 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. Psalm 41.1 As the Psalmist says, there is a great thirst in the human soul for connection with the Divine, for a deeper relationship with God. It is through this deepening relationship with God that Christians experience transformation from lives focused elsewhere to lives of loving God and all of God’s creation, including others and ourselves. The Rev. Dr. Mark Lee For many, many years Adult Christian Formation has been a jewel in Plymouth’s crown of ministries. The Rev. Dr. Mark Lee served as our Adult Director of Christian Formation for eleven years before going back into full-time pastoral ministry in June 2020. Before him came the Rev. Julie Mavity-Maddelena and Alice Clark. Robust Adult Christian Formation has been vital at Plymouth since way before Rev. Hal Chorpenning became Senior Minister and that was 20 years ago now! It is a hallmark of our faith community of worship, learning and service. When Mark Lee left us, it was the height of the pandemic lockdown. All of the Adult Formation programming was on Zoom: Zoom Adult Forums on Sunday mornings and Zoom study groups during the week. At that time, Plymouth added 8 hours to my 20 hour a week schedule to lead adult formation study group programming. Hal took on staff liaison work with the Visiting Scholar Team. We have been attempting to fill Mark’s shoes ever since. Big shoes to fill! Mark was paid for 16 hours a week; but I know he regularly put in 20, at least. Hal and I do not have an extra 10 hours a piece on top of ministerial duties. Still, Plymouth managed to keep things going throughout these crazy years of pandemic programming, even hosting two wonderful Visiting Scholar weekends on Zoom in 2020-2021. We made it through because of so many lay volunteers. MANY, MANY THANKS
As most of you know, I will be retiring from parish ministry at the end of February 2023. And I want to leave Plymouth with the infrastructure for continuing its long-standing, robust Adult Christian Formation programming. At this point, our staffing plans at Plymouth do not include another Director of Adult Christian Formation due to budget concerns. Our ministerial staff will be back to two full-time ministers after I leave and there is no room in their job portfolios for hands-on adult formation leadership. So …. what is up with Adult Formation programming now?! We are rebuilding! How will it continue? With the guidance of the Christian Formation Board and with YOUR HELP! Lay organizational leadership will be imperative to keep Adult Formation up and running. I am working with the CF Board to organize one new ministry team, reorganize another and support a third existing one so Adult Formation programming will continue with high standards even with less staff input. The two full-time ministers will be available for content consultation. Here is the proposed plan:
And….plans are in the works for this coming fall. There will be Adult Forum and at least one study group on Sunday mornings and perhaps more study groups during the week. I am hoping to gather two groups at different times to study Brian McLaren’s new book, Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, the Disillusioned. (I am almost finished with the book. It is inspiring and enlightening!) And Brian will be with those study groups for an hour of online consultation on Sunday afternoon, September 25! More on Brian McLaren and the fall Adult Formation programming in next week’s reflection! Stay tuned! And with you on the journey,  * A Huge Thanks to all the volunteers who have sustained Adult Christian Formation since the pandemic lockdown in March 2020. Mea Culpa for anyone I forgot!! 2020-2021 Visiting Scholar Team Pat Slentz, chair Anna Olsen Stuart Yoshida Tom Bylander Tiffany Ayraud Adult Forum Team Sue Rutherford Bill Tucker MacKenzie Wiggs Laura Hill April Mason Wayne Carpenter Book Study Volunteers Viki Johnson Marty Marsh Anna Olsen Art Rooze Sara and Peter Mullarkey Laura Nelson Sarah Parmenter Elaine Kim AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. She will be retiring in February, 2023. Happy New Year! Today is a day full of hope. The trail through 2018 is behind us, with all its ambiguities, things joyful and terrible, and now 2019 lays before us. It is full of potential, pristine as a meadow of untrampled fresh snowfall. Yes, there may be some shadows from the edges of the forest, but there is so much possibility: you can ski this way or that, build a snow fort, make snow angels, even have a snowball fight with your kids. Or simply admire the way the sunlight glistens off the crystals, a million diamonds spread as far as you can see. Fresh, new, renewal beckons us in body and spirit. Christian Formation is breaking fresh ground; you enjoyed the Thrive programs offered in November. Now, starting