Diocese of Maryland College 2026: June 14-19 at the Claggett Center
The Diocese of Maryland hosted another summer intensive weeklong session at The Claggett Center this past June, welcoming 58 participants including 33 from Maryland and another 13 from other dioceses in Province 3, as well as a staff team of 12 trainers and interns.
This year’s focus was on the idea of listening in order to act as a lens for exploring a congregation’s culture and gifts for ministry, as well as their connection to their neighborhood. As a part of this work small group teams took a half-day field trip to local churches to tour their facilities and interview clergy and lay leaders. Using appreciative inquiry as the basis for these visits and conversations helped participants develop tools to bring back to their own ministry contexts. By the end of the week congregational teams worked to discern and begin planning an intervention to bring back to their congregations, preparing to do further work in areas ranging from group leadership development to Episcopal identity to neighborhood mapping and more.
The capstone of the week was the traditional “Special Dinner” where 27 people were recognized for attending the required two years of the program as well as all work needed to graduate from The College. (See photo below.)
photo credit: Lisa Boudreaux
Registration for the 2027 summer program, running June 13-18, will open in early January 2027
– which means now’s the time to begin pulling together your team! For more information visit https://episcopalmaryland.org/ccdmd/ or email the Rev. Kristin Krantz.
The College is a comprehensive training program that seeks to equip lay leaders and clergy in congregational and organization development to more effectively lead their communities.
The goals of the College are:
- To support healthy, faithful, sustainable churches living into their calling to be the Body of Christ in their own time and place.
- To empower congregations be deeply grounded in their own Episcopal identity within their context.
- To develop leaders who understand the challenges and opportunities they face and are equipped to respond, both individually and together, with their faith communities.
- To support a practice of congregational development throughout the Diocese, with a common language and culture, and recognizing that this is possible for churches of all sizes, locations, and conditions.
- To build connections and a community of love among leaders within and between congregations that strengthen shared learning, encouragement, community, and inspiration.
The College will be offered as an intensive summer week-long program at The Claggett Center in Adamstown, MD the week of June 14-19, 2026. And Province III will help to off-set the cost of attendance for residents of Province III dioceses outside of Maryland.
If you have questions or would like more information, please email Kristin Krantz at ccd@episcopalmaryland.org.
2025 Summer College Serves Dioceses Across the Province - from the Diocese of Virginia Clergy Communique
Photo credit: The Rev’d Katherine Dougherty
Church leaders may feel like successful ministry depends on magic or the charismatic priest. Not so! The College for Congregational Development offers tools and resources for helping lay leaders and clergy grow churches to be more effective, faithful, and joyful.
Participants can register in teams (preferred) or individually for either a week-long intensive program during the summer or a six-Saturday program during the fall. Both programs last two years and give participants the opportunity to bring a real-life challenge or goal to The College and turn it into a project that benefits their church.
Although it is hosted in the Diocese of Maryland, this summer four people from the Diocese of Virginia started The College and one graduated. Additionally, the Rev. Shirley Smith Graham finished her intern-year as a trainer for The College in Maryland, while helping to re-launch the Diocese of Rochester’s program. She will remain a trainer for Maryland’s College.
Trainers may be invited to participate in Colleges across the United States. Participants also may register in any College.
The relationship between Virginia and Maryland is an example of life-giving cooperation, said Smith Graham. “Just as each church has specific skills and charisms, so it is with dioceses. We do our best work when we practice ministry as an ecosystem and rely on each other in mutually interdependent ways. I’m grateful that The College in Maryland is so easily accessible to folks in Virginia.”
The College for Congregational Development is a comprehensive training program that seeks to nurture and develop lay and clergy leadership by drawing on congregational and organization development theory and practice. We focus on developing healthy, responsive leadership, facilitation skills, and teamwork through understanding of Anglican/Episcopal ethos, culture, spirituality, and ways of being the church today.
The goals of the College are:
- Healthy, faithful, sustainable churches living into their calling to be the Body of Christ in their own place and time and people.
- Congregations that are deeply grounded in their own Episcopal identity, in a way that fits with their context.
- Leaders who know the challenges and opportunities they face and are equipped to respond, both individually and together with their faith communities.
- A common language and culture of practice of congregational development throughout the Diocese, recognizing that this is possible for churches of all sizes, locations, and conditions.
- Connections among leaders within and between congregations that strengthen shared learning, encouragement, community, and inspiration.
The focus of the College is on congregational teams learning together in order to broaden congregational leadership. We believe teams are best able to implement positive, shared, and long-lasting change for the health of their community. Many of the exercises the College uses concentrate on your specific congregation’s experience, inviting you to go deep in both reflection and planning.
If you have questions or would like more information, please email The Rev. Canon Kristin Krantz at ccd@episcopalmaryland.org.