Experienced Clergy as Mentors

Thriving Mentors are recruited for their experience in experiential learning and their experience in several different ministry contexts. All mentors are trained by Thriving in Ministry and serve a specific Peer Learning Community throughout the two-year cohort. Mentors facilitate group conversation and work on with individual priests in their group. In addition to the robust training they receive, Thriving mentors are compensated for their time.
Mentor Profile
There really is a chemistry to this group that Preston (co-facilitator) and I could not manufacture. I expected some congeniality, since many of chaplains knew each other, and Preston and I, through the National Association of Episcopal Schools. And because due to the nature of academic communities, school chaplains are accustomed to embracing community in unique ways and to reaching out to incorporate people who are new into the community. Still, their openness to each other—and the Thriving process—surprised me.
Our Current Thriving Mentors
2021-2022 Cohort
Leslie Stewart – Church Planters
John and Rachel Gardner – Clergy Couples
Norman Hull and Kristin Sullivan- Episcopal School Chaplains
Carol Pinkham Oak and Mary Stanley – Women Expanding Leadership I
Carol Pinkham Oak and Laura Gettys – Women Seeking Senior Leadership
Kammy Young, David Gortner, and Audrey Miskelley — Church Planters/Public Missioners
Debrah Bennet and Milton Williams – Diaspora Congregations
Jocelyn Irving and John Harmon – Historic Black Churches
Rachel Nyback – Women Expanding Leadership II