As We Prepare to Close the Program, We Also Want to Highlight for Mid-Council Leaders

It was announced in March that the Small Church Residency Program will be winding down its work, with its final two classes of residents and be concluded at the end of 2017. If you missed that announcement or don’t know about the program, you can read more about it in this news story: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2016/3/9/small-church-residency-program-conclude-december-2/

As we prepare to close the program, we also want to highlight for Mid-Council Leaders some of the important learnings from the program that could be helpful in the ministries of presbyteries and congregations. We are also seeking your feedback to see what kinds of resources might be most helpful to you, if we were to develop some before the conclusion of the program to help enable presbyteries to do this work on their own.

There are two key components of the program that nurtured and strengthened new pastors of small churches that we believe presbyteries could continue to carry out on their own, with just a little bit of resourcing assistance from PMA.

By far, the most impactful aspect of the Small Church Residency Program is the model it has used in providing mentors and learning cluster groups for the pastoral residents. In this model, the presbytery provides a pastor-mentor to each resident who has experience in small church ministry and has some knowledge of the resident’s ministry context. That mentor meets at least once a month with the resident throughout the two-year residency. Along with the mentor, the presbytery develops a learning-cluster group of other new pastors that is led by mentors. Once a month, this group gathers for the better part of a day for worship, study on a variety of themes or subjects, a meal and fellowship and a time for case-study reflection from the residents’ and new pastors’ actual ministry experiences. The residents in the program have found this model to be incredibly helpful in providing support as well as helping them grow in their knowledge and leadership skills.

The other key piece of the program has been the trainings the new residents and mentors receive at the beginning of the residency and at the mid-point (after the first year) provided in Louisville, largely by staff of PMA. These trainings include a mentor training session for the mentors, as well as sessions for the residents on topics such as understanding the small church, church growth and revitalization and developing pastoral identity. For the most part, these sessions are focused on topics of practical ministry that tend not to be covered so much in their seminary education.

So our questions for you, Mid-Council Leaders across the denomination:

·  Would you be interested in setting up your own versions of mentoring programs and/or learning cluster groups for your new pastors?

·  If so, would you need some resources on mentor training or is that something you could do without help?

·  If we developed a video or two around the topics of Understanding the Small Church, Church Revitalization, The Life-Cycle of Congregations, Evangelism and Community Outreach in Small Churches would you use these? And if so, in what settings?

The Small Church Residency Program would very much like to receive your feedback as we consider the best ways to carry forth the learnings from the programs so that they might continue to benefit presbyteries and congregations, even as the program comes to a close. Please feel free to email me at if you have thoughts, questions, or input on this.

Blessings,

Cindy Cushman
Coordinator, Small Church Residency Program