The New Testament insists that we are a new community—one based on gifts, equality, and shared responsibility for God's mission to the world. But too often, we import secular patterns of leadership and management into the church. Some secular expertise is helpful in church administration and overall leadership development. At its heart, however, congregations are communities of transformation—places where people come to encounter God and know God more deeply.

The congregational educator is responsible for communicating a vision of this reality and helping people live into it. If adult education is NOT a program to attend, what is it? It is a process by which people grow in faith, learn to mentor others in faith, and practice Christianity in the world. You are not creating an audience for theology, Bible study, or spirituality. You are providing an environment in which the basics of Christian life and growth can happen. For serious congregants, adult education is not optional. Adult formation is the gathering and strengthening place for learning to be a Christian, for mentoring others in faith, and for practicing faith corporately. It is the heartbeat of churchgoing in the twenty-first century.

The community that understands adult formation in this way has made giant strides toward understanding Christian community. In settings of exploration, we learn to learn—pursuing, no matter our age or spiritual maturity, the deeper life of faith in God. Anyone who seriously engages this task knows that spirituality is life-long learning, a quest that drives the entirety of life.

And anyone who has spent time learning also knows that excellence in learning comes through teaching. One never really learns something until one teaches it. Being a learner means being a mentor, one who teaches and shapes the lives of those coming along the path. Sometimes this means:
·  formal teaching,
·  convening a small group,
·  mentoring a friend, spouse, or children, or
·  helping a young clergy person become skilled at his or her calling.
Mentoring takes numerous forms. And a learning congregation is called into the task of mentoring itself (and often its neighbors).

Learning and mentoring lead to practice. Without putting faith into practice, learning and teaching are empty acts. As the book of James reminds us, "Faith without works is dead." Learning, mentoring, and practicing form a circle of spiritual growth—one leading seamlessly to the other. The congregation who moves around that circle has created a new kind of community. No longer hierarchically or clerically based, the church becomes a community of learners, mentors, and practitioners—clergy and the baptized linked through spiritual friendship, common purpose, and Christian vocation. Gifts, training, expertise, and authority flow around the new communal vision and are no longer programs to protect or budget priorities to guard. Without a new community to support process, any process of adult formation will, ultimately, become just one more competitive program area. You are shaping human lives, not building a program.

Questions to consider:

• How does your congregation understand itself as "community"?
  
• What role does Adult Formation play in that self-understanding?
  
• How is the congregation organized?
  
• What would your congregation think of the words, "learners, mentors, and practitioners"?