The Ministry Collaborative Podcast: Highlights from Our First Year
“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of...
Your Perspective, Insights, and Witness Make a Difference TMC thrives on listening to and learning from you – ministry leaders, TMC cohort facilitators, and other conversation partners across the country – who continually provide deep insights, alternative perspectives, and imagination that helps us discern where the...
"Lost In Translation" Using Paul’s engagement with the Athenians in Acts 17 as a backdrop, we are reflecting on the many gaps, disconnections, and misalignments we see across the landscape of ministry, along with some hopeful and constructive suggestions for how to respond faithfully. Divergent Boundaries and...
A few times per year, TMC curates some resources and content that our team is either paying close attention to or has developed ourselves, organized by topics that we see as especially relevant to a broad range of contexts. Pastors and lay leaders frequently utilize...
Blog series: "Don't Fall For It." This time of year, it's understandable that ministry leaders are tempted to zoom in on the nuts and bolts of fall planning and programming, trying to somehow manage everything that comes with it. For the next several weeks, we want...
The Ministry Collaborative is excited to announce and welcome The Rev. Dr. Amy Valdez Barker as our ministry’s Congregational and Pastoral Formation Curator! In her role with The Ministry Collaborative, Amy will draw on her decades of experience of working closely with pastors and congregations...
Our friend and colleague, Elizabeth Lynn, Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, recently published an incredibly helpful article in Faith and Leadership that outlines the myriad challenges many congregations face when it comes to church buildings, property, and space. In addition to summarizing the challenges, Elizabeth...
As we continue to respond to the needs we're encountering nationwide, we've once again curated some of our articles, podcasts, and other resources, organizing them under key areas of need and opportunity. Please use these resources in whatever way is most helpful to you in your...
[embeddoc url="https://mministry.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Up-Out-September-2022-3.pdf" viewer="google"]...
”
I was the Facilitator for the first New York City cohort, and at the time, I was working in theological education on Christian leadership formation, so it seemed like a natural fit. What I discovered, though, was something quite different from my “day job.” While the content and topics of the curriculum was a crucial part of our gatherings, it was the community of mutual care and support that made the content relevant, not the other way around. And second, having three years of strong bonding created an extraordinarily resilient community that, in turn, was able to build up resilience in our leaders. I think every member of my cohort went through significant seasons of both joy and heartache, professionally and vocationally, during our time. And the cohort, in turn, lived out the exhortation of Romans 12:15, “rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep,” with a depth and integrity that I have rarely experienced, and often doing both in the same gathering. It was a privilege and a blessing to me and my own faith and ministry to be their facilitator, and I am eternally grateful to the Ministry Collaborative for calling me to that work!”
“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was unique to my particular situation. It was needed, appreciated and healing. It was affirming. Most valuable was the unspoken understanding of what we all were facing in our ministry context. There was a sense that we could finish each other’s sentences. Solidarity and empathy.”
Graduation Date:
May 23, 2021
“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was unique to my particular situation. It was needed, appreciated and healing. It was affirming. Most valuable was the unspoken understanding of what we all were facing in our ministry context. There was a sense that we could finish each other’s sentences. Solidarity and empathy.”
Graduation Date:
May 23, 2021
“I truly looked forward to this every week. The discussion topics, activities, and small group conversations were all very rich and meaningful. This experience gave me space to reflect on what’s happening right now in my congregation and community. It helped me to think about what might be next in my own ministry. It offered some very concrete ways I might work on equipping leaders in my congregation. I really enjoyed meeting colleagues from different places, denominations, and contexts–and learning from their experiences and reflections. I also appreciated hearing further conversation and reinforcement in the podcasts.”
Graduation Date:
July 14, 2021
“The experience was, in one word, enriching. It was timely as well. I was at a critical point in my own ministry and this literally breathed life back into me. The time went by so fast that I didn’t even realize two months had passed. To be able to share that type of camaraderie with other preachers, and realize that my struggles are not isolated, was liberating.”
Graduation Date:
March 18, 2021
“It was great to find confirmation and affirmation of my ministry through the voices of other pastors. I particularly enjoyed the focused time on talking about each of us as individuals and pastors, and not so much on what our churches look like.”
Graduation Date:
January 31st, 2020