I think I understand what you mean by excessive emphasis on “leadership development” which ranges in how beneficial it is, some such programs having inadvertently imported assumptions and practices of the “corporate excellence” world, e.g. elder session as “board of directors.” Personally, I think the whole “servant leadership” fad has been taken too far. How about we train some servant followers who submit to our overseers, church authority, and ultimately to Christ?

My church started an Adult Christian Formation program about three years ago, and it is by all accounts doing very well and meeting a real need. In between the second and third services on Sunday, there’s a 45-minute lecture on some topic related to Christian formation (theology, Bible studies, apologetics, sin and grace, world religions, prayer, etc…) Most of the time, these lectures are linked into a series, so we get two, three, or four consecutive lectures exploring a particular topic.

I think what makes it work is that it’s not all one pastor doing this. We have our full-time rector and curate, but we also have a wonderful retired priest who is a marvelous teacher. Then we have non-clergy who occasionally give lectures as well, based on their fields of expertise. So, this year we have had our rector talk about the state of the Anglican communion, and Anglican church history; our curate has a whole series of talks scheduled on gender, marriage, and chastity (from an orthodox perspective!), our retired priest did a series on the problem of innocent suffering (moving through Buddism, Islam, and Judaism before explaining how Christianity resolves it).

There’s no way that any one person could know the material well enough to lecture on all these different topics… so having a team of teachers allows for a broad range of important subjects to be covered, with the teacher well matched to the subject in each case. It doesn’t all have to be clergy, either. I’ve actually become part of the regular “teaching team” along side our three priests, even though I am just a regular parishioner; I bring different subject-area strengths to the table (literature and philosophy).

The not-so-good-news is that many existing elders probably need this training, too.

Before finding a church to attend, I also attended a variety of churches where the main crux of the sermon was “Are you saved?” And I knew back then that such sermons on a Sunday would get old and that I would thirst for something deeper.

I still struggle to find good a good Bible study with other people outside Sunday at church. A lot of people don’t want to take the time to delve deeper into Scripture and to know about what it really says. And as you articulate in your post, many studies revolve around how Scripture makes a person feel and the kinds of emotions it engenders. Right now I use commentaries on my own in studying, and I do use several online resources as well as talk to my priest a great deal about prayer, theology, and spiritual growth one-on-one. I also have two close friends with whom I talk about theology much of the time. But I wish I had something more.

I do wish that more lay folks were more motivated to read more and learn more theology and doctrine on their own and to see how it informs individual and corporate praxis so that they make better disciples in addition to being a better disciple themselves.