One of the books the staff and deacons will be studying this fall is How Your Congregation Learns by Tim Shapiro. From the book, here is Peter Senge’s classic description of a learning organization: a place “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new andexpansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.”
One of my goals for this interim is that it be remembered as a time when the ministerial staff and the congregation continued in the great adventure of learning together. We never graduate from the school of life and faith and any new pastor will be more than pleased to join a congregation that is committed to life-long learning that covers all dimensions of life: “Powerful learning takes place when three realms intersect: the religious realm, the life-practice realm, and the organizational realm.”
~Dr. Ron Higdon