What Clergy Need to Thrive: Our response

Since 2017 the Center for Lifelong Learning has participated in the Thriving in Ministry initiative of the Lilly Endowment. Columbia seminar is one of 129 organizations across the country participating in this initiative.

The Thriving in Ministry initiative seeks to “cultivate deep friendship among pastors, walk alongside pastors and foster pastors’ wellbeing.

The projects support pastors in congregational ministries facing transitions, such as beginning in a new congregation or preparing for retirement, as well as those who share common experiences, such as women of color in ministry, bi- or multi-vocational pastors, or pastors in rural communities.”

The Center for Lifelong Learning interprets the Thriving in Ministry initiative through its Pastoral Excellence Programs: the Leadership in Ministry workshops, Ministering to Ministers, and the Colloquy for Clergy series. Over 100 clergy participate in these programs annually.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

The insights we have gained about what pastors need to thrive has informed the adaptation of the program designs and experience. What we’ve learned about what pastors need to thrive, which we strive to meet, includes:

• Providing an opportunity for self-organized peer coaching groups to gather for seasons of time around a focused purpose for 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 challenges to promote growth and responsibility for self. The peer-learning and peer-mentoring context give evidence of providing the right level of accountability for this.

• Providing extravagant hospitality as part of any learning experience.

Opportunities to participate in the Pastoral Excellence Programs: to support your thriving in ministry are available at the Center for Lifelong Learning.

Please join us, we’re here to support you in your calling.

To learn more about CLL courses and programs, visit Continuing Education | The Center for Lifelong Learning | Atlanta, GA (ctsnet.edu).