The insights we have gained about what pastors need to thrive have informed the adaptation of the program designs and experience within the Pastoral Excellence programs of the Center for Lifelong Learning.
Here’s what helps ministry leaders thrive:
Providing an opportunity for self-organized peer coaching groups to gather for a focused purpose of sharing, learning, feedback, and support
Reflecting on, redefining, and reclaiming a sense of calling during seasons of transition and identifiable epochs of one’s vocational trajectory
Helping clergy cultivate self-awareness (emotional intelligence), including how family of origin formation shaped, and continues to influence, relationships, values, and functioning in the pastoral roles
Providing a forum to set goals and make choices that optimize one’s professional and vocational skills as a way to claim and exert agency for one’s ministry and vocation
Offering coaching and peer mentoring as distinct helping resources
Providing opportunities to experience new or untried spiritual practices
Providing the right information at the right time. As we often say at the CLL, “You learn what you need to learn at the time you need to learn it, and not before.”
Providing honest, direct challenge to promote growth and responsibility for self. The peer-learning and peer-mentoring context gives evidence of providing the right level of accountability for this.
Providing extravagant hospitality as part of any learning experience.
Interested in learning more about thriving in ministry? Review our Pastoral Excellence offerings HERE.
