The purpose of the Lifelong Learning (LLL), formerly named the Adult Education Ministry Group, is to plan and facilitate opportunities for adult spiritual and intellectual growth that will enable participants to live out their faith more fully in our community and world.

This is accomplished by using a variety of media (films, podcasts, videos, books, the Internet, etc.) as well as speakers and formats to aid and promote discussion/action on current topics and topics of interest and importance. There are two components to LLL:

One is the Sunday morning Lifelong Learning sessions that take place from September through May (Labor Day through Memorial Day) from 9 to 9:45 am, just before the worship service. The ministry group meets in the summer and fall to develop a schedule of programs, and locate and secure speakers and/or materials to present each Sunday on the chosen topics. Topics are wide-ranging and cover everything from different aspects of the Bible, different religions, racial literacy, and volunteerism to the taking care of the environment and socially responsible and ethical investing.

The other is our Tuesday Night Faith & Spirituality discussions. We meet from 7 to 8:30 pm each Tuesday night, with rare exceptions, or in the summer when we might switch to twice monthly. We typically watch a 20 to 30 minute DVD (could be a single topic DVD or part of a weekly series), then discuss the DVD and opinions presented in it. Topics have covered such things as the reason for God, the stages of faith development, the reason we’re each here, Saving Jesus in a modern-day world, etc. We also periodically examine and discuss magazine article or recent news stories that are faith-related.

It’s hard to pick out a particular story or anecdote about how the group and its work has affected someone. Rather, it’s like so many things in life—at least one person has been and will be touched by something presented each week. And everyone who attends walks away with a little bit more knowledge than they came with, thinking about something thought-provoking that was presented or discussed. One woman, in fact, said she was grateful to have found the Tuesday night group because it had been years since she had such in-depth, thoughtful discussions about faith.