August 30th, 2006 - Adult Education Planning Meeting

It can be easy to concentrate on the topic of the meeting, the agenda and what needs to be accomplished. What impressed me about this meeting were the participants; Janell, Teresa, Debi and Pastor Dayle. This was not an established group. This was our first meeting but all of us were past volunteers and woven into the fabric of our church life.

It was obvious we started and stayed on the same page in what we wanted to plan. Our suggestions for Adult Education overlapped and were enhanced by the ideas of everyone in the meeting. The discussion naturally flowed into ideas for the Hunger Awareness group, who are now scheduled for Adult Education hours in December.

Debi loaned me a book I was seeking but not knowing it was out there. I know that seems strange but the book is called Food & Faith, from the editor of Simpler Living, Compassionate Life which was on my list of Adult Education possibilities. This editor had this other book out about food awareness which will be helpful to the Hunger Awareness group.

Pastor Dayle provided plenty of material and we were able to schedule most of the year pulling from our ideas and what she presented us. As we were reviewing everything we talked about delving into Faithful and Courageous by Bishop Mark Hansen as an organizing book for the October Dessert Bible Study that is currently being planned.

This shows how easy it is to concentrate on accomplishments of the meeting. As I said, what caught my attention were the connections being made between us and how quickly things could be decided. When Teresa expressed an interest in exploring prayer, the idea of prayer witnesses for Lent was built up within minutes. We watched a video featuring Kelly Fryer whose No Experience Necessary book is planned as the basis for an Adult Education Bible Study in April. There was almost a shorthand understanding that we all had of the thoughts and meanings of what Kelly was presenting in the video.

It was an energizing and productive meeting but it seemed even more important we all left with more friendship and connections to each other than were there before the meeting.