Clergy Coaching
Being a pastor can be a lonely undertaking. You may face difficult or new situations for which a conversation partner prove helpful. PneuMatrix coaches bring listening hearts as well as years of ministry experience to their work with church leaders. They can help you listen to both your deepest sense of self and the nudges of the Holy Spirit and then develop strategies for moving forward rooted in both.
Church Cluster Engagement
Over six months with a cluster of 6-8 congregations (more can be added for an extra fee). In addition, the judicatory (or its appropriate committee) will name an equal number of Adaptive Change Apprentices (ACAs), each one to be assigned to work with one of the participating congregations. This model, though designed for cluster learning within a judicatory can be adapted to a cluster of congregations of different denominations that are in the same community and may wish to focus on mission to that community.
This option is well-suited to a judicatory wanting both to serve an especially targeted cluster of its congregations and to build a bench of ACAs to remain in the judicatory ready to lead the next cluster of congregations through the process.
Individual Congregation Consultation
Over six months but can be fast-tracked to 3 months. Each meeting is a 90-minute Zoom, with a Team of 6-8 church members plus a pastor if there is one, appointed by the church to represent broadly the demographics and character of the congregation. There will be some homework between meeting and highly suggested reading of Tod Bolsinger’s Canoeing the Mountains. The focus is on teaching a congregation’s leadership to look at their future through an Adaptive Change lens, guiding the church team through assessment, discernment, and implementation.
This option is best suited to a congregation facing a leadership transition, in preparation for a Mission Study, or a church seeking a deeply different path forward from its current model.
Adaptive Change Training for Judicatory Leaders
A targeted consultation process to train judicatory leadership (staff and appropriate committee folk) to build a bench of internal leaders equipped to lead congregations through adaptive transitions. The focus can be on training appropriate committee members, creating an Adaptive Change Apprentice (ACA) bench, or staffing for transition. The structure can be with (preferred!) or without previous assignments of trainees to individual congregations they will be working with.
This option is a more affordable way to train an Adaptive Change bench within the judicatory while capitalizing on the strength of the cluster model.
Designing for the New Norm
PneuMatrix has developed a specialized approach to working with our more fragile congregations, with limited membership and less than full-time clergy leadership. Even as this profile of our congregation’s increases, they often suffer for lack of attention designed especially to their realities.
A four-part zoom series (normally monthly) targeting churches under 100 members and/or with less than full-time clergy leadership. Topics covered include:
How Church Has changed in this Post-Christendom and Post-Pandemic world; Discerning your church’s DNA; Dreams and Expectations/Sorrows and Grieving; Obstacles and Opportunities. This is sort of a “tasting’ menu” that is designed to engage congregations that need to get ‘unstuck,’ whether they are living in denial, paralysis, or exhaustion. We also offer a more in-depth and individualized version for this specific audience with our cluster model.
Pastoral Transitions
PneuMatrix offers an array of services to congregations and judicatories across a trans-denominational spectrum. We help search teams and judicatory committees develop the material they need to find a pastor for the 2030s, can provide a pool of vetted candidates to help you to find your pastor or associate pastor more quickly, and can help you right-size your staff to align your positions more closely with your vision for ministry.
Faith-Based Suicide Prevention
Soul Shop is a faith-based suicide prevention training ministry that equips faith leaders to train their congregations on how to minister to those impacted by suicide. We believe that suicide is largely due to hopelessness and isolation and that faith communities are in the business of both of those things. So Soul Shop challenges people of faith, with their faith, to show up as an act of faith to save lives and bring hope.
