Pastoral Leadership

Welcome to the Pastoral Leadership page for ABCOPAD.

The American Baptist Churches of Pennsylvania and Delaware take support and encouragement of our pastoral leaders very seriously. Building healthy and vital partnerships with pastoral leaders is a key part of our regional vision for ministry.

If you believe God is calling you into professional ministry, there are many documents that will be of help to you below from the ABCOPAD Commission on Ministerial Leadership. It is this representative body from within the region that sets the standards for licensing and ordination recognition performed through the local associations in ABCOPAD. While ordination is a act of the local church, recognition is a process performed by the associations using regional standards.

Refirement Interim Minister Network. This is our regional version of Interim Ministry. We work in partnership with our American Baptist Churches to secure qualified, trained interim ministers. Our Refirement Interim Network is a group of trained and screened individuals who assist our partner congregations during the fragile leadership time between pastoral leaders. We also partner with ABCUSA's Transition Ministries for larger churches who have more "full-time" needs.

Leadership Learning Communities in ABCOPAD. We are developing Leadership Learning Communities across ABCOPAD to encourage our pastoral leaders personally as well as professionally. These groups of pastoral leaders pray, study, share and challenge each other together in ministry. The LLCs in ABCOPAD all study the same curriculum throughout the year thus helping the regional pastors to create a common leadership language and uplifting best practices as they implement various teachings into practice.