Start Here: What Is This For?

Six conversations for committees and teams learning to participate more fully in Christ’s ministry

By Matthew J. Skolnik

A committee can fulfill its responsibilities faithfully and still wonder how its work connects with the life of the church. This collection creates room to ask that question together. Over six conversations, your group will 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. A finance committee, care team, nominating committee, property team, or ministry partnership will bring different responsibilities into the same conversation. You do not need to translate the series into a separate curriculum for each group. Its direction remains shared: deeper attention to purpose, relationships, gifts, and the life our work makes possible.

Give formation time

Plan for one conversation each month. Six months is a starting rhythm, not a deadline for becoming a different community. A group may stay with a conversation for a second meeting when it needs more time to listen or practice. Six conversations can therefore accompany six to twelve months of formation. You do not need additional sessions to prove that you have taken the work seriously.

Choose one recurring responsibility in the first conversation and keep returning to it. Each month’s practice develops that same work. Adapt or replace the previous practice when appropriate, rather than accumulating six new projects. A listening conversation, for example, may also help you understand your season, strengthen a partnership, and recognize another person’s gifts. Let the connections reduce the burden.

The promise of the series is modest and consequential: 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 as people and your belonging to Christ do not depend on demonstrating improvement.

The shared journey

A rhythm for the meeting

Please read the article and its Scripture passage before your meeting. Bring one observation or question to share. Chairs and conveners should send the reading in advance and provide a printed copy or an accessible digital version according to people’s needs. Each conversation includes its primary Scripture passage, with links to the surrounding chapter and further study.

Begin by remembering the previous month’s practice, hear Scripture, and allow room for silence. Explore the three questions together, agree on one manageable response, and pray. Let the group’s needs shape the pace. Make space for people to listen, reflect, and contribute without hurrying toward an answer.

If someone has not been able to read beforehand, offer a brief welcome into the theme and read the Scripture together. Continue the conversation at another meeting when helpful, making clear where you will resume. Do not rush a difficult experience to keep the calendar intact.

The questions move from noticing to examining to discerning. Hear what is present before explaining it. Examine assumptions and effects before choosing a solution. Then agree on one faithful response within the group’s authority and capacity. A member may pass, write a response, or contribute later. No one owes the group a personal disclosure.

One horizon, several questions

The collection uses the shalom of Christ as its shared horizon: life becoming whole in relationship with God, neighbors, ourselves, and creation. That horizon needs concrete questions. As helpful, use one or two of these lenses to examine the responsibility already before you:

• Discipleship and shared ministry: How does this work help people follow Christ and use their gifts?
• Belonging and participation: Who can enter, speak, influence a decision, and receive support?
• Justice and antiracism: Whose experience carries authority? What unequal pattern needs repair?
• Wholeness and sustainable care: Who receives care or rest, and who bears the cost?
• Learning and faithful change: What do we need to hear, try, adapt, or release in this season?

These are proposed questions for discernment, not an official list from the Book of Order and not five additional programs. Innovation is one possible response to what you learn. Sometimes faithfulness calls for a new practice; sometimes it calls for keeping a trustworthy promise or ending an unnecessary demand.

Carry a small record forward

Keep a brief practice record alongside your ordinary work: the responsibility, its hoped-for purpose, the perspective you need, the action agreed, who has freely accepted it, the support available, and the return date. Record what you learn when you return. Use ordinary records appropriately and protect confidential information. This is a memory aid, not a scorecard for members’ spirituality.

If nobody can accept an action, narrow it, pause something else, or name the need for help. An unclaimed task does not automatically belong to staff or the chair. At the same time, an assigned boundary need not end your concern for another person. A clear referral, an agreed handoff, or a question brought to the right body can be faithful participation.

Companions you may use

The six conversations stand on their own. Mission and the Shalom of Christ offers theological grounding and explains the lenses. Holding the Conversation and Sustaining the Practice helps a facilitator prepare, respond to difficulty, and keep the monthly commitment manageable. Scripture and Sources supplies contextual notes and a compact source guide. Read them when they help; they are not prerequisites.

At the end of the series, choose one practice to continue for three months. Review it briefly at each meeting, seek the perspective of someone affected, and adjust it when necessary. The final goal is a more faithful common life that continues after the last article has been read.

Acknowledgment

This article and its conversation 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. With gratitude for their insight, questions, and ministry alongside Matthew J. Skolnik, the author of this collection.

© 2026 Matthew J. Skolnik. Scripture excerpts retain their separate attribution and license.