviors and communications of political candidates or public officials, to hold them accountable for their stewardship of the political culture
- teach children to be stewards of our politics
- etc.
- links to resources: books, articles, academic papers, videos, trainings, tools, etc., whether created by the Project or others.
- conversation/discussion about the Project, political behavior, civility, etc., in podcasts, videos and other formats.
- lighter items, such as a “quote of the week”, a “Professor Civility” advice column, a weekly quiz/contest/game, “Civil/Uncivil” polls, and/or links to cartoons or other content.
- weekly e-mail newsletter.
b. Produce five events on campus on the Project theme, one or two of which may be a student and/or community project running over a period of time involving study and discussion and culminating in a useful civility-enhancing resource.
c. Develop a growing list of interested people with potential to enhance the Project’s access to and impact on relevant communities, and potential to support the Project on an ongoing basis.
d. Complete and submit for publication a series of (at least 5) articles on the Project theme, targeted for a range of publications and websites spanning a diverse cross section of the church.
e. Pursue publication of a book on the Project theme.
f. Develop a multipartisan/nonpartisan group of politically active people, including some with experience in electoral politics, to advise and accelerate Project work, including creation of events for candidates in the 21/22 election year cycle and/or organizing accountability structures for candidates’ civility in the 2022 election.
g. Build connections with other civility-promoting organizations, with a view toward contributing to a broad pro-civility movement.