Forum Days
Circle City Fellows is focused on equipping adults to integrate their faith into the workplace and beyond for the sake of the flourishing of the city. It is that last portion of our mission that leads us to engage our Fellows in our Saturday Forum Days. These all day events that happen six times during the fellowship turn our attention directly towards the city of Indianapolis. And they are planned under the guise of two key questions:
What makes for a thriving, flourishing city?
What’s your next right step to contribute to that thriving & flourishing? In fact, at our Closing Retreat, we invite each Fellow to share what they sense is their next right step to make this contribution. The reality is that class after class articulates the sentiment that these Forum Days are one of, if not the, highlight of their experience. They truly are great days that we spend together!
So what then are our themes and topics, knowing there are so many we could choose from?
October: The Story of Indianapolis through the lens of Land Use & Transit.
This day gives us great insight into the past of Indy and why the city is the way it is today from the history of being world-renowned for our public transit system to why that is so not true today to how the interstate destroyed neighborhoods and the influence of the KKK led to redlining in the city to Unigov and the impact of making a city “equal” to the county… and lots of other important information in between.
November: Implicit & Explicit Bias in You, Your Workplace, and Your City.
These three areas of focus serve to foster an eye towards equity and inclusion as we see how bias comes through in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Through our time, we are taken into an honest look that implicates us as individuals while also calling us to consider the bias in the entities of which we are apart.
December: Comprehensive Healthcare
With a focus particularly of learning from the safety-net hospital of Indy, Eskenazi Health Network, we learn of the successes and yet great need especially for the underserved and marginalized to get the healthcare they need. A special emphasis is given to the social determinants of health that enlightens us to realize how healthcare is actually only 10% of a person’s health. There are so many other factors outside of that which determine the health of people.
February: Education
Education is routinely touted as the key to a person’s successful future and therefore to a city’s prosperous future. Engaging leaders from the public, charter, and private school sectors offers a broad understanding of how education is leading to flourishing in Indy.
March: Critical Concerns of Indy
Taken on a year by year basis, this day serves as an opportunity to consider issues that are rising to the surface in impact on the city’s wellbeing. Past years’ topics have included Public Safety, COVID-19, Addiction Crisis, and Mental Health.
April: The Great Place of Indianapolis
The flourishing of a city begins with the flourishing of our neighborhoods and places. Drawing on a key 2020 initiative in Indianapolis called The Great Places, this day is spent in the Englewood neighborhood where we see what can be when civic, business, government, and the neighborhood itself work together toward a quality of life for all.
In each of these days, we are fortunate to hear from incredible leaders in our city who generously give of their time to be with us offering their expertise as well as their wisdom… and very often their insights on their faith impacting their work as well.
And why are these Saturdays such an important part of CCF? Because of the vision God gives us in Jeremiah 29:7 to “...work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.” This admonition from God to the people of God is a direct reflection of God’s call to Abraham when God said of Abraham and his descendents, “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others….All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
As we come to these Forum days, we see them as our investment to learn and understand so that we can follow in the footsteps of the people of God of old to “seek the peaceful welfare” of the city – so that we can be a blessing! And in doing so, we then can discern how we might, in whatever small way, contribute to that welfare – that thriving & flourishing – with our next right step.