Healthy Congregations Need Healthy Pastors

By Lis Van Harten

(First appeared in the May 2006 issue of Ministry Reports to Classes and Councils.)

A healthy congregation doesn’t just happen. It takes intentional effort on the part of many within the congregation. And one congregation won’t necessarily do exactly what another one does in order to obtain and maintain that health. However there’s one common factor that healthy congregations share—a healthy pastor.

The Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) project focuses on pastors. It offers them a variety of opportunities to improve or maintain their pastoral health. Peer learning (PL) groups are opportunities for pastors to get together for one year. Their time is spent learning, sharing, praying, encouraging and receiving encouragement. To date, one third of CRC pastors have been part of a PL group. The groups are having a profound impact on many who are involved.  Pastor Roger Visker, a member of the Second Chance group says, “It’s our collective judgment that…we’re all healthier pastors than we were when we started the grant.”

SPE also offers many continuing education opportunities for pastors. Two training series on Healthy Congregations have been offered. A pastor who attended the 2005 training commented, “The facilitator of the events has been a great encouragement to me during this past year as I learned the Healthy Church information. I think it saved my ministry and gave me tools to use that will serve me well in the pastorate.”

Mentoring is the third component of the SPE project. Seasoned pastors mentor new pastors to help them develop into healthy pastors by covering such topics as stress in ministry, character formation and congregational change.

If you’d like information on how your pastor can become healthier through involvement in SPE please contact us at pastoralexcellence@crcna.org or call toll free 877-279-9994  X0805.