About Us
While our history is relatively short, our heritage is deep.
Western Seminary conducted its own field interviews with more than 150 pastors and discovered ten recurring needs among pastors in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest: self-awareness, contextual awareness, community understanding, cultural intelligence, community service, family flourishing, understanding transitions, adeptness at creating and deploying teams, life-long pastoral development, and mentoring/coaching.
The Center for Pastoral Flourishing (CPF) was launched in January 2019, just a few months after being awarded a start-up grant. The first year was a “gathering”; of resources, finding venues, and recruiting facilitators and participants. By fall 2019, we launched our first pastoral cohort retreats and hosted an equipping event with Ken Sande on relational wisdom.
CPF has assisted over 150 pastors in honing their awareness and practices in personal and congregational health between in-person and virtual connections.
Our Story
The Center for Pastoral Flourishing (CPF) is a catalyst for pastors and ministry leaders to thrive by offering formational experiences, transforming relationships, and partnerships to advance God’s good news kingdom.
Our Mission
Our Vision
Our vision is to nurture and support the long-term wellbeing of pastors, inviting them to connect authentically with God, self, and peers. CPF invites pastors to thrive holistically and lead intentionally with strength, wisdom, and joy for the entirety of their ministry. We envision providing a life-giving resource for that promotes pastoral flourishing and congregational vitality.
Live and Lead Authentically
We encourage every pastor and ministry leader to live and lead in authentic wholeness personally, professionally, and relationally with their peers.
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• Spiritual – maturing in their understanding of the discipleship journey as loving participation with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• Relationally – developing a better awareness of interacting with a joyful non-anxious presence.
• Characterological – pursuing (being and doing) consistent with the transforming impact of participating with Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit.
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• Servanthood – Growing in their understanding of humility as a key component to leading without fear.
• Visionary – Mobilizing their faith communities to participate in a good and Godly cause bigger than themselves.
• Empowering – We support pastors in their role of equipping each saint to do work of ministry.
• Sage -We encourage pastors to lead from a wisdom perspective of integrating their context: Biblically, Relationally, and Culturally
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We envision local, geographical networks of Pastors connecting collegially to promote the flourishing of one another, their congregations, and their communities.
• Inspiring – Pastors providing and receiving mutual relational encouragement. Replacing the debilitating feelings of isolation with the energy of a community.
• Inquiring – Pastors growing in their compassionate inquiry of one another, promoting self-discovery and discernment in a loving environment.
• Collaborating – Through prayer, Pastors will unite to discern opportunities to cooperate in bringing a gospel perspective and presence to their community.
