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.

Resilience 101

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.

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.

Resilience Self-Guided Retreat Series

When you invest in your personal resilience, you are also building the
resilience of the communities around you

We invite you to download our Self-Facilitated Retreat Guide to foster Practices of Resilience. This is not another daily devotional to add to your list of things to do. It is a flexible, self-paced mini-retreat that can be done on your own time, at your own pace, wherever you are. You can do this on

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.

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.

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.

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