 Hi, my name is Julia Schmitz and I am the Program Administrator for Transition to Leadership. Transition to Leadership is a program run by AMBS for pastors in their first four years of ministry. These new pastors will meet monthly with a mentor and then come together with their mentor to two learning events per year, once in the spring and once in the fall. At the learning events, participants will join with others in times of worship, reflection and learning sessions led by AMBS consultants and faculty and other leaders in the church. For learning events alongside the topic, times and worship, for me what's been most helpful is just the side conversations that can happen where you can be vulnerable and honest with new pastors that are in similar situations. The focus on family systems, figuring out how systems work and especially family origin, how do I respond to events in my life, to conflict, to power, use of power, to a whole host of things and then knowing those things and talking about them and then applying them to given situations or cases in our church has been really helpful. In addition to learning sessions, participants will be able to meet in small groups to discuss topics that are pertinent to their ministry. Mentoring pairs will also have time at the learning events to meet together to discuss specific goals for the participant. These goals will be particular to their own ministry to help them grow as a new pastor. When I graduated from seminary, I was pretty confident of myself and that's good, but I didn't have a lot of experience and you kind of go into, at least I went into my first pastor thinking, I can do this, I've got it figured out, I've got everything, but then all of a sudden there were moments that didn't quite match the book. It's kind of like learning a new language. The conversations you learn in the book are nice and easy and then all of a sudden extra question is asked or a nice phrase is thrown in and then you're like, whoa, I need some wisdom on this. And mentors in my case pushed me, pushed me out of my comfort zone to go search for new places to be. They provided wisdom on cases that maybe we had never even studied or were just a little bit different than what we expected. My monthly meetings with my mentor were extremely important. They gave me a chance to process things that were happening in the congregation. In addition to the mentoring and learning events, participants also will have the optional chance to join monthly Zoom calls with our consultants as well as have one-on-one consultations. For people who are just graduating seminary or for people who are entering a new profession, pastoring is like no other profession out there. It requires some skill and some emotional intellect that maybe some other professions don't. And so in this program, I believe it's helpful for people to have a cohort and a mentor that can help them through some of the difficult beginnings of ministry. It's often said that the first year of ministry is the most difficult. So the transition to leadership ministry program, what we do is we help participants think about their self-awareness, but their curiosity and their intercultural competence as they are working in their ministry settings. We want them to be as effective as possible. In even the most supportive congregations, new pastors face a learning new and challenging and widely varied role. The transition to leadership program takes these early years of ministry very seriously as a time of formation and deepening one's skills, understanding and heart for ministry. In an era of clergy burnout, to have a program like transition to leadership feels like a really wise move for both AMBS and for congregations to be investing in. We're not just preparing pastors for ministry, but we are supporting pastors and continuing their education in their pastoral role. So I feel very supported in this. I feel resourced and really appreciative of a program like this. So when I think about how congregations can support their pastors that are in this program, the first thing that comes to mind is to really listen. Listen to what they're learning, listen to how they're growing, listen to the stories that they're telling from being here. I encourage congregations to support the pastor as a whole person, including physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health that can be as simple as having clean drinking water at the church, providing a shower in case a pastor decides to bike in, letting a pastor who's new to the area know where nearby mental health facilities are, where the local gyms are, what not, and also being able to provide funding for them for things like continuing education, for things like spiritual direction, and also allowing space for a pastor to be able to vent and discuss things places outside of the congregation. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about AMBS's transition to leadership. To learn more about the program, visit ambbs.edu slash transition to leadership. There you'll find more information as well.