this month, we will again go off the familiar path, court adventure, try some different things, even be a bit crazy as we seek to experience God. Isn’t that an important part of the spiritual journey? We are going to use the West Forum/Choir Room on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. for this experiment, at least through the spring. For many years, our Forum program has focused on lectures and presentations, which we have listened to eagerly, and asked great questions. Lectures are a great method of learning for some people and generations, but as education in general has moved away from “the sage on the stage” to the “guide by the side,” we want to expand our learning styles. Spiritual formation indeed involves the head but includes also “heart and hands and voices.” While we will certainly still have traditional presentations by outside groups, and events like Candidate Forums, we want to explore some new ways. We will continue to preserve elements we have valued from our past approach:
We want to build on the past, but increase our focus on fresh aspects:
The Formation Board realized that the Spirit was leading us in new directions, and has assembled an excited Revisioning Team, still open to new people, to imagine our use of the West Room. The Forum Planning Ministry Team had worked hard for many years developing the Forums, for which I am grateful, and I am thrilled at the energy the Revisioning Team is bringing to the table. (See me if you’d like to participate!) The Board realized the West Room is the largest educational space in our building, one of the best equipped, and amazingly flexible. We can set up with chairs for lectures or circles for intimate discussions, with tables for theology café or crafts, we can clear the floor for an indoor labyrinth, Spirit Yoga, meditation or dance. We can cover the whiteboard with insights and the walls with newsprint sheets of prayers. We can show film clips or listen to podcasts. The piano lets us explore song and music. Such an amazing space, a wonderful tool our congregants past and present have created! January 13 and 20, we will be introducing the as-yet-unnamed program and providing different ways for you to give your input to our work. Among other things, we will identify the spiritual “itches” that we have, those growing edges that sometimes annoy us, those places where the Spirit is disturbing our souls, those things that we know we need to work on in the safe space of life together with other people following God. On the 27th, we will try out dramatic improv as a way to get into the itches we identify in an embodied and full voiced way, to try on different solutions for size, and see what we discover we know deep in our being. In February, we will dig into Brené Brown’s ideas around empathy, through film, discussion and crafting. In March… Oh, I guess the Spirit hasn’t carried the team that far. What do you think would be good? This New Year, I invite you into this Christian Formation construction zone (look for the yellow tape!). Experiment with us; some things will be great, others may well flop -- and that’s OK. Roll up your sleeves, put on some googles (and maybe a helmet) since you never know what God might do when God’s people open to new moves of the Spirit. Peace, Rev. Dr. Mark Lee Director of Christian Formation (Adults) AuthorThe Rev. Dr. Mark Lee brings a passion for Christian education that bears fruit in social justice. He has had a lifelong fascination with theology, with a particular emphasis on how Biblical hermeneutics shape personal and political action. Read more about Mark.  Did you ever wonder where the adult Sunday School classes and Forums came from? You know that each Sunday during the Education For All Hour we offer a variety of opportunities for adults, as well as a full complement of children’s and youth classes. There are generally two “Study Groups,” classes that run usually for six weeks, and a “Forum," where the program changes weekly. The Forums are a longstanding tradition at Plymouth. For the last couple of years, we have aimed to build them around a monthly theme. So while each session stands alone, a person benefits from attending all the programs during a month. Ideally, the first week of the month we lay a theological foundation for the ensuing weeks. Why is this topic important to discuss at church? What are concepts or values from our theological toolkit of scripture, tradition, and contemporary spiritual reflection that help us address this set of issues? How does discussing this issue in our community of faith differ than if we were discussing the same issue at the Rotary Club? Then the ensuring weeks we dig deeper into the issue, often bringing in speakers from the wider community. We almost always have time for questions and discussion in the