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Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls

Over 380 pages of detailed strategies to Assess clergy skills and Discern Calls.

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Creating Cultures
of Excellence

Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls

Appreciative Inquiry Based Guide to Mutual Ministry Reviews

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  • Coaching Strategies

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Teaching Congregations
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Teaching Forgiveness

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Restoring Hope

Practical Appreciative Inquiry based strategies to effectively resolve grief and resentment.

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Welcome to Yes!3

The Appreciative Way

Yes!3 is designed to help you
grow an appreciative culture
within your congregation by
helping parishioners create
a purpose centered life
in which they can say:

  Yes! To God
  Yes! To Their Neighbor
  Yes! To Them Self

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Training Program: Introduction to
Appreciative Transitional Ministry

Apply the Appreciative Way
to the Task of Transitional Ministry

  • Can be used for transition between clergy leaders.
  • Or transitions that arise as a consequence of strategic planning and intentional organization development.

An incarnational approach to ministry where we join with a congregation to discover and call forth the life-giving best from them as they engage in change and transformation.

Training Schedule: Appreciative Transitional Ministry

No Appreciative Transitional Ministry workshops are scheduled at this time.

Please see training schedule for a complete listing of all training programs.

Some of these programs may also be offered as webinars. See Webinar Schedule for details.

Article: One-Size Doesn't Fit All: Inventing a Transitional Ministry

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Appreciative Transitional Ministry

Rather than relying on a "one size fits all" formula for transitional times the Appreciative Way provides an incarnational way of joining with a congregation to develop a unique ministry for each ministry setting.

It is about aiming for and discovering "what in God's name is going on in a congregation" and then growing these Godly realities to co-creating with God the congregation's future.

This Transitional Ministry Training Programs would be very appropriate for:

  • Clergy ministering during a transition between senior pastors
  • Clergy joining new congregations as the settled pastor
  • Clergy on extended, but time limited ministries, as a response to special circumstances in the congregation
  • Settled clergy embarking on a significant change in congregational culture or ministry
  • Consultants and coaches to congregations in transition

Program Outline

This program is typically offered as a 2.5 day follow on from the Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry

Because this program builds on the Appreciative Way, participation in one of our Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry Programs is a pre-requirement for taking the Introduction to Transitional Ministry.

Specific Topics

  • Designing a Specific Ministry for a Specific Congregation
  • Designing an Appreciative Inquiry Summit
  • Creating a Shared Vision
  • Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Congregation Trauma
  • Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Loss
  • Resolving Resentment and Conflict Through Forgiveness and Reconciliation
  • Engaging in Mutual Ministry Reviews
  • Stopping and Starting Ministries

Learning Objectives

Because this is a multi-day program specific learning objectives are provided for each day.

Specific Leaning Objectives Day 1: (half-day, 3.5 hrs.)

Participants will be able to:

  1. Apply the basic theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry to the task of Transitional Ministry.
  2. Use appreciative strategies to design a specific transitional ministry to meet the unique needs of a congregation.
  3. Engage a congregation's leadership to set positive goals for a succesful transitional ministry.
  4. Transform resistance into positive motivation to ensure sustainability of goals.
  5. Use appreciative strategies to incarnationally join a congregation that is in transition.
  6. Design and implement an Appreciative Inquiry Summit as part of strategic preparing congregation profiles and search criteria.

Specific Leaning Objectives Day 2: (full-day, 6.5 hrs.)

Participants will be able to:

  1. Discover how people uniquely organize and structure their internal experience such as memories of past injuries, griefs, resentments, and states of forgiveness.
  2. Use appreciative strategies to resolve an organization's history of distress and trauma.
  3. Use appreciative strategies to resolve an organization's grief over the loss of a pastor.
  4. Use appreciative strategies to innoculate a congregation against grief.
  5. Resolve internal objections and resistance to forgiving; - seeking and satisfying objections to forgiving to ensure sustainable outcomes.
  6. Teach people the difference between forgiveness and reconciliations and to discover when reconciliation would be unwise.
  7. Restructure internal experiences of resentment into internal experiences of forgiveness.
  8. Create internal resources to enable clients to remain grounded and engaged, rather than resentful or avoidant, in the presence of people who violate the client's values.
  9. Discover the differences between guilt and shame and use the forgiveness strategies to achieve self-forgiveness.
  10. Apply the resolution of forgiveness process in large group settings to teach an entire system how to forgive.

Specific Leaning Objectives Day 3: (half-day, 3 hrs.)

