Welcome
The late Church historian Phyllis Tickle famously said, “About every 500 years Christianity holds a giant Rummage Sale and changes how they do things.” PneuMatrix was created to bring Adaptive Change Leadership in an affordable manner to congregations, clergy and denominational governing bodies as we face this current Post-Christendom world. You might say we work on the rummage sale sorting process with you. We offer an array of services to congregations and denominational bodies across a trans-denominational spectrum.
Whether it is coaching for congregations during pastoral transitions, minister search assistance, congregational transformation, conflict prevention/response, and “right-sizing” a staff – for an individual congregation or a larger denominational judicatory – we are training church leaders on how to see their world through a new Adaptive Change lens. Especially in this Post-COVID era, when a classic 5-year strategic plan is absurd, we pivot your vision to working that adaptive change muscle that will take you and your church forward through your ever-changing landscape.
How Can We Help You
Animal Farm Assessment
Animal Farm is a lighthearted assessment tool to help your staff, leadership teams, or congregation identify how you see your church individually and as a group.
Animal Farm has been provided for your use by PneuMatrix without cost.
The PneuMatrix Team
How to Hire Us
PneuMatrix suggests an initial conversation at no charge, to hear the presenting needs, discern best approaches and review consultation options. Once we have reached an agreement about the challenge/opportunity to be dealt with, we will create a proposal for services – a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) detailing the deliverables by each party.
Our commitment is to provide help and hope to congregations and clergy in as economical and affordable a way as possible. We will work diligently with every opportunity to work within your financial boundaries and offer a variety of options to that end. We welcome the opportunity to discern with you how our abilities and your needs or interests might intersect
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PneuMatrix is a proud founding sponsor of the Changing Church Webinar Series
The Changing Church Webinar Series is free to all church leaders, members, and advocates. Our weekly panelists come from a variety of denominations and ministry contexts. We seek out those individuals who are creating real solutions to real challenges in their own ministry context, as well as those seasoned leaders who have a demonstrated record of ministering well over time.
Hear What Others Are Saying
In October of 2021 Pinnacle Presbyterian Church engaged PneuMatrix and Jim Kitchens to assist in our search for two pastors – an Executive Pastor and a Family Ministries and Congregational Life Associate Pastor. These positions required distinctly different skills and background experience. Through Jim’s leadership and counsel, the search committee identified the key position skill requirements and defined the methodology for the interview and evaluation processes. Once these processes were clearly defined, Jim through his contacts throughout the country and personal relationships assembled and vetted candidates for both positions that met our established criteria. At this writing, we have filled both positions with truly experienced and capable pastors that will help Pinnacle Presbyterian Church achieve its dreams for the future. The search committee believes the success of the search was in large part due to the guidance and support of Jim Kitchens and PneuMatrix.
–Chuck Goldithwaite and David LeMoine Co-Chairs of the Pinnacle Presbyterian Church Pastoral Search Com
Highly Recommend! PneuMatrix worked with a dozen congregations in our Presbytery. These congregations were struggling with buildings too big for the membership to support, with neighborhoods changing and congregations being disconnected, with no clear path forward for the leading of God’s Spirit. Deborah Wright and Jim Kitchens led and trained local leaders in a process which brought clarity, direction, and hope for ministry and mission.
– Jay Wilkins, retired General Presbyter, Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley
Jim and the team at Pneumatrix led us through an incredibly challenging but necessary staff reorganization. Jim diligently learned about our organization and listened to our staff and lay leaders in order to assess what kind of staffing structure would be needed in the future while still honoring our past. His organizational expertise coupled with his pastoral sensibility made him the perfect person to guide our church through this daunting task. As the head of staff, I never felt alone in this process and couldn’t have asked for a better partner during this time.
– The Rev. Dr. Charlene Han Powell Senior Pastor | Head of Staff, First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
I’ve worked with Deborah Wright, a PneuMatrix principal, in a couple of different capacities… our Presbytery hired her as a consultant to evaluate our current leadership/staffing structures and to help us with making appropriate compensation recommendations as we move into this “new normal”. Additionally, I worked with her and some of our smaller congregations as part of a grant to think about new designs, structures, and opportunities as many of our congregations’ attendance and membership numbers are dwindling. I would highly recommend Deborah to you – she is very insightful. She has a wealth of information and experience with lots of different congregations in a variety of settings, and coupling that with her organizational design and change management expertise she brings a lot to the table.
– Ariel Mink, Associate Presbyter and Stated Clerk of Redwoods Presbytery
