Skip to main content

Thriving Congregations is an invitation for your church to find fresh energy and a renewed sense of missional identity. 

Instead of navigating the complexities of ministry on your own, Thriving Congregations is designed to help your church leaders connect - with each other, with your local community, and with other congregations who share you ministry passions. By joining this renewal journey, your church will learn to better understand your neighborhood, refresh your vision, and develop practical ways to live into the ways God has uniquely gifted your congregation. Thriving Congregations about meaningful conversations and flourishing as you discern where God is leading you next.

Learn Together

Flourishing churches are led by teams who are on the same page. These Thriving Congregations courses help your leaders connect with each other within a shared framework for ministry.

Thriving Essentials

Led by one of our trained facilitators, this one-day workshop is the best way to start. 

Thriving Essentials is designed for everyone in your church—staff, elders, deacons, and all your ministry leaders—to get aligned on four core concepts of ministry: Mission, Discipleship, Discernment, and Leadership. Churches that have finished this course say it sparked new energy and a stronger sense of unity.

See Thriving Essentials

Elder Essentials

Being an elder is about caring for people. This six-session course can be completed on your own or, even better, as an elder team. It looks at the key tasks of an elder, including overseeing worship, hospitality, faith formation, pastoral care, and gospel witness. 

See Elder Essentials

Deacon Essentials

This six-session course helps deacons see and steward the abundance of gifts in their church and community. It can be done as a deacon team or individually. It covers the key tasks of a deacon, including service, stewardship, mercy and benevolence, Biblical justice, and community partnership. 

See Deacon Essentials

Discern Together

Transformation can happen when we stop and ask "What is God doing here?". Thriving Congregations offers two ways your congregation can dig deeper through year-long discernment processes, either within your congregation or by connecting with other churches focused on a specific aspect of ministry.

Thriving in Mission

Over 9 to 12 months, a guide will help discover how God has uniquely gifted your congregation, discern where the Spirit is already at work, and find ways to join God's mission in your local context. This discovery process uses community data and spiritual discernment practices to help you create simple, manageable goals for the next 100 days, three years, and five years.

See Thriving in Mission

Thriving Practices

Your church doesn't have to go it alone. Our Thriving Practices cohorts bring together a handful of churches around a specific aspect of their ministry to learn from and encourage each other over a period of one year. Meeting both in-person and online, cohorts have formed around topics such as intercultural ministry, disability inclusion, becoming a more intergenerational church, and more.

See Thriving Practices