Development Cohorts

Grow in your development as a Kingdom worker

Registration for 2026 cohorts open in November.

Rooted in Ephesians 4:10-13, each cohort we offer focuses on fives values that can help build your church as a disciple-making community.

  1. INTENTIONAL - a clear path for development in a specific area

  2. RELATIONAL - learn and grow with other brothers and sisters

  3. COMPETENCY-FOCUSED - gain knowledge and develop ministry skills

  4. TRANSFORMATIONAL - center on becoming more like Jesus

  5. TRANSFERABLE - reproduce in your local church or ministry

Questions? Contact Alan Rathbun.

Sign up for a
2026 Winter/Spring
Cohort in November.

Cohorts are open to Official Alliance Workers, along with their spouses and leaders. Church leaders can join a cohort, but only alongside their pastor or another Alliance worker at their church.

The Green Zone: Flourishing for Christian Leaders 

Led by Jesse Gill, Psy.D., Psychological Health Affiliates in Hershey

The Green Zone is the space of flourishing that God created for the human mind, soul and body. This cohort will give you a chance to assess your connections and Attachment Style as you receive suggestions for growth. Through this cohort you may better understand the roots of your own struggles, so that you can get unstuck from scarcity driven behaviors and help others walk in freedom.

Creating a Blueprint for Clergy Retirement

Led by Randy Corbin and Don Weidman 

Retirement from pastoral ministry can look different from secular retirement. Pastors and often pastors’ spouses find themselves in a 24/7 role so that when retirement looms, one’s identity is in question. Clergy retirement is not “quitting,” but rather it is redirecting one’s ministry into fresh areas for Kingdom purposes. This cohort is designed to provide insights and tools for drafting a blueprint for this new phase in the pastors and spouses’ lives. The Gospel is for all of life—even in retired life.

Shared Leadership Among Regional Pastors

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 50% of pastors say they are often lonely and another 21% say they are sometimes lonely. Feelings of loneliness can steal joy from ministry and make people serving in ministry vulnerable to discouragement and distraction. Like Jesus, we all need 3-4 people in our inner circle to encourage us and share our burdens. This cohort is designed to build trust and care among workers in the same region and equip workers to build friendships that will help them be fruitful in life and sustain healthy longevity in ministry.

Friendship in Ministry (Regional)

Cultivating Biblical Stewardship in Life and Ministry

Led by Tabitha Martin, Former Alliance IW, Current VP for Ministry Development for the Orchard Alliance

This cohort will be a journey into the nature of money and its effect on our discipleship journey—either prohibiting growth and reproduction or propelling it into contagious depths of faith in relationship with Jesus and generosity. Each person in the cohort will explore and develop their own financial formation of surrender and then move into principles and practical steps to building stewardship essentials into the disciple-making pathway of their church.

Grace-Filled Relational Skills for Marriage

Led by Nate and Sharon Howard

This cohort offers a fresh path forward for couples by building new relational skills together. You’ll learn two practical, grace-filled tools to help you prepare your heart before difficult conversations with your spouse and to help you create safe, honoring dialogue in the moment. You’ll discover how to weave these values into the fabric of your marriage so healthy feedback and loving correction becomes a natural, life-giving part of your relationship. What you learn here can transform not just how you communicate as a couple, but how you model healthy connection for your family and your church family.

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Ephesians 4:10-13