New Opportunities Emerging
CCD on Hiatus as Taskforce Dreams New Possibilities
Due to insufficient registrations for the new Saturday version of CCD, we are canceling the Saturday program for the fall of 2026. As we say in Congregational Development – this is good data! This is actually perfect timing: the Task Force for Healthy and Vital Congregations is specifically taking up the question of how we can best provide the tools of congregational development to lay and ordained leaders.
Our commitment to congregational development is not going away – the current moment invites us to imagine new possibilities for creating a community of practitioners in congregational development.
What Is Congregational Development?
Overview
Congregational Development equips lay and ordained leaders from congregations of all sizes, locations, and conditions with tools and models for helping their congregations to be more faithful, healthy, and effective.
Such tools help congregations to be:
- focused on their unique purpose and local context:
- connected to and expressive of the best of their heritage, ethos, and character;
- self-renewing and responsive to the challenges and opportunities before them;
- adept at getting all the elements of their common life to work together toward a common purpose;
- champions of transparency, collaboration, listening, trust, courage, forgiveness, openness, and flexibility – so that, guided by the Holy Spirit, all members of the congregation feel a greater sense of choice.
What do we mean by “faithful, healthy, and effective”?
By “faithful” we mean:
- a congregation’s commitment to the practice of a Christ-centered, baptismal faith in its communal life
- a congregation’s clarity about and focus on its core purpose within a larger understanding of the mission of the Church.
- a congregation’s ability to form Christians to embrace and develop their ability to be courageous, persevering, truthful, joyful, hopeful, compassionate, forgiving, and justice-loving.
By “healthy” we mean:
- the ability to engage important questions and issues and, as appropriate, to include as many people as possible in its listening, discernment, and decision-making processes.
- the ability to navigate conflict and welcome differing experiences and perspectives.
- the capacity for responsiveness and flexibility in its internal life and in responses to its context.
By “effective” we mean:
- structuring ministries, meetings, work, processes, and other efforts in a way that produces or leads to fruitfulness (see “Faithful” above).
- doing our best to be good stewards of the time, the skills, and the gifts of our people.
- effectiveness in a congregation does not mean that the congregation will never fail! It means it will not let a good failure go to waste – but will continually learn from every venture.
Dan Puchalla Named Director of the College for Congregational Development
We are pleased to announce that Andrea Mysen has passed the torch to Dan Puchalla, who is now the director of the program. Dan is the rector of St. Gregory’s in Deerfield and has been a CCD trainer since 2023. Dan can be reached by email at ccd@episcopalchicago.org.
Andrea will continue to serve as a trainer, alongside Jo Ann Lagman and Gregg Morris.