class, to hone our understandings. The Forum is at the west end of the building towards the memorial garden and labyrinth, through the art gallery. The Forums are planned by the Forum Ministry Team. The church staff annually sketches out the monthly topics, and the ministry team fills in the detailed programs. They meet roughly monthly to flesh out the programs. There is often a lot of creative discussion about how to approach a topic, and then a lot of brainstorming about appropriate resource people. The team is currently pretty small –- Ken Freese, Bruce Rhonda and Ken Klopenstein -– so would love to have some others join them (particularly some women and some younger people!). See any of them or me if you’re curious about our work or want to join. The other two offerings each week we call “Study Groups.” These generally run for six weeks, and use a variety of resources for content. Often there are books to read and discuss, sometimes they use video or web based curricula, or a class built around presentations and guest speakers, so the format varies widely. We work to have balance between three broad areas: spiritual, personal and social. Some topics are “spiritual” broadly construed –- theology, Bible, spiritual practices, or church life. Some topics are “personal” -– for example, relationships, parenting, recovery, or aging. And others are “social” – economics, environment, politics or social justice issues. I like to have co-leaders, or even a small team, to lead these classes, which provides coverage for absence and different teaching/learning styles. One of the classes is in the North Adult Ed Room, the first room on the left as you go down the north hallway; and the other is in the Fireside Room (which also houses our renewed library, watch for its grand opening for circulation!) east of the Fellowship Hall, with entrances off the front lobby. While once upon a time there was a monthly committee meeting to plan these classes, for the last several years we have found that having an annual half day workshop works better. People who have an idea for a class they’d like to offer, and people who want to help shape our offerings, gather together. They consider ideas people bring (and I bring a variety of other options to help prime the pump), give-and-take, pray, talk about the needs of the congregation, prioritize and work out the schedule for the coming program year. This year’s workshop, to plan the 2018-19 year, is Saturday, May 5 from 10 am to 3 pm in the Forum Room. We’ll have a light lunch together; if you’d like to participate in this workshop, please RSVP to me, mark@plymouthucc.org. All these programs are in our Education For All Hour, from 10:00 – 10:50 a.m. between our two worship services. An ongoing issue is being able to begin the classes and Forum on time, which trims our “50 minute hour” to 45 or even less. That makes it hard to do justice to the material, and does not respect the time and commitment of outside speakers who have come to present for us. So I’d encourage you to be on time. If you’ve come to the 9:00 a.m. worship service, move with all due speed from worship to class. (And encourage your children to do likewise.) This will enable everyone to get maximum benefit from the classes. One potential remedy for this challenge is for us to increase opportunities outside the traditional Sunday School hour. I would love to see us offer classes on a weekday evening, where there would be an hour-and-a-half together. This would let us explore material in more depth, and develop groups with greater trust and intimacy with greater potential for transformation. Talk to me, or the chair of the Christian Formation Board, Mari Strombom-Johnson if you’d like to explore expanding our offerings. I love that Plymouth is a community that values adult learning. The Formation Board explicitly includes adults in its mission, and we believe that Christian learning, growth and action (in other words, “Formation”) takes place throughout our entire life cycle. The board’s mission statement provides a great summary of what we want to accomplish through these programs: Rooted in the progressive Christian tradition of the U.C.C., the Christian Formation Board and its ministries teach, challenge, and equip Plymouth's worshiping community of children, youth, and adults to develop a lifelong transforming relationship with God that inspires action towards peace and justice for all of creation. Peace, Rev. Dr. Mark Lee Director of Christian Formation (Adults) AuthorThe Rev. Dr. Mark Lee brings a passion for Christian education that bears fruit in social justice. He has had a lifelong fascination with theology, with a particular emphasis on how Biblical hermeneutics shape personal and political action. Read more about Mark. |
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