We all know the importance of continuous learning. There are studies after studies showing the need and return on investment for learning. Our tribe traditionally reads a whole lot and attends lots of seminars and workshops. Many practice continuous learning. Yet we often stop too soon. We do not complete the cycle.
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” W.B. Yeats
We have become great collectors of knowledge, but we many times fail to do anything with our new-found knowledge. We fill our heads with good information, yet we often fail to take the steps to put into place this good information. We sometimes keep the information to ourselves and do not share it with our colleagues, peers, other leaders, and congregations. Have you been lighting the fire with the new information you are learning?Learning is only the first step. Doing something with it is the second step. We must apply our learnings. Therefore, I would like to challenge all of us to stop being learners. Instead, let’s all strive to be learning innovators. In other words, let’s not only create and sustain a culture of continuous learning (“that’s just who we are and what we practice”), but also become innovators as a result of our learning – learning innovators!
As learning innovators, we will be learning and sharing new ideas and information. We will be early adopters. We will become more comfortable in experimenting and trying new ministries or methods of offering or practicing current ministries. We will constantly be raising our bar of excellence in our pursuit of the mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We will become more effective, efficient, and focused on our mission.
Too many times our churches lose touch with their community and their local context. In other words, the culture around the church changes, but the church lags behind in adapting and keeping up with culture. Before we know it, we have become culturally irrelevant. We become foreign in our own neighborhoods. This leads to frustration and sometimes hopelessness. We cling to yesterday and its practices when our neighbors have moved ahead.
This fall the Susquehanna Conference will be launching new learning opportunities for both laity and clergy. Our purpose and hope is for all lay leaders and clergy to engage in some sort of learning opportunity, share the information back in their local context, and then create action steps in relationship to the learning.
“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
Mark Twain
We are United Methodist – a movement rooted in laity. The movement was revolutionary. The Good News was being spread in new ways. It was new thinking. It was a new day. For us to recapture our roots of once again being a revolutionary movement, we must become learning innovators. We will do our part to offer the opportunities, won’t you do your part and join us?
