Research & Downloads

The Center offers thought-provoking research and practical resources to help you on your  journey. 

We invite you to download and share these resources.

Listening to Place

This guided resource is designed to help you tune in and connect more deeply with your community. Through simple exercises, you’ll learn to slow down, get curious, and listen more deeply to the world around you.

The Resilience Report

Leaders today must be discerning, responsive, and flexible in order to be able to wisely and creatively face an unknown future. In short: leaders must be resilient. This report includes individual leaders’ stories, findings of our recent Resilience for Sustainable Leadership survey, and a theology of resilience

21 Resources for Mentoring Pastors and Pastors in Training

Are you a faith leader looking to create a mentoring program for your organization? Center staff has complied a list of 21 resouces to help guide you including videos, podcasts, associations, book recommendations, program models and articles.

Daily Examen – an intro exercise

The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. It is an ancient Ignatian practice that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

Becoming a Wise Mentor

Mentors for pastors need a dual focus of developing the ministry skills and the ministry character of their mentee. That kind of mentorship requires a real relationship with your mentee–not just an imparting of knowledge or a handing off of tasks, but a vulnerable partnership.

Mapping your communities

To buffer against withdrawal that can add to a sense of loneliness and isolation, map out your community of support, your “people,” and keep this list on hand for when you need extra support. Sometimes even just seeing the community of saints and potential support can be helpful.

Become More Resilient.

Start with our free Self-Facilitated Resilience Retreat Guides to focus on the three streams of resilience: People, Practices, and Purpose.

This series isn’t just another daily devotional to add to your to-do list. Flexible and self-paced, you can go through these mini-retreats anywhere, any time. You’ll gain fresh insights and practical tools to strengthen your resilience and navigate life’s challenges with confidence.

Start your journey today and see the positive impact on your life and those around you.

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Clergy Burnout

Clergy burnout has been a problem for years, and has only been amplified by the social upheavals of the first years of this decade. We want to share with you–whether you are a church staff member, a congregant, or someone who supervises or trains pastors–some of the common causes of burnout and recommendations for how to move toward greater health.

8 Ways to Care for Your Pastor

Congregants make a big difference in the well-being of their pastors – for better or for worse. The pressure of pandemic pivots and social divisions puts pastors at a high risk for burnout right now. If you are thinking about how to show care, here are 8 ideas that can help increase your pastor’s well-being all year round

Beyond Self-Care: Build Sustainable Practices

This worksheet will walk you step-by-step through creating a menu of caring activities that you can turn to on good days and bad. You might use this menu on good days, to have a visual reminder of daily habits and routines. You might also turn to this menu when you’re feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, or stressed.

Building Resilience through Narrative Process Circles

Christian leadership is often a lonely vocation. We believe that it doesn’t have to be. We are working for a world in which Christian leaders — the lay and ordained people in many fields who are motivated by their faith to improve the world — can serve alongside others with transparency, and with assurance that living into their calling allows space for human shortcomings.

Humanizing Pastors: A Focus on Clergy Suicide Prevention

In quiet moments, behind the weight of our public responsibilities and caring demeanors, many pastors wrestle with dark and daunting thoughts. It’s crucial for everyone — friends, fellow clergy, congregants — to recognize that pastors, like all of us, are intrinsically human. They, too, experience depression and despair.

Recommended Resources on Story

70 percent of what we learn is through stories. We are hard-wired for narrative – it’s how the human brain works, how we make sense of the world and our lives. The Center honors the role of story in gaining health for individuals, organizations and relationships, and offers this curated list of articles, books and podcasts that will help you grow your own capacity for understanding the role of narrative.  

Disillusionment with Ministry

Ministry promises so much purpose in life. Whether lay or ordained, ministry leaders draw inspiration from the divine, care for people through their most vulnerable moments, and lead others in the service to God and neighbor. But that promise of purposeful vocation doesn’t always deliver. This paper offers four ways to renew your purpose in the midst of disappointment

