PMC Trainings Held in August and October
By Pat Taylor Ellison

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A primary goal of the Partnership for Missional Church is to innovate the capacities of our church partners. One of the ways we do this is by developing trainers and consultants among the staff and membership of the church bodies sponsoring PMC clusters.

Several partners came to the Church Innovations offices in late August for three days of training in Phase One of the PMC process. These partners were Bill Coyne, Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, Alan Walter, Len Dale and Bill George, Central States Synod ELCA, and Scott Hagley, Luther Seminary Ph.D. Program in Congregational Mission and Leadership.

They prepared for the event by using resources in print and on a Moodle online course site, and they each delivered two pieces of the three Phase One congregational events, encouraged and critiqued by their fellow learners and by the two leaders of the training, Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison, Managing Director of Research and Development for CI, and Rev. Bob Armstrong, Director of the PMC.

This rather rigorous and fast-paced training covered most of the pieces that are presented to congregational lay leaders during Phase One. The five training attendees demonstrated their grasp of the information, their knowledge of how to train, and their talent for knowing what is at stake at each particular point in the congregational events: where anxiety will be high, where confidence needs to be boosted, where pitfalls will arise. Although a person has completed the training, he or she needs a bit of seasoning at real cluster events before soloing. So the next step is for them to apprentice with a long-time CI consultant.

Still it is CI’s hope that spending three days in the material, trying it out, and reflecting upon the experience is one of the best ways of getting your hands dirty with the materials and processes, and in a safe environment where your trainers and peers can help you hone your skills.

The week of October 26-29, Bob and Pat will host 3 more days of training, this time for PMC’s Phase Two. If you are interested in taking part in that training or want to find out how your church body can benefit from PMC training, please contact Bob at barmstrong@churchinnovations.org.

Pat Taylor Ellison, Ph.D., is the managing director of research for Church Innovations.