Cohorts, Consults, Mini-Grants and more!
Scroll through to learn more about
pastors’ cohorts
seminary cohorts
lay leader groups and
our mini-grants for innovative ministry projects
Pastors’ Cohorts
photo credit: Jon Tyson
TCL is proud to be in partnership with The Ministry Collaborative as Pastor Carrie facilitates for the 2023-2025 interdenominational pastors’ cohort, which represents the Central Texas region.
The Ministry Collaborative has been in partnership with us for a previous cohort who had 2 iterations -a 3-year original round and later, a 1-year continuity cohort offer, all over a 5-year period.
Upon request, TCL also offers Lab Partners, an annual subscription program. This is a 12-month rotation of ministry learning material for both you and your leadership team, including quarterly group support and leadership development, a pastors’ day retreat and a leadership team retreat alongside other participating churches each year. E-mail carrie@thechurchlab.org for more information.
Pastor Carrie has been designing and facilitating seminarian and pastors’ cohorts since 2013. She loves bringing connectivity, levity, worship pastors don’t have to be in charge of, room for leadership development and discernment, support for sustainability, and 21st Century tools for experimentation toward the future of faith practice.
Seminary Cohorts
TCL facilitates seminary cohorts! Currently, Carrie has a cohort with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (2023-2025) centered around Spiritual Entrepreneurship, training the next generation of ministers and teachers to think in innovative ways about ministry!
To organize a cohort at your seminary, reach out to Carrie at carrie@thechurchlab.org.
Lay Leader Groups
photo credit: James Baldwin
TCL is available -through consulting projects- to walk with lay leader groups and congregations who are seeking out ways to experiment toward the future of faith practice.
Here is an example of a major project TCL has done that centered entirely around lay leaders:
During COVID lockdown, we partnered with Texas Impact to offer more than 10 church groups across the state, of varying denominations, geographic contexts and more. A team of TCL pastoral facilitators walked with groups for several weeks to identify shifting resources within the faith community, identify shifting needs in the wider community and then to creatively identify how their faith community could help their community with these discoveries. We focused strongly on remaining spiritually anchored and connected to one another so that creativity and discernment about God’s guidance were possible in the thick of a traumatic season for all.
“My affiliation with Carrie Graham and The Church Lab has changed the way many of us view group process within a church setting.
Three words that come to mind when thinking about Carrie and The Church Lab are: Covenant of Presence, which Carrie uses to begin each meeting. What a gift that helps group members share their true thoughts and feelings in an emotionally safe environment! It "sets the stage" for the rest of the meeting.
With so much gratitude for The Church Lab and the alternate path to process it has provided those of us at UPC.”- Jennifer Whitten member of a "Reimagining Service" team that Carrie facilitated
Empowering Experiments Mini-Grants for Innovative Ministry Ideas
photo credit: Brent Cox
In 2022, TCL launched its first annual Empower Experiments mini-grant program, in which we use our consulting tithe money to support innovative ministry project ideas. We are excited to bring both financial and sounding-board style support to an arena too often filled with silos.
Keep an eye out on our weekly mailchimps as we announce our next round of open applications. Applications tend to open up at the end of spring, come due at the end of summer and recipients are acknowledged during September. You may sign up for our mailchimp newsletter at the bottom of any of our webpages.