Leadership Cohorts
Three distinct learning experiences with one shared commitment:
forming leaders, strengthening teams, and helping congregations live their purpose with greater courage, clarity, and care.
01 • CONGREGATIONAL SYSTEMS
The Sacred Leadership
Collective
For church and synagogue teams ready to transform how leadership is identified, formed, and sustained.
02 • INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
The Deborah Fellowship
For rabbis identifying as women seeking practical growth, spiritual grounding, and peer community
03 • LEADERSHIP TEAMS
All Together Now
For clergy, executive directors, and lay leaders who want to work together with greater clarity and trust.
01 · FEATURED INVITE-ONLY PROGRAM
The Sacred
Leadership
Collaborative
Developing Leaders. Strengthening Teams. Renewing Congregations.
Congregations depend on committed leaders, but few have the time or support to examine how those leaders are identified, invited, developed, and sustained.
DESIGNED FOR
Teams from churches and synagogues
STRUCTURE
Two regional multi-faith cohorts
JOURNEY
18 months of diagnostic work, coaching, testing, and reflection
This initiative brings congregations together to strengthen their leadership cultures through honest reflection, practical experimentation, and learning across faith traditions. Each congregation develops approaches rooted in its own culture, theology, relationships, and aspirations—not a prefabricated program.
Listen & Learn
See where leaders emerge, whose gifts are recognized, and where support breaks down.
Design & Test
Create practical experiments, learn from results, and refine what shows promise.
Build & Sustain
Develop repeatable practices that form leaders and strengthen congregational life.
A multi-faith, team-based experience:
Each congregation brings newer and established lay leaders, an anchor clergy person, and a staff partner. Together they move from insight to lasting practice.
A STRONG FIT FOR THE WORK
Criteria for Congregational Readiness
The Collaborative is designed for congregations with the energy, stability, shared commitment, and capacity to turn learning into lasting practice.
Priority & Energy
Genuine energy, curiosity, playfulness, and willingness to test, reflect, and refine.Stability & Capacity
Rooted clergy and enough staff, lay-leader capacity, time, and resources to participate fully.Shared Ownership
Senior clergy, staff, and governing leaders aligned around a clear mandate to experiment.The Right Team
A diverse, credible team with both the commitment and influence to move ideas into practice.Learning Across Difference
Excitement to learn across faith traditions and hold multiple perspectives with care.Learn & Implement
Willingness to hear feedback, examine gaps, broaden leadership, and create enduring change.02 • FELLOWSHIP FOR INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
The Deborah
Fellowship
Presence, Purpose & Power for Women in the Rabbinate
A practical, spiritually grounded cohort for rabbis identifying as women with approximately 3–15 years of congregational or organizational experience.
DESIGNED FOR
Rabbis identifying as women
EXPERIENCE
Approximately 3–15 years, with flexibility
FORMAT
Three-day retreat plus four online sessions
Led by Rabbi Lydia Medwin (The Temple, Atlanta) & Rabbi Shuli Passow (Congregation B’nai Jeshurun), and Rabbi Benjamin Ross (Executive Director, The Amen Center for Civic and Spiritual Leadership).
Three-day / Three-night in-person retreat at The Trinity Retreat Center in West Cornwall, CT – Sunday, January 17 through Wednesday, January 20 , 2027 with four follow up online sessions.
Meet our
2026 -2027 Fellows
03 • COHORT FOR LEADERSHIP TEAMS
For clergy, executive directors, and lay leaders carrying the emotional, spiritual, and logistical demands of congregational leadership together.
A Collaborative Cohort for Congregational Leadership Teams
All Together Now
DESIGNED FOR
Congregational leadership teams
COHORT
Teams from 5–6 congregations
FOCUS
Clarity, trust, alignment, and sustainable teamwork
Stronger teams for a demanding moment.
Teams journey together through a practical, hands-on process to:
+ Clarify shared vision and priorities
+ Run purpose-driven, efficient meetings
+ Better understand one another’s work styles
+ Navigate conflict with more skill
and less dread
+ Have braver, more candid conversations
+ Build an intentional lay leadership pipeline