by 
In November 2023, Blueprint 1543 hosted a reception in conjunction with the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, in San Antonio, Texas. While there we got to catch up with a number of colleagues over beverages and meals. At one such informal gathering, folks who we were meeting for the first time asked what Blueprint is all about. Before we could launch into our elevator pitch, one of our friends said to the table, “I got this,” and proceeded to explain Blueprint, maybe better than we could have.
When people re-tell things they tend to level out the details they regard as unimportant and sharpen the distinctive features that they think making the telling worth doing. Hearing ourselves and others explain Blueprint — or struggle to do so — has been valuable to us, and timely. As Blueprint 1543 moves from its childhood into its adolescence as an organization, we have been taking the time to re-examine how to communicate what we are all about. In the coming months, some changes to our website and other communications will begin to reveal what these re-examinations have yielded. I will give you a sneak-preview now.
In brief, Blueprint 1543 promotes integrated people, churches, and inquiry. Which people? Sciency people! “Sciency” people are those who work in science or tech areas or who find the work of the sciences particularly fascinating and useful.
(1) Integrated people: We support growth in personal faith and how that faith motivates and influences their scientific careers. Likewise, we want to see more theological-minded people of faith adopting the tools of the sciences to enrich their scholarship and intellectual leadership of their faith communities.
(2) Integrated churches: We encourage churches to nurture integrated sciency people and to welcome their contributions to strengthening church communities and their missions. That is, we encourage scientists and their intellectual contributions to be integrated into the life of churches.
(3) Integrated inquiry: We assist these well-integrated, sciency people in pioneering areas of scholarly inquiry that bring together the intellectual resources of Christian theology, philosophy, and the sciences. This creative, integrated inquiry will make progress on problems that matter to the life of the Church and the flourishing of the world.
In a nutshell, that’s what we’re about. More integrated sciency people, churches, and inquiry, will improve the health of the Church and the science and tech sphere. They will be better positioned to address the challenges that face the world now, and to reduce avoidable challenges of the future.
But how does Blueprint 1543 support integrated people, churches, and inquiry? Check out our website, YouTube channel, and future newsletters to find out.
-Justin L. Barrett
