Be Renewed for Your Next Faithful Step in Ministry. Relate. Renew. Reimagine.

2025

NEXT FRONTIERS

Introduction

Next Frontiers is a 12-month program designed to help mid-career pastors thrive in congregational leadership during times of transition in ministry. The key features of the program include opportunities for reimagining our pastoral identity, fostering spiritual renewal and engaging in meaningful relationship with veteran ministers. The overarching purpose of this program is to provide resources that will sustain ministers in the “long obedience” of their profession.

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Institutes and Centers

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Conversatio Divina logo 2024
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Specific Focus

Transitions are moments of disruption. And while disruption by definition is stressful and unsettling, change also provides opportunity to embrace another and more sustaining kind of life.

We live at the mercy of our experiential Theology. To navigate change in a way that promotes thriving presupposes a personal theology that is healthy and life giving and a view of God who is present, active, communicating, and deeply loving. Our image of God affects profoundly how we live through our transitional moments in pastoral ministry.

To harvest the potential of transition will require time for intentional formation including: retreat, spiritual direction, mentoring, and the development and living out of a rule of life built around abiding in Trinitarian presence. This program will offer a curriculum of learning to lean into God instead of self-effort.

Defining Transition

The intent of the program is not designed to offer educational experiences, which are tailored to a particular transition, but instead to offer a way of living life with God that generalizes to a variety of seasons of disruption and change. Specific transitions may include: Church planting, women clergy stepping into senior leadership, pastors serving multilingual or multiethnic churches, pastors moving from urban to rural ministry or vice versa, assignment of increasing ministry responsibilities, etc. Our focus is less on the type of transition and more on abiding in God during the transition.

 

Program Features and Resources

The following are key components of Westmont College’s Next Frontiers Program.

  • Assessment: Next Frontiers will provide opportunities for assessment to assist ministers in discerning their unique skill sets and “expert specialties,” and provide coaching for how to carry the necessary generalist responsibilities of the pastorate in a way that is informed by individual personality and temperament differences.
  • Retreat: Two 3-day retreats will bookend this 40-week program. These retreats will include talks by a team of speakers, conversation with each other, experiential learning opportunities, corporate worship and times for personal reflection and prayer.
  • Relationship with Experienced Clergy and Peers: Seasoned ministers will offer spiritual direction and mentoring to each participant. In addition, pastoral peer groups will be formed and meet together during the entire program for discussion and praxis.
  • On-line tools for spiritual formation activities: Conversatio.org will be used to provide on-going input through the “classroom” and “exercise room” features.
  • Personal Agency: Each participant will design a personal plan or “rule of life” for personal and spiritual formation that is rooted in the gospel rhythms of Jesus’ life, as well as the particular season of ministry transition that they find themselves.
  • On-Going Learning: Participants will read and study across a variety of topics that will include wrestling with questions such as: Where is my identity found and how? Where is God during this season? How do I harvest the potential of this phase of life? How do I apply “the Cycle of Grace” to learning to live a different kind of life?

Summary of Goals:

By way of summary, we offer a statement of program goals. New Frontiers strives to:

  • Help pastors clarify their self-understanding, purpose and direction;
  • Create space for retreat, to detach from current roles and contexts in order to participate in activities that facilitate joy;
  • Provide experienced mentors for pastors facing mid-career transition;
  • Build networks of ministry peers to overcome isolation and create a sense of belonging;
  • Encourage pastors to discover (or rediscover) historic spiritual disciplines and practices;
  • Provide teaching about life-giving virtues and principles of leadership and service;
  • Prompt new ideas and strategies for how ministers and their churches can engage their communities and help address the world’s problems.

Meet Our Mentors

Next Frontiers is a 12-month program designed to help mid-career pastors thrive in congregational leadership during times of transition in ministry. The key features of the program include opportunities for reimagining our pastoral identity, fostering spiritual renewal and engaging in meaningful relationship with veteran ministers who will serve as models and mentors.

• Assessment

• Retreats

• Relationship with Experienced Clergy and Peers

• On-Line Tools for Spiritual Formation Activities

• On-Going Learning

The application deadline for the class of 2025 is November 7, 2024.

CALIFORNIA/MEXICO CLASS OF 2025

Session One: February 24 -27, 2025 held in Santa Barbara, California

Session Two: November 10 - 13, 2025 held in Mexico City

Future locations will be announced.

Want to talk with someone about the program?

Meg Wolfgram headshot

Please email Meg Wolfgram at mwolfgram@westmont.edu

Are you an early-career pastor? Consider New Frontiers, Westmont's program to support pastors earlier in their vocational journey.