Participants will be able to:

  1. Engage a congregation in a mutual ministry review.
  2. Appreciatively engage with a congregations leadership to prune, stop, and start ministries.
  3. Establish staff development plans.

Schedule:

A typical AIM training schedule is as follows. Sessions include didactic presentations, personal reflection, Bible study and the daily offices from the Episcopal tradition.

The specific schedule may vary depending on location and program sponsorship

Day 1: (this is typically day 3 of the Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
9:00-12:00        Conclusion of the Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
12:00-1:30 pm   Lunch
1:30-3:15 pm     Introduction to Transitional Ministry
3:15-3:45 pm     Walking Meditation and Reflection
3:45-5:30 pm     Session 9

Day 2:
9:00-12:00        Resolving Trauma
12:00-1:30 pm   Lunch
1:30-3:15 pm     Resolving Grief
3:15-3:45 pm     Walking Meditation and Reflection
3:45-5:30 pm     Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Day 3:
9:00-12:00        Mutual Ministry Review

Workshop Format

The workshop is typically conducted in a retreat setting or parish with:

  • Didactic presentations
  • Personal practice and experience of appreciative process
  • Time for personal reflection and meditation
  • Corporate prayer
  • Opportunity for creative reflection on the past and anticipation of the future

Presenter

Rob Voyle is an ordained Episcopal priest, psychologist, and coach. He is the Director of the Clergy Leadership Institute. Rob's parish ministry of over 20 years was primarily in the field of Interim Ministry. He is the organizer of the Transitional Ministry Network and is a past coordinator of the National Association of Episcopal Interim Ministry Specialists.

Rob is the originator of AIM which is the result of his twenty years of experience in interim ministry and organizational consultation.

Costs for 2024

  Tuition Fee Early Bird 4 weeks before session:
Within 4 weeks of session:
$450
$500

Specific times and costs of all programs may vary depending on the hosting organization. Please check the schedule and registration page for additional workshop specific information.

Accommodation

Accommodation and facility use fees are extra and are dependent on the training locations and will be specified on the registration forms. Meals between sessions are typically provided for commuters.

Cancellation and Refund Policy

Tuition Refunds

The tuition portion of your registration is completely refundable, minus a 5% service fee, up to the day of starting the program. Tuition fees can be transferred to an alternative program without penalty.

Accommodation Refunds

Any commuter or accommodation fees will be assessed within one month of a program if the reservation is cancelled. Commuter or residential accommodation fees can not be transferred to other programs.

For more information please see our Cancellation Policies.

 View Training Schedule and Register for Training 

Registration for Workshop

To register for the workshop please go to the training schedule and select register for the appropriate workshop. For additional information please contact Rob Voyle

What Participants Say

The Rev. Robert Voyle was invaluable to making our search process a success. He led the committee members in Appreciative Inquiry exercises to build up the relationships of the team members and to begin to articulate some common understandings of the core values of our diocese.

Rob coached us to keep a clear perspective of what we had discerned as the skills and gifts necessary for our next bishop and to let this guide our work. He was also at the other end of the telephone or email when specific issues came up that would be helped by his experience and knowledge.

Joanna Shreve, Co-Chair Diocese of El Camino Real Bishop Search Committee

Rob's combination of organizational savvy, teaching skills, theological & spiritual integration, and ability to rapidly build supportive, learning communities is quite simply the best in any of the churches today.
Gray Temple, Episcopal Priest, Author & Coach


After 45 years in the pastoral ministry and attending three events led by Rob Voyle, I have finally learned a better way to help church leaders help themselves and the people they serve.
John Wilkerson, Director: Church Leadership Coaching & Consulting


Rob will enhance your ability to delight in yourself, your neighbor and God through his insightful, practical, loving, professionally grounded, appreciative and often mischievous coaching and teaching skills; and that will make you a better leader and citizen in God's creation.
Ed Leidel, Episcopal Bishop and Congregational Coach serving North America


"I have been fully engaged emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Thank you for touching me at the core of my being."
M.E. Member of the UCC Church.


"Of all the training I have been to, your notes are the ones I keep coming back to time and again for practical resources."
P.W. Conference Pastor.


Rob's training is full of heart, wit, and passion.
E.R. Executive Coach


Rob's educational model brings body, mind and spirit together. I have been challenged intellectually, transformed spiritually, touched emotionally, gathering in communally. He came into my life at just the right time.

Jean Holmes, Presbyterian Pastor

 

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