Leading congregations through various challenges and towards innovative changes can be difficult. It requires a level of discernment and action that maintains certain aspects of a congregation's traditions but disrupts others. In this course, participants will learn how to think both carefully and creatively about how to overcome various challenges in ministry by responsibly fostering innovation and change in ways that move forward their congregation's life and ministry together. 
 
About the course
Like others in the Lewis Center Church Leadership Certificate Program, this course is entirely online and takes place over six weeks. It involves six asynchronous learning modules, where participants will complete a set of readings and assignments within a specific time frame, and three synchronous learning Zoom sessions, where participants will join the instructor and others in the course for a live discussion. The synchronous Zoom session will take place from 10-11:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursdays, February 6, 27, and March13, 2025.
 
The textbook for this course is Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation, co-authored by Dr. F. Douglas Powe Jr. and Dr. Lovett H. Weems Jr., and and participants are asked to secure their own copy for the course. 
 
Course schedule and outline
Course begins February 1 and ends on March 14, 2025
Zoom Sessions: Thursdays, February 6, 27, and March 13 from 10-11:30 a.m. Eastern
Learning Module One: Strategic Innovation
Learning Module Two: Thinking about Fresh Expressions of Church
Learning Module Three: Innovation amidst Chaos
Learning Module Four: Intergenerational Ministry
Learning Module Five: People not Problems
Learning Module Six: A Mini-Capstone Project
 
If you have any questions or problems, please email pathways@wesleyseminary.edu.