The purpose of the Vitality office...
“To help reinvigorate & encourage the life and legacy of local churches in most vibrantly living out the mission of the Church through prayer, partnership, and practice.”

We believe it is vital to ensure access to ongoing education and training. Some of this must happen generally, and some must be localized and specific to your own context through growing communities. Here are a few ways we can help. Through the Vitality office, we offer matching grants for each area with limits and applications. 

Ashland Theological Seminary Audits

For Credit (traditional student)

$630/credit hour

Must get a passing grade

Must apply and get accepted

No-credit (Audit)

$125/credit hour

no penalty for incomplete work

need permission from the professor

Same great student and professor experience for both.

Same flexibility of delivery. 

Current course schedule for the upcoming academic year at ATS.

ATS Audit application

Visioning Retreats

A church without clarity of vision and purpose will struggle to fulfill the mission of Jesus.

As the American Church continues to change and, in some ways, shrink, many churches and pastors find themselves more concerned with self-preservation than living out the Gospel and making Jesus famous. The Cross was never about “keeping the lights on” but driving out the darkness. 

The need for clarity, consistency and communication of your identity and purpose is significanly important. The Vitality office has matching funds to help your leaders get away to refine or define your core values, mission, vision, and purpose; or develop a strategic plan. We can’t do it for you but we would love to do it with you. 

Contact us for help with resources or a consultation. 

CONFERENCES ::

Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) Conference

For over 30 years, CCDA has shared the journey of seeing Christians fully engaged in the process of transformation in their communities.

Interested in attending their next conference? Find out more information and register, click the icon below.

Inhabit Conference

The Parish Collective understands the combined role of the church neighborhood in bringing transformation to our world. The Inhabit Conference is the annual conference of the Parish Collective.

Interested in attending their next conference? Find out more information and register, click the icon below.

Center for Pastor Theologians  Conference

The focus of the Center for Pastor Theologians is to form pastors to transform the church. Their annual conference plays a major role in fulfilling this mission.

Interested in attending their next conference? Find out more information and register, click the icon below.

Sabbaticals

Since 2021 The Brethren Church has been making a significant push to build the practice of Sabbaticals into our Brethren Culture. In 2023, the conference offering centered around creating small grants for churches and pastors to courageously step out in faith to pursue this radical and ancient practice.  

In addition to funds, we’ve created a resource that has already helped dozens of people plan their Sabbaticals with their churches. This resource, Renewal & Rest: a Guide to Pastoral and Congregational Sabbaticals, is full of resources and offers a practical step-by-step way of organizing renewal for your faith Community. 



Contact us for help with resources or a consultation. 

Monasteries

Many Abbies and Monasteries around the country allow outsiders, even us low-church Brethren, to come and experience the rhythms of prayer and rest that are natural to how monastic communities live their lives. We’ve listed several near some of our congregations in Renewal & Rest: a Guide to Pastoral and Congregational Sabbaticals, but you can certainly uncover your own by looking for “Christian Monastery” on your mapping program. One Abbey that many Brethren have vetted is the Abbey at Gesthamani in Kentucky. Watch the video to hear more about this sacred practice.  

Contact us for help with resources or a consultation.

Mini Sabbaticals

Ashland Theological Seminary on-campus housing is affordable, and our office has made connections with local church leaders to provide counseling, spiritual direction, or formational counseling while on campus and beyond. The prayer garden and chapel are great places of contemplation, and the extensive library affords you a time of deep study. You also have quick access to several walking trails that invite participation with nature in wonderful ways. 

Contact us for help with resources or a consultation.

Pastoral, Personality, Leadership and Team Assessments

There are so many different ways to grow in understanding ourselves, our people, and our group dynamics. None are perfect, but most offer helpful insights to help you lead and follow better. 

We are blessed to have people trained to distribute and coach through the results in several of these assessments.  

Whether you are just looking for some insights into why you always struggle to communicate with that one member, hoping to gain insights into why your leadership team seems to be stagnant or experiencing tension, or wanting to understand how people perceive you, we have tools that can help.

Enneagram

The Enneagram is a centuries-old, somewhat mystical approach to understanding yourself and others. Like most such personality and temperament instruments, the Enneagram tries to categorize you, generally but allows for nuance. There are nine basic types that explain your core beliefs. But the instrument goes further to explain how you function differently when stressed vs. unstressed, where you’re uncomfortable, core motivations and values, blind spots and much more. This level of nuance results in a more robust picture than you being boxed into just one of nine archetypes.

We have several certified coaches who can help you understand these nuances in a way that leads to significant self-awareness and can even be used to build better teams and equip them for tasks appropriate for them. 

Contact us for help with resources or a consultation.

Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI 2.0)

The Strengths Deployment Inventory 2.0 (SDI) is a great way to prepare yourself and your team for the ongoing challenging work of ministry. The sad old adage is, “Ministry would be easy if it weren’t for the people.” Though that’s hopefully said in jest, mostly, the humanity of ministry can be a challenge. The SDI allows you to understand your self and your people with greater depth and accuracy, which in turn grows your capacity for grace and understanding.

Measure what motivates high-performance

The SDI 2.0 shows who you are and how you work through four interrelated views:

Motives
You’ll learn the three core motives behind your approach to people, performance, and process. This blend is expressed as your Motivational Value System (MVS).

Conflict
Your Conflict Sequence, a unique result, shows your changing motives as conflict escalates, giving you the chance to correct course.

Strengths
Your Strengths Portrait presents all 28 strengths you use at work. It also reveals how our motives drive the strengths we use most.

Overdone Strengths
Everyone pushes their strengths too far in some cases. You’ll learn which ones you overdo—insight that can keep you from losing effectiveness.

Contact us for help with resources or a consultation. 

Natural Church Development (NCD)

In our mind, the NCD is the most robust and significant church health assessment out there. More than 60,000 churches in over 70 countries have used NCD to better understand their strengths and weaknesses. The theory suggests that no matter how great you are at what you’re good at, your church’s health and vitality will continue to be limited by the issue at which you’re the least capable.

A plant with plenty of light, water, and fertile soil will still be limited by the room in the pot. Adding more water or getting the plant more sunlight won’t help until the pot issue is addressed.

This same principle applies to your local church as well. The NCD helps you identify why and where your church may be struggling and makes recommendations on how to address those “limiting factors.”

Our team includes several experienced NCD coaches who are ready to work with your leadership. They will help you assess and respond to the factors affecting your church’s vitality, ensuring you have the support you need.

Contact us for help with resources or a consultation.