Sustaining Pastoral Excellence

Covenant Pastors, Missionaries, and Chaplains have participated in a variety of things as a result of receiving a Sustaining Pastoral Excellence grant. Listed below are some of the different events, activities, and retreats that grants were offered for.

• 14 Covenant Pastors received grants for training at North Park Theological Seminaries Center for Spiritual Direction
• Clergy Clinic in Family Emotional Process training seminar sponsored by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center
• Retreated with New Skete Monastic Community
• Participated in the 30 week Saint Ignatius exercises
• Went to Israel with Nawas International
• Retreat at Christ in the Desert Monastery in Abique, New Mexico
• Receiving coaching from Ministry Advantage
• Studied Reformation History in Germany for 8 weeks
• Spent a week at the Taize Community in France
• Spent a week retreat at Saint John’s Abbey in Minnesota
• Attended a Youth Workers Connection National Conference
• Received training in Clinical Pastoral Education from Jackson Memorial Hospital
• 20 Covenant Pastors participated in re-visioning retreats
• Covenant pastor group retreat around the theme “Leadership in times of Crisis”
• Attended a Stephen Ministry Leadership Training
• Covenant Pastors created a group retreat using the following format — Morning: Personal Prayer and Study — Afternoon: Group Recreation — Evening: Speaker
• Participated in The Fundamentals of Transitional Ministry Seminar
• Attended the Festival of Homiletics – Yearly Preaching Conference
• Received training at Larry Crabb’s 2-Week School of Spiritual Direction
• Participated in the Spiritual Formation Forum – “Building Spiritual Formation Communities”
• Took courses in leadership at the University of Saint Thomas
• Took a Spiritual Formation Retreat at SonScape
• Traveled to China and met with Chinese pastors
• Attended the Healthcare Chaplains Ministry Association gathering on “Embracing Pain and Healing”
• Attended a seminar for Hispanic pastors “Predicacion Biblica”
• Attended the Summer Institute on “Renewing the Historic Church”
• Attended a Worship Song Writers Retreat put on by Integrity Music
• Traveled to Israel with Jerusalem University
• Attended the Pastors Institute at Regent College taking seminars on (a)New Testament, (b) Advanced Preaching, (c) Introduction to Contemplative Listening, (d) Spirituality and Work
• Participated in a Renovare Covenant Retreat led by a team from the Celtic Christian Northumbia Community in Northeast England (held in Colorado)
• Participated in a Communicators Conference in Thailand