The Performance of Learning Tasks by the Church Session: Implications from the Literature on Leadership and the Group Task.

The parish administrative board--the Session--is an interactional group according to the operational definition as advanced by Gibb, Proshansky and Seidenberg. As a group it shares relatively common religious and moral values, as well as institutional goals. The perimeters of the Session's group life are clearly, if not legalistically, defined by the constitution of the United Presbyterian Church. Prescriptions for study are not so clearly spelled out, although the Session's willingness to study is assumed by the national church boards and agencies. Does the minister's style of leadership and the Session's task-orientation effect the board's functioning as a learning group? In this paper, an effort is made to find answers to some of these questions from the literature of small group research. Two hypotheses were advanced: (1) Administrative groups are differentiated from learning groups primarily by styles of leadership and group tasks and goals; and (2) Administrative groups in the church can become more effective at learning tasks by an educationally oriented and flexible leadership style of minister behavior and a commitment to study as well as to problem-solving and administration. The major conclusion of this paper is that an administrative group who perceives its work to be decision-making may not engage readily in other tasks, unless it, as a group, accepts such tasks and makes a commitment to them. (Author/CK)