Lilly Endowment Project
Making Connections:
Covenant Leadership: A Pentecostal Pastoral Reformation
Executive Summary
James P. Bowers, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Nothing less than a complete reformation of pastoral life is developing among
Church of God pastors with the potential to reshape congregational life and advance
a new paradigm of Pentecostal leadership. A collaborative venture initiated by the Church
of God Theological Seminary is bringing pastors, congregations, and denominational
leaders together to support pastoral excellence. Pentecostal pastors are rediscovering
friendship, experiencing community, and sharing pastoral wisdom with one another in
a covenant-based model of peer relationships of accountability and care. A new formational
polity and facilitative leadership paradigm is now emerging among grassroots Church of
God pastors that will move Pentecostalism in a new direction.
Building on the creative collaboration of its Sustaining Pastoral Excellence pilot project,
the Church of God Theological Seminary proposes to expand its new partnership with its
denomination and other interdenominational groups. The Seminary's practical theology and
formational curriculum are being evaluated and revisioned to reflect an emphasis on constitutive
Pentecostal practices. Pastors participating in the Seminary project have requested continued
access to the pastoral covenant groups, ministry coaches, spiritual mentors, retreats, and
resources available to many for the first time. Administrative bishops and denominational
leadership have petitioned the Seminary to make the project process available to all USA Church
of God pastors. Lilly Endowment support to expand the Seminary's collaborative initiative with
the Church of God can further legitimate and enlarge a denominational pastoral reformation that
will foreshadow a pastoral leadership and discipleship reformation in the larger Pentecostal
movement.
See Also:
Walking in the Spirit (2003-2006): Executive Summary
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