Center for Learning

Creating thriving Presbyterian communities, one congregation at a time, with initiatives and programs:

Living Churches:

The curriculum of the Living Churches initiative focuses on two key issues: congregational leadership and organizational systems.

Leadership: Training for Pastors and lay leaders on leadership styles and best practices while emphasizing ways to lead missionally and strategically.

Systems: Team dynamics, leadership cultures, and context are all a part of the creation of sustainable, growthful, and spirit-based vision, mission, values, and strategies following in-depth discernment on:

• assessment of congregational resources and challenges,
• place-based evaluations of community structure, construct, and needs,
• mission clarification,
• development and implementation of solid, actionable plans.

PresbyLab:

Exploring New Ideas from the Center for Learning.

A specially curated, experiential, and experimental set of meetings for pastors to come together to explore some of the most important needs and curiosities of pastors and leaders.  A series of 2-hour laboratories, facilitated by professionals, practitioners, specialists, and thought leaders, utilizing interactive learning labs and videos to introduce practical—and sometimes more fun than practical! – ministry ideas and methodologies.

Scaling: The Center for Learning has received a second Thriving Congregations grant from the Lilly Endowment. We are actively working with churches in 12 other Presbyteries to bring them elements of the Living Churches curriculum and PresbyLab concepts. These actively facilitated exercises are designed to lead churches to recognize the God-directed horizons before them.

Contact Sheryl Helsinger or Shawn Barkley to find out more!

Matthew 25 Teams:

Gun Violence Prevention and Awareness: Since the start of 2024, crime data in the City of Cincinnati shows at least 165 gun-related incidents in the greater Cincinnati area. In the state of Ohio, Cincinnati has the second-most gun-related deaths (15 per 100,000 residents), behind only Cleveland, but gun violence among youth is on the increase.

And gun violence isn’t restricted to the city limits.  Brown and Adams Counties have more gun-related deaths than Hamilton County, and our northern Kentucky counties are close as well.

The Presbytery of Cincinnati values the pursuit of social justice as both part of our Christian calling, expressed through the scriptures, and part of our commitment to the Matthew 25 priorities of the PC (USA). We fervently pray and diligently work for a church where the diverse members of God’s human creation each have a full share of respect, dignity, resources, and power.

Our work in this area is grounded in three goals:

1. Assist congregations in moving along the continuum toward becoming anti-racist, multicultural congregations.
2. Create learning opportunities to move the needle on racial equity, within and across the Presbytery, supporting and executing the PC (USA) Matthew 25 principles in dismantling structural racism, and for study and action in confronting systemic racism.
3. Provide interaction and support the diversity of faith traditions throughout the Presbytery.

The Presbytery of Cincinnati joins ecumenically in the Greater Cincinnati area to serve as a significant force across the region, working towards racial justice and dismantling structural racism.