In ministry, theology confronts real life. Nazarene Theological Seminary’s Center for Pastoral Leadership meets you there.

Through webinars, online courses, discussion forums and special events, the Center for Pastoral Leadership hopes to move education, mentoring and support beyond the seminary and into the field. In the process, the Center offers opportunity for pastors to meet the 2013 General Assembly mandate that all pastors complete 20 continuing education credits/lifelong learning contact hours per year.

Ministry, especially pastoral ministry, demands a breadth of wisdom and skills required in few other jobs. Few other vocations present the diverse challenges of ministry, from the eternal impact of preaching to the nuts and bolts of financial management. The weight often is carried in isolation and, increasingly in a fragmented and post-Christian world, without cultural esteem.

Through continuing education, fellowship, support and leadership best practices unique to incarnational ministry, the Center addresses these challenges.

In short, the Center for Pastoral Leadership comes alongside men and women called to ministry to prepare and—equally important—to sustain them for a lifetime of effective service to Christ and the Church.

Life Long Learning Resources

The CPL is coordinating with the Global Ministry Center, the Wesleyan Holiness Digital Library and our other educational districts throughout the US and Canada to construct a life long learning site that would allow pastors and ministers in other settings to access content that could be reported back to their home district for continuing education credit. Through this website, the CPL hopes to provide an effective resource portal for meeting the 2013 General Assembly’s mandate that all pastors complete 20 CEU/Life Long Learning contact hours per year. Most importantly, the CPL seeks to offer excellent and timely resources for our pastoral corps that will enable them to continue to grow and develop as persons, ministers, and leaders throughout the entire arc of their careers. 

Financial Literacy and Health

In 2014, Nazarene Theological Seminary received two grants to study the impact of financial debt on current and graduated students. The CPL was tapped to lead the implementation of these grants and, in response, hired a Financial Literacy Advisory to access the current debt load of incoming students as well as provide ongoing budgeting and financial counseling. Further, the CPL has created a financial tutorial for new students that acclimates them to the basics of borrowing, loan repayment, clergy compensation and more. In the future, the CPL hopes to offer ongoing financial educational opportunities on site for Seminary students. Lastly, the CPL hopes to be a catalyst for a much larger conversation across the denomination about how best to equip our pastors and churches in this critical area. In coordination with the Global Ministry Center and our district regions, the CPL will seek to identify creative and effective solutions for reducing the educational debt load of so many of our pastors and pastors in training who serve under the burden of constant financial stress.