How and what you learn will be shaped by your relationship to the community. Many men and women serving as educators grew up within the congregation itself—they are "informed insiders." If this applies to you:

• You will know a great deal about the congregation, its history, its strengths and weaknesses, and its current needs.
  
• You will know how to accomplish tasks, arrange events, and deal with congregational structure.
  
• You already possess a kind of local wisdom that it may take a hired professional staff person years to gain.

Yet you will be learning about the congregation. The views from the pews and from the clergy’s office are not identical:

• You will be learning about institutional business, budgets, power struggles, and conflict.
  
• Fellow parishioners will treat you differently, often expecting you to provide pastoral care.
  
• There will be many Sundays when you are working and not worshipping.
  
• You will be learning the difference between being a fellow or sister church member and being a minister (ordained or not) in a congregation.
  
• You will need to be more critical (as in "able to critique") about your community and where it may need to change.
  
• You will need resources, friends, co-workers, and a colleague group to help you navigate the transition. Some of these supports are more readily available to ordained persons than to lay educators—often the lay professional becomes isolated in the process of learning how to do congregational ministry. "Informed insiders" can have a difficult time seeing the "underbelly" of church life and may become disillusioned.