Project Directory

The Center for Courage & Renewal will use its Circle of Trust® approach to help pastoral leaders develop and nurture the collegial relationships vital to thriving in ministry and sustaining the work of faithfulness.  We will create and convene five communities of practice made up of twenty-five early career clergy and six to eight seasoned clergy and trained facilitators each.  These communities will gather for three, multiple-day retreats and monthly, small group peer learning calls over the course of a year-long program.  To sustain this project, the Center will incorporate the project into its operating budget and seek funding through partnerships, grants, individual donations, and project revenue.

Missio Seminary, an inter/multidenominational, evangelical school, seeks a five-year grant for partial funding of its Program for Urban Leaders and Pastors in Transition (PULPIT); an effort to support pastors serving urban congregations in the Philadelphia metropolitan region, and help them negotiate various key professional transitions at different stages of their ministerial careers.  The program will bring pastors together as peer colleagues to develop healthy support systems for each other, encourage them to attend to their own health and wellness, and equip them to address challenges faced by urban churches.  In addition, this endeavor will help the pastors develop flourishing relationships with other pastors that cross racial, ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries, and encourage them to help their congregations bridge these divides.  To sustain the program, Missio Seminary will incorporate programmatic components into its operating budget and its doctor of ministry degree program.

George Fox University seeks a five-year grant for its Portland Seminary to launch the Institute for Pastoral Thriving.  This effort will build one-year peer cohorts of eight to twelve pastors each to foster authentic relationships, offer safe spaces for exploring pastoral leadership challenges, nurture spiritual disciplines, and provide a network of allies to support their own thriving in ministry.  The Institute will directly address challenges to pastoral thriving, particularly professional transitions and the rapidly changing demographics of the Pacific Northwest.  It also will offer an annual symposium for all cohorts to gather as a larger body alongside the seminary community with the intent to foster fruitful conversations regarding pastoral spiritual renewal.  To sustain this project, George Fox University will seek funding from denominations and congregations and provide advanced standing credit in the seminary degree programs for project participants.

Grove City College, a Christian liberal arts and sciences college in western Pennsylvania, seeks a five-year grant for its Project on Rural Ministry (PRM). This effort will convene pastors who minister in denominationally diverse but geographically and demographically similar contexts to receive and share accrued wisdom concerning the practice of ministry in rural settings. The PRM will form three cohorts of 10 pastors each who serve rural and small town congregations in the Agricultural, Rust Belt, and Appalachian regions served by the college. Key program activities include: an opening and closing conference for combined cohorts; participation in a virtual network with clergy peers; regional single-cohort meetings; customized single-church site visits by consultants specializing in social work, entrepreneurship, and Christian ministry; and the provision of student interns and service learners who will respond to pastors’ requests for more concentrated resources based on their communities’ needs. To sustain this work, Grove City College will seek to establish and extend the work of the PRM by funding an ongoing Ministry Institute to foster engagement between college, church, and community. Project details may be reviewed at www.ruralministry.org.

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Inc. (CBF) seeks a four-year grant to create the Thriving in Ministry Initiative program, an effort to help clergy build and sustain collegial relationships to enhance their leadership capacities.  Pastors who are at the same stages in their careers or serve congregations in similar contexts will form peer colleague groups and meet monthly with experienced pastor-mentors, called CBF Pilots.  An initial gathering of all the cohorts will launch the program, and a capstone retreat will conclude each year.  Throughout the year, each cohort will collect their best insights and reflections and combine them into published leadership resources (called Gleanings for the Journey) to share with other pastors and congregations.  These resources may include written entries by both CBF Pilots and participants, podcasts, blogs, webinars and curricula.  To sustain this initiative, CBF will incorporate this program into its operating budget and solicit gifts from donors.

Esperanza is launching Renovación Pastoral (Pastoral Renewal) a program funded by the Lilly Endowment. Esperanza is a faith-based nonprofit organization driven by the biblical mandate to “serve the least of these.” We strengthen our Hispanic community through education, housing and economic development, immigration legal services, job training and advocacy. Renovación Pastoral supports new pastors in their first years of service to the Latino communities of Philadelphia, Allentown, Bethlehem, Lancaster, and Reading. Through Renovación Pastoral we offer these pastors a sacred space to be affirmed, to learn, and to be nurtured through mentoring that is focused on both spiritual and practical matters. Esperanza connects pastors in their first years of ministry with active and retired long-term pastors who have demonstrated longevity and success in local ministry, helping the younger pastors to transition successfully into congregational leadership, while building a pastoral legacy for the well-seasoned religious leaders of the Latino communities of Southeastern Pennsylvania.