Abiding in the Lord: Jesus' Practices of Renewal - Kristin Kellen

Bearing the Burdens of Others Without Burnout - Melissa Affolter

Being Spiritually Stable for the Long Haul - Sarah Rogers

Counseling Weakness and Self-Doubt in Ministry: How God Can Use Weak Helpers and Leaders - Esther Liu

Creating A Culture of Rest in Your Ministry - Jonathan Holmes

Cultivating a Church Culture of Radical Hospitality: Learning to Love Our Neighbors Through Welcoming Spaces - Jen Oshman

Cultivating Healthy Friendships in Ministry - Christine Hoover

You know a lot of people. A lot of people know you — or think they do. But somewhere between the baby showers you attend as the pastor's wife and the coffee appointments where you spend an hour asking questions no one turns back around, you realize: these are not friendships. And the loneliness that follows is one of the most consistent, least-talked-about struggles in ministry life.

In this recorded teaching, Christine Hoover — pastor's wife of 25 years, church planter, and author — gives honest, practical language for one of the most confounding parts of ministry: how to actually build and keep real friendships when your role blurs every relational line.

Christine walks through what she's learned across 25 years and several ministry contexts:

Deal with past wounds first — unprocessed hurt becomes self-protection, which quietly kills the friendships you're still trying to build
Remember you are a person, not a role — as long as you're performing the pastor's wife character, real friendship stays out of reach
Know the difference between relationships and friendships — the key is mutuality, and learning that distinction will save you from a hundred small frustrations
Be the pursuer — it's almost never going to be otherwise, so embrace it early and stop waiting to be invited
Make time intentionally — ministry is reactive by nature; friendship requires planning ahead, blocking time, and showing up even when you're tired
Practice vulnerability in steps — start small, test the waters, and look for women who can actually hold what you share without freezing
Find other pastors' wives — no one else carries the same hidden vulnerabilities, and those friendships may be the ones that carry you through

The session also includes a candid Q&A on: navigating friendship with women who've left the church, maintaining long-distance friendships without losing local ones, how to pursue friendship when ministry has left you spread too thin, and what to do when you've been hurt or betrayed by someone you still see every Sunday.

Developing a Heart of Forgiveness -Ellen Dykas

Forgiveness is one of the most demanded — and least understood — realities of ministry life. Unrealistic expectations, husbands who bring the weight of congregational sin home, women who can only see you as their pastor's wife, and in some cases the quiet devastation of being sinned against by your own husband. The wounds are real. And Scripture calls you to forgive anyway.

In this recorded teaching, Ellen Dykas — ministry leader, biblical counselor, and women's discipleship director with over 30 years of vocational ministry experience — walks honestly through what biblical forgiveness actually is, what it isn't, and what it costs. She draws on Tim Keller's framework for forgiveness, Ken Sande's commitments from Peacemaker, and her own recent, still-unfolding experience of being deeply wounded in ministry.

Ellen unpacks three movements at the heart of genuine forgiveness:

Identifying with the wrongdoer — recognizing that we are all more alike than different in our need for grace, and that separating yourself from "the community of sinners" is where forgiveness always breaks down
Inwardly paying the debt — releasing the offender and their sin to Christ as an act of faith, not feeling, and making specific commitments about how you will and won't carry it forward
Overcoming evil with good — starting wherever you honestly are, even if that's only "Lord, make me willing to be made willing"

The session also includes a searching Q&A on: how to tell the difference between genuine forgiveness and suppressed pain, discerning whether you've been sinned against or merely disappointed, whether forgiveness requires telling the offender, how to set boundaries without turning them into weapons, and what to do when others dismiss your wound as someone else's naivety.

Doubt is Not the Enemy: The Unexpected Beauty of Questions - Karen Stiller

Emotional & Spiritual Health as a Leader - Eliza Huie

Facing Your Mistakes in Counseling and Growing in Wisdom - Michael Gembola

Faithful & Female: Embracing God’s Calling as a Woman Who Leads as a Leader - Rebekah Hannah

Leadership as a woman is rarely straightforward. There are moments when the work is thrilling — when something clicks, when a conversation changes someone, when you can feel the weight of being right where God intended. And there are moments when the same role feels complicated, lonely, or quietly contested. Living in that tension without losing your footing requires something more than strategy. It requires a foundation.

In this recorded teaching, Rebekah Hannah — president of Anchored Virtual and staff member at Redeemer Lincoln Square — lays out a biblical framework for what it means to be a faithful female leader: not a list of techniques, but a grid for thinking about who you are, whose work you're doing, and what you're actually building.

Becca walks through three movements that undergird faithful leadership:

Conviction — rooted in Scripture, not in platform or cultural approval; leaders shaped by God's word become courageous because they know whose voice they're following
Humility — not erasing yourself, but using your influence for others rather than yourself; Deborah didn't credit her military skill, she led the people to worship
Confidence — the product of the first two, not the starting point; confidence in Christ receives criticism without unraveling and leads without needing to prove

She also addresses what makes women's leadership distinctive — not a different list of virtues, but a different vantage point — and why the church is healthiest when men and women lead alongside each other rather than in competition.

The session includes a rich Q&A on: how to lead faithfully in complementarian contexts without making it your flag to carry, what the church's role is in affirming women's callings, how to navigate being direct without losing gentleness, when personality frameworks are helpful versus when they become an excuse, and what to do when the season calls for stepping back rather than pushing forward.

Honest Before God: Bringing Your Whole Self in the Midst of Ministry - Kari Ann Tilson

Humility and Forgiveness as a Leaders - Ellen Dykas

Leadership invites a particular kind of wounding. A friend who turns her pain into accusations. A colleague who breaks your confidence. A congregation that critiques you in ways you can never fully respond to. A mentor who abuses their power. Ministry doesn't protect you from being sinned against — it often puts you directly in the path of it. And then Scripture asks you to forgive.

In this recorded teaching, Ellen Dykas — director of equipping at Harvest USA and 18-year veteran of ministry to women in some of the most painful relational circumstances imaginable — opens up the biblical anatomy of forgiveness specifically for women in leadership. She shares her own recent, still-unfolding story of being wounded by a close friend inside her church community, and walks through what it actually looked like to forgive faithfully without pretending it didn't hurt.

Drawing on Tim Keller's framework and Ken Sande's Peacemaker, Ellen unpacks three movements at the heart of forgiving well:

Identify with the wrongdoer — forgiveness breaks down when we exclude the offender from the community of humans and ourselves from the community of sinners; identifying with Christ means identifying with both
Inwardly pay the debt — releasing the offense to Jesus as an act of faith, refusing to weaponize it, and making specific commitments about how you'll carry it forward with God's help
Overcome evil with good — not letting sin have the last word; prayer, movement toward the person, and genuine care are all forms of the gospel having the final say

The session also includes a rich Q&A on: how to receive criticism without letting it either feed your ego or poison your soul, when to confront versus when to overlook, how to distinguish being sinned against from simply being disappointed, the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration, what to do when you genuinely cannot pray for the person who hurt you, and how to walk someone toward forgiveness without minimizing their pain.

Jesus, What are You Doing in My Suffering? - Adam Flynt

Keeping It Real: Boundaries, Friendship & Being Yourself in Church Planting - Stephanie Gilbert, Jessica Taylor, and Jenna Allen