The third week of June the Diocese of Olympia welcomed 60 participants, 9 trainers and 2 bishops to the Dumas Bay Conference Center in Federal Way for our ninth week-long intensive session of The College for Congregational Development in Western Washington. While most participants are from the Diocese of Olympia, this year we also welcomed participants from the Dioceses of Atlanta, Kentucky, New York, Rochester, and Oregon.
Year A in the CCD curriculum focuses on data gathering – so in addition to learning the seven core models for Congregational Development, participants were assigned to do interviews in their home congregations before coming, and spent much of the week learning and honing data gathering skills for use with groups, large organizational systems, and with individuals. This year’s work focuses on getting our congregations and ourselves in touch with reality through the gathering of data and various tools to feed that information back to the people or organizations that produced it, in order to build toward positive change, growth, and development.
A big thanks to all the participants and trainers – it was an extremely successful week, and we graduated 22 of our second year students, all of whom are now equipped to continue their practice of congregational development in their home churches, working toward congregations that are healthier, more faithful, and more effective communities of faith.