Support for Denominational Leaders
Do you lead a region, district, synod, conference, presbytery, or other judicatory?
Threshold Leadership
Funded by the Louisville Institute, the Threshold Leadership Project seeks to identify best practices for judicatories in supporting congregations at the end of their life cycle. In 2025, we interviewed current and former judicatory leaders from fourteen different denominations who have supported faithful endings. In 2026, we are conducting Collaborative Learning Communities and preparing to release a Best Practices guide. Subscribe to the newsletter for up-to-date information.
You want to be strategic about congregational endings.
Local churches are facing big decisions about their future. Congregations struggle to find or pay for pastors. Pastors who close or merge churches are at increased risk of burn-out — leaving professional ministry or taking unresolved grief into their next congregation. Church members will only stay with the denomination if they have a positive experience with closure. Buildings and property are never-ending sources of stress. And you need to be thinking about where to plant new faith communities!
You long to increase your capacity — but there are only so many hours in the day.
When you work with the Good Friday Collaborative, you can trust that your churches are fully supported. Our care frees you to focus your energy in other areas. We can help start hard conversations with congregations that need to discuss multiple possibilities for their future. We attend to the spiritual needs of congregations concluding ministry. We build consensus while helping congregations to move forward. Our proactive approach reduces the predictable crises of congregational endings, thus improving clergy resilience and retention.
The Good Friday Collaborative is here for you.
We help you craft your forward-looking strategy for church closures, mergers, and restarts. Based on your needs, desires, and contexts, we will draw up custom proposals for you. These customized resources include:
Practical Workshops
Cohorts of pastors and congregational leaders in group coaching
Strategy Sessions for denominational leaders
Bulk Discounts on the Self-Paced Online Course
Outcomes include:
Increased clergy resilience and retention
Aligning the number of congregations with active pastors
Developing clergy with specialized skills for this type of adaptive change
Strategic plan for congregations at risk of closure
Shared vocabulary and process for churches closing, merging, and restarting
Inspiring stories about congregations faithfully concluding ministry
Clear communication between congregations and denominational leaders
Repurposed resources
We’d love to collaborate with you as you care for pastors and congregations. This is resurrection work!
If you’re interested in custom support, let’s chat! Contact us or book a call below.
