Adrift in a Sea of Resources: The Quiet Crisis in Clergy Continuing Education

On a crisp winter morning in 2009, pastors from across the country gathered in Herndon, Virginia to explore how clergy learn—and don’t learn—in the twenty-first century. As it turns out, learning routinely happens in a hodgepodge of fits and starts that sometimes leaves perilous gaps in a pastor’s ministry.

One pastor told how he routinely picks the brain of a local synagogue leader because the rabbi is one of the few who actually listens and understands his challenges. Another cited spontaneous interventions from colleagues as the experiences that tend to teach him what he really needs to learn. Several said they’re inundated with available resources, from workshops to webinars, but too often find that what’s billed as a “best practice” is nothing but a gimmick.

The Social Sermon is a unique approach using social media to make synagogues, classrooms and other educational settings more participatory and communal.

The approach allows a rabbi, for instance, to compose a weekly sermon by posing ideas from the weekly Torah portion into an online communal conversation and allowing a discussion to unfold on Twitter or Facebook. Come Shabbat, the rabbi's sermon reflects a communal conversation, not just his or her personal reflections.