Illustration by Jessamyn Rubio

December 7, 2010 | Over the eight years we have run the pastoral retreat program at Ashland Theological Seminary, I have seen many lives changed. One of our recent graduates wrote: “It is difficult to express the mountain of emotions I feel. This one thing I know: I was headed for a premature resignation and leaving the ministry with my head hung low in despair. Now, I have a spring in my step, a passion in my heart and a desire to finish the race God has set before me with excellence.”

Unfortunately, we faced two dilemmas: How could we fund our highly successful retreat program once the original grant ended? And how could we help participants retain the healthy perspectives and behaviors they embraced in our program after the retreats concluded?

In short, how could we sustain our success? Our answer was the “5-percent principle.” (Credit to Ben Mott, from the Green Lake Conference Center, who came up with the name for their similar strategy.)

Ashland’s Pastors of Excellence (PoE) program is a year-and-a-half transformational journey. Eighty pastors per round attend a series of three-day retreats focused on their spiritual and personal well-being. More than 300 pastors have graduated from our programs. While content is disseminated through lecture, the heart of this journey involves private and small-group time. Post-lecture, participants engage in individual spiritual exercises relative to the lecture followed by small-group discussions facilitated by trained mentors. In these mentored peer-group interactions, Jesus regularly shows up.

The 5-percent principle leverages the passion and expertise generated as pastors complete our program and allows us to continue functioning without grant funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program. This principle could be used successfully in many programs where there is a lot of passion but little funding.

As pastors graduate, many want to help others share the experience. They agree to staff our retreats. We pay for 5 percent of their time but get passionate and competent leaders who give much more. Not only are the peer groups mentored by graduates, but most lectures are now delivered by second- and third-generation graduates.

We started PoE eight years ago and now have more graduates who want to mentor in future rounds than we can use. This is 2 Corinthians 1:4 working as Christ intended: “[The God of all comfort] comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (ESV).