Start Here: What Is This For?
Begin here for the monthly rhythm, preparation, and one practice carried through the six conversations.
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← Formation Series
Formation · Series
What Is This For?
Six monthly conversations for committees and teams learning to participate more fully in Christ’s ministry.
A committee can fulfill its responsibilities faithfully and still wonder how its work connects with the life of the church. Follow one ordinary responsibility toward the people it serves, listen to their experience, and develop a practice that helps your work contribute to Christ’s shalom. Every committee and team uses the same readings and questions.
Begin with a shared rhythm
Read the start guide for advance preparation, a shared conversation rhythm, and a simple record of the practice you carry forward. The six conversations stand on their own. The companions are optional.
This series grows from the original essay, What Is This For?.
The series promise
Your group can become better able to explain what its work is for, hear the people affected, share responsibility with care, and recognize fruit beyond a completed agenda. Christ’s grace precedes the process. Your worth and belonging to Christ do not depend on demonstrating improvement.
The change we hope to practice
Over time, ordinary committee work can become more attentive to people, more connected with the whole body, and more faithful to the ministry entrusted to it. Follow one recurring responsibility throughout the series. Develop, adapt, or replace the practice as you learn. Do not accumulate six new projects.
6 movements
Six conversations for slow formation
Move through the conversations in order, one each month. Keep returning to one responsibility and the people it affects. Give listening, practice, and reflection time to change the work.
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Conversation 1 What Is Our Work For? Connect one ordinary responsibility with the people it serves and the fruit you hope it will bear in Christ's ministry. Read: Ephesians 4:11–16 →
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Conversation 2 What Season Are We In? Discern what the community needs now and choose a sustainable response that fits this season. Read: Mark 6:30–44 →
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Conversation 3 How Does Our Part Serve the Whole? Strengthen one relationship through which your group's responsibilities contribute to the ministry of the whole community. Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 →
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Conversation 4 Whose Gifts Are We Learning to Recognize? Learn to recognize, invite, and support another person's gifts without reducing that person to a vacancy or an unpaid task. Read: 1 Peter 4:7–11 →
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Conversation 5 What Are Our Meetings Teaching Us? Change one repeated meeting practice so it strengthens shared discernment and ministry between meetings. Read: Colossians 3:12–17 →
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Conversation 6 What Is Growing Among Us? Recognize fruit honestly, celebrate specific contributions, and choose one practice to sustain for the next three months. Read: John 15:1–12 →
With gratitude
These articles and conversations were influenced by the wisdom shared by the Presbytery of the Western Reserve (PWR) staff in September 2026: Judy Mitchell, Stated Clerk. Laura VanDale, Associate for Justice Ministries. and Josh Daum, Presbytery Operations Manager.
Written by Matthew J. Skolnik. © 2026 Matthew J. Skolnik. Scripture retains its separate attribution and license.
How to use the series
Gather as you are able.
Gather as a committee or team for one conversation each month. Please read the article and Scripture ahead of your meeting, and bring one observation or question to share. Six months is a starting rhythm. Give each conversation the time it needs, and return to it at a later meeting when helpful. Begin by remembering the previous practice, hear Scripture, explore the three questions, agree on one manageable response, and pray. Members may pass, write, or contribute later. At the end, sustain one practice for three further months.
Go deeper when helpful
Companion resources
These essays and supporting resources offer additional theological reflection, historical grounding, sources or practical wisdom. They are invitations to explore further, not prerequisites for beginning the series.
Mission and the Shalom of Christ
Explore Christ’s shalom and the questions that connect committee work with discipleship, belonging, justice, care, and faithful change.
Open resource →Holding the Conversation and Sustaining the Practice
Prepare a hospitable conversation, respond to difficulty, and sustain one manageable practice between meetings.
Open resource →Scripture and Sources
Read the biblical passages in context and explore the theological sources that inform the collection.
Open resource →An invitation
Begin with the people and responsibilities already before you. Receive the gifts present, tell the truth with care, and make room to discover what faithful participation in Christ’s ministry might become.