Date: August 5, 2025
Behind every great leader is a great mentor. In previous eras of the Church, mentoring was an implied norm within both lay and clerical leadership models. After seminary, many priests received invaluable formation as curates, guided by seasoned clergy. Lay leaders often spent years—sometimes a generation—serving in supporting roles before stepping into key leadership positions. Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a seismic shift in the Church’s leadership paradigm. Newly ordained clergy are thrust into significant roles before their diplomas are even hung on the wall. It is increasingly common for newcomers to be invited to run for vestry just months after their first visit. The frenetic pace of leadership development and transition in the modern Church has often sidelined the vital role that mentoring once played in nurturing and equipping both lay and ordained leaders.
Launching into Ministry 
To paraphrase a recent VTS graduate concluding his formal three-year relationship with a mentor through Launching into Ministry: “For the first year or so we talked mostly about me … my questions, mistakes, learnings, frustrations. But now our conversations have shifted. Now we talk and reflect together more about the work itself – the challenges, insights, hopes, and vision we share as leaders in the Church today, and I think it helps us both.” It is a gift that a sentence – and the relationship behind it – can capture the hope at the heart of Launching into Ministry so well: our work is to facilitate mentoring conversations; our goal is to nurture and grow a culture of mentoring for the health and faithfulness of the Church.
Now housed in VTS’s Lifelong Learning department, Launching into Ministry is the current iteration of a multi-decade initiative to support seminarians in the first two to three foundational years after graduation, when so much learning happens in “the gap” between theory and practice, expectation, and reality. Our process is simple and focused – we pair each participating VTS or GTS graduate with a trained mentor (outside of their supervisory circles or diocesan structures) for monthly conversation, gather participant cohorts online for peer reflection three times each academic year, and host monthly online resource hours for our mentoring community to explore facets of leadership and evolving ministry together. Through these interconnecting relationships in the Launching model, mentoring itself becomes a key experience and foundational practice for effective ministry. Lay and ordained leaders are formed with listening, collegiality, spiritual friendship, collaboration, openness, reciprocity, and ongoing mutual learning at their core. And, carrying this posture and practice through years of ministry into relationships with colleagues, ministry leaders, church members, and the neighbors we serve, the conversation of engaging people in faithful, timely, and effective ministry continues to open and shift.
Thriving in Ministry
From the beginning, Thriving in Ministry at Virginia The
ological Seminary has sought to reclaim mentoring and coaching as foundational practices for forming Church leaders. The program not only fosters meaningful mentoring relationships—it also takes an innovative approach to training and equipping experienced lay and ordained leaders to serve as mentors-coaches for participants who represent both the emerging and future leadership of the Church. Originally launched to support priests in their first decade of ordained ministry, Thriving in Ministry is now reimagining its framework to serve leaders across the Church, especially lay leaders and deacons. This past July, 13 of the program’s 60+ trained mentors-coaches gathered with the Thriving in Ministry staff and Dr. Lisa Kimball, Vice President for Lifelong Learning, for a three-day intensive workshop at VTS to re-envision the program’s future framework and curricular approach. Ultimately, Thriving in Ministry seeks to equip Christ-centered leaders to renew the Church and transform communities for lasting impact. At a time when leadership in the Church can feel isolating and overwhelming, mentoring is not a luxury—it is a sacred necessity for church leaders and organizations wanting to thrive.
The Rev. Jenni Ovenstone, Program Coordinator for Launching into Ministry
The Rev. Ryan Newman, Ph.D., Program Director of Thriving in Ministry