Upcoming Virtual Summit
Leading During Polarizing Times
Register for the Virtual Summit!
This FREE online event is designed for ministry leaders seeking practical tools, spiritual wisdom, and renewed strength to lead faithfully when your church community faces deep differences.
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Upcoming Virtual Summit
Leading During Polarizing Times
Join the waitlist today!
This FREE online event is designed for ministry leaders seeking practical tools, spiritual wisdom, and renewed strength to lead faithfully when your church community faces deep differences.
No Thanks, I am not interested
Full attendance and participation during all sessions are expected to complete the program.
Terms / Conditions. By registering for a Resilience or Leaders Circle, you agree to the following (scroll down and click agree)
Please consider the schedule closely to ensure you will be able to participate in the virtual meetings, and block off your calendar to ensure your attendance. Should you have an emergency (illness, situations out of your control) that will impact your participation please email transforming@theseattleschool.edu
Time commitment:
Two hours one day per month for 8 months, dates to be determined by majority of registrants' availability and adjusted as needed during the first group meeting.
Your feedback is immensely valuable!
As an essential component of your participation in this program, we ask that you provide us with your honest, candid, and timely feedback in program surveys and conversations, and consider providing reviews or testimonials of the program for promotional use.
Code of Conduct:
The Center for Transforming Engagement strives for intentionality in the ways we relate to one another - how we as a team relate to each other, how we relate to participants, and how we hope participants will relate to us and one another. To that end, we hold cultural norms about the ways we interact with one another. Your participation in this program is contingent on your agreement to abide by these cultural norms. i. For growth to happen, we all need to be able to share about the deeper challenges we face. To provide that atmosphere of openness and support, you commit to not sharing personal information that is shared in program meetings. ii. In our interactions with each other and our communities, we practice the humility of not-knowing that is required to listen and discover. iii. Be aware of different cultural and characterological ways of communicating, and invite others’ voices. Respect theological differences: the river of Christian orthodoxy is wide, and while the streams of that river are distinct, they are not inherently better or worse. Even if you can’t respect the belief, treat the person with respect. iiii. We value both thoughts and feelings as valuable pieces of information that inform one another, and inform our learning and discerning together. iv. Be in the here and now (not mentally somewhere or some time else), with the people who are sharing their time and stories with you. Eliminate any distractions possible.
Fair Use Policy
All program content, recordings, and materials are the intellectual property of The Seattle School and may not be presented, distributed, or replicated. The Seattle School retains the copyright for all recorded content. Some print materials (PDFs, worksheets, journal prompts, etc.) will be licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike. Those materials will be available for download on our website, and may be used as long as the following conditions are met: (1) attribute to the Center for Transforming Engagement even if remixed/modified; (2) do not use for commercial (paid) purposes; and (3) anything you make that remixes or builds upon this material, you must also distribute under Creative Commons. More information on this license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Agree and Close
(scroll down and click agree) Full attendance and participation during all sessions are expected to complete the program. Please consider the schedule closely to ensure you will be able to participate in the virtual meetings, and block off your calendar to ensure your attendance. Should you have an emergency (illness, situations out of your control) that will impact your participation please email transforming@theseattleschool.edu Time commitment: Two hours one day per month for 8 months, dates to be determined by majority of registrants' availability and adjusted as needed during the first group meeting. Your feedback is immensely valuable! As an essential component of your participation in this program, we ask that you provide us with your honest, candid, and timely feedback in program surveys and conversations, and consider providing reviews or testimonials of the program for promotional use. 2. Code of Conduct The Center for Transforming Engagement strives for intentionality in the ways we relate to one another - how we as a team relate to each other, how we relate to participants, and how we hope participants will relate to us and one another. To that end, we hold cultural norms about the ways we interact with one another. Your participation in this program is contingent on your agreement to abide by these cultural norms. Confidentiality. For growth to happen, we all need to be able to share about the deeper challenges we face. To provide that atmosphere of openness and support, you commit to not sharing personal information that is shared in program meetings. Curiosity. In our interactions with each other and our communities, we practice the humility of not-knowing that is required to listen and discover. Respect differences. Be aware of different cultural and characterological ways of communicating, and invite others’ voices. Respect theological differences: the river of Christian orthodoxy is wide, and while the streams of that river are distinct, they are not inherently better or worse. Even if you can’t respect the belief, treat the person with respect. You are invited to be a whole person, with both thoughts and feelings. We value both thoughts and feelings as valuable pieces of information that inform one another, and inform our learning and discerning together. Presence. Be in the here and now (not mentally somewhere or some time else), with the people who are sharing their time and stories with you. Eliminate any distractions possible. 3. Fair Use Policy All program content, recordings, and materials are the intellectual property of The Seattle School and may not be presented, distributed, or replicated. The Seattle School retains the copyright for all recorded content. Some print materials (PDFs, worksheets, journal prompts, etc.) will be licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike. Those materials will be available for download on our website, and may be used as long as the following conditions are met: (1) attribute to the Center for Transforming Engagement even if remixed/modified; (2) do not use for commercial (paid) purposes; and (3) anything you make that remixes or builds upon this material, you must also distribute under Creative Commons. More information on this license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Agree and Close