Creating spaces of brave relationship
for churches, pastors, and leaders
to cultivate people and cultures of bravery.
Ministry is hard and can be isolating. You don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to figure it out on your own. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is show up as we are and invite others to meet us there.
We invite you to be brave with us. Together.
Church Well Co seeks the healing of the Church through the cultivation of brave people and cultures who can carry heavy things together, face challenges while holding onto connection, and participate in the building up of the Body of Christ. We do this by:
providing brave relationships in which to repair what is wounded through Spiritual Direction and Therapeutic Pastoral Counseling.
facilitating brave communities in which renewal can be experienced through SLOW Communities and Pastoral Care Groups.
teaching brave skills that build resilience through trainings, seminars, retreats, and workshops both virtually and in-person.
Far too often when times are good friends are many,
yet when times are hard friends become few.
Why?
Because the trust that is needed to hold heavy things does not develop in relationships and contexts of growth, delight, and celebration.
It is only formed by practicing holding heavy things.
We call these Brave Relationships.
Church Well Co exists to create space in which brave relationships can be cultivated, contexts in which we can explore becoming safe(r) together, and practices that can be used to develop relationships that are capable of holding heavy things in the most difficult moments of life.
-
We all need spaces in which we can show up as we are, wrestle with what is, and be seen in the process. Sometimes those are spaces of brave community, like our Pastoral Care Groups and SLOW Communities. And sometimes we need brave individual spaces. Spaces where there is 1-on-1 support for the kind of bravery we need right now.
That is why we have the The Deeper Well. This is our soul care center where our team of practitioners provide a variety of contexts for bravery to be engaged.
Spiritual Direction is a process rooted in relationship through which a trained spiritual guide listens to and companions someone who desires a deeper relationship with God. For those who identify as Christians, this means becoming more like Jesus.
Therapeutic Pastoral Guidance is an intentionally crafted process into which our whole selves and full story is welcomed into relationship to be seen, to find meaning, and to find the keys to unlock the doors before us.
Learn more our the practitioners and brave spaces they facilitate here.
-
Just as we are never meant to follow Jesus alone, we are never meant to lead alone. However, finding relationships with others who can understand, care for, and support is often a challenge for individuals in leadership roles in the Church.
Pastors and leaders who sustain, lead, and finish well are pastors who find support in brave relationships. In these brave relationships we experience deep care and healing in ways are often unexperienced individually.
Through SLOW Communities + Pastoral Care Groups oriented around shared-leadership spaces Church Well Co creates spaces for pastors and church leaders to form and experience relationship in which to be more deeply seen and supported.
SLOW Communities and Pastoral Care Groups are monthly virtual gatherings of 6-8 church leaders for relationship, support, and strengthening in life and ministry.
-
Church Well Co provides a variety of services to train and support the development of spaces of brave relationship in the local Church context:
Trainings & Retreats. Learn to develop brave relationships together. Church Well Co provides workshops, multi-day trainings, and staff retreats to help churches and teams develop shared language and practices within the context of local relationship and community. Virtual and in-person training opportunities are available.
Coaching - Grow into the brave leader you’re becoming. Church Well Co offers individual support for leaders to identify and overcome obstacles to relational connection in leadership and community.
Consulting. No need to struggle alone. Are you dealing with specific issues of connection and community in leadership contexts? Church Well Co can provide space for you to look at and think deeply about the issue and to provide recommendations through a brave-relationship lens for individuals and teams desiring to lead their communities with wisdom, courage, and care into a greater fullness of all that Jesus has for the Church.
Mission
Church Well Co exists to create spaces, of brave relationship for churches, pastors and leaders that the Church may be well.
Values
-
God created the world to exist in relationship to God and to one another (Genesis 2). Church Well Co holds conviction that relational connection is both a marker of and invitation to participation in the work of God in this world. Church Well Co engages in, for, and toward relational connection of the people of God.
Church Well Co is unapologetically relationship-forward.
-
Space is the experience of having room to show up as we are. Our whole selves. To be seen, known, and welcomed. To be attended to and supported.
Pastors and church leaders often reate space for others and operate in contexts in which they hold responsibility. Paired with the proneness of our world to fill, take, and move through space quickly, much that deserves to be seen, honored, and healed turns into wounds that fester, disconnection that remains, and weariness that does not dissipate. Pastors and leaders burn out, weighed down carrying their own burdens and the burdens of their people.
Pastors and church leaders need space to be created for them. We all need room for connection, healing, and transformation to emerge through relationship.
Church Well Co intentionally creates and holds space for pastors and church leaders.
-
The Sacred Heavy is the stories, experiences, thoughts, or parts of ourselves that we hide from the view of God, others, and/or ourselves - because they are too painful, dangerous, tender, or fragile. The parts of ourselves that we carry one because we fear they will lead to further disconnection (from God, self, or others) if acknowledged.
The Sacred Heavy tells of who we are, where we have come from, how we have become us. It describe the wrestlings within us, our formation, our failures. It holds great weight and deserve to be honored.
Church Well Co believes that each story belongs to the person who has experienced it. Those outside the experience are privileged witnesses who are invited to hold the story with the story teller and attend to what God is doing. We are invited to learn to honor the Sacred Heavy in one another by protecting, holding, and caring for it.
-
Bravery is the choice to take the risk to acknowledge, welcome, and enter the Sacred Heavy and invite others to enter ours.
We all long for safe relationships. Relational connection is most accessibly experienced in safe relationship. But relational safety is not the starting point for most of us. The process of becoming safe(r) people, communities, and Churches is a process of practicing bravery together. It is through wise and intentional brave engagements that we become safe(r) for and with one another. Church Well Co creates space and opportunity for pastors and church leaders to learn and practice bravery together for healing, connection, and growth.
Church Well Co recognizes that the practice of bravery is foundational to the development of safe(r) relationships.
-
Safety does not simply exist or not exist. Safety is co-created over time. When my bravery is met by your bravery, and the bravery of both is acknowledged, trust grows and we become safe(r) together.
Emotional and relational safety has to do with the experience of trustworthiness within the community context in which there is openness, predictability, and a fair and balanced system. Safety cannot be declared. It must be developed. Together. We do not begin with trust. We form trust. Wrestling with whether or not we can trust each other, how much we can trust each other, and how to talk about it are foundational to the formation of safety.
Church Well Co engages with the intent to create spaces and train others to create spaces in which we become safe(r) together.
Resources
Coming September 2024!
The Can You Hold This? podcast.
The moments, experiences, and stories that comprise each of our lives carry weight. BrianJames calls them our "sacred heavy." As people, followers of Jesus, churches and communities, we often carry our "sacred heavy" alone. With really unpleasant ramification. In the Can You Hold This? podcast BrianJames McMahon and his guests explore the ingredients, practices, and challenges of becoming brave people, communities, and churches as we follow Jesus.