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Professional

Performance

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n the 1970s, Peggy and Edwin Dixon

of Birmingham, Alabama, established

the Methodist Educational Leave Society

(MELS) as a strategy to improve preaching

in the North Alabama Conference of the

United Methodist Church. MELS offered

generous grants to enable United Methodist

pastors to take sabbatical leaves to study

preaching.

Soon the Dixon grants expanded to include

peer groups in addition to individual study

leaves. Howard Marks, pastor of St. John’s

United Methodist Church in Roebuck,

and Larry Dill, pastor of East Lake United

Methodist Church, approached the Dixons

and the MELS Board of Directors with an

idea for peer-group learning. In addition to

sabbatical leaves, they asked if the program

could be expanded to include a peer group of

eight who would study together over a period

of three to four years.

Ed Dixon had experienced the clout of peer

learning at the Harvard School of Business.

“In the 16-week Program for Young

Executives,” he said, “I noticed that I learned

as much or more from my peers than from

the professors.” He encouraged the MELS

Board to experiment with a peer learning

program. Self-selecting peer groups took

charge of their own learning by designing

unique “non-churchy” travel/study programs

whose goal was improving excellence in

preaching. Pastoral leaders in peer groups

studied together over time and held one

another accountable to the learnings.

The Institute for Clergy Excellence was

founded in September 2002 by nine pastors

whose preaching had been transformed by

MELS. They invited Ed and David Dixon

to join them on a writing team to prepare

a grant proposal for the Lilly Endowment,

Inc. The Dixons encouraged the team to

expand the peer groups beyond the United

Methodist clergy of North Alabama. Since

its inception in 2002,The Institute for Clergy

Excellence (ICE) has sponsored peer groups

with 192 pastoral leaders, including rabbis,

from 28 denominations in nine states.

ICE offers a learning approach that employs

self-directed learning as its core operational

strategy. This methodology, which affords

adults the opportunity to take charge of their

own learning, has been developed and tested

for over 30 years.

The generosity of Ed and Peggy Dixon

gave pastors who participated in MELS the

opportunity to design the learning experience

that they believed would best sustain them in

ministry excellence.The ICE program, in the

tradition of MELS, assumes that pastoral

leaders know what they need to be sustained

in excellent ministry. It assumes also that

pastors in peer groups can formulate how to

go about meeting that need.

Clergy who participate in peer groups that

promote self-directed learning strengthen

each other.Members of a peer group have the

support to discern and make needed changes,

as they go along. Interdenominational peer

groups give pastors an opportunity to share

vulnerabilities without fear of competition

for future churches or judgment by a

denominational leader.

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Congregations benefit as well. A national

study recently commissioned by the Lilly

Endowment found that congregations served

by a pastor engaged in a peer learning group

are more likely to:

• Be highly participatory and emphasize

community service

• Experience numerical growth

• Have strong youth ministries, preparing

young people for service

In addition, their pastoral leaders also spend

more time effectively representing the church

in the community.

Since 2002, ICE has been funded by:

• The Lilly Endowment, Inc.

• The Dixon Foundation

• The Marie A. and Leon W. Bone

Charitable Trust

• The Daniel Foundation of Alabama

• The Warren P. and Ava F. Sewell

Foundation

• ICE Board of Directors’ gifts

• Fees from peer group participants

• Fees from participants’ churches or

ministry settings

• Individual contributions from supporters

who believe in the method

More than thirty years after Ed and Peggy

Dixon began implementing programs to help

clergy excel, self-directed learning continues

to be tested and refined by the Institute.

Now, meet Larry Dixon with The Institute

for Clergy Excellence.