Committee on Ministry Advisory Handbook

The Committee on Ministry Handbook is an advisory handbook, a guide for COM work to be used alongside the Book of Order. This is a compilation of resources and best practices for Committees on Ministry that represents the cumulative wisdom of many COMs in many places. However, nothing included in this Handbook supersedes the Book of Order or your own presbytery policies.

1. order a print version from PDS

Topics found in the COM Advisory Handbook

COM Basics

• Healthy Ministry
• What is the COM?
• COM Resources
• Glossary
  
• Reflections on the Work of COM
• The COM and Congregations
• Systems Theory and Congregations
  
• For the COM Moderator
  
• Appreciative Inquiry
  
• Triennial Visits
  
• Working Cross-Culturally

Working with Congregations

• Congregational Life Cycles
• The COM and Large Congregations
• The COM and New Church Developments
• "The COM and Racial Ethnic, Multicultural, and New Immigrant Ministries"
• The COM and the Small Church
• Preventing and Responding to Difficulties

Presbyterian Leaders

• What is Ordination?
• Membership in Presbytery and Validated Ministry
• Examining Ministers
• Installed and Temporary pastors
• Options for Pastoral Leadership
• Tentmaking or Bivocational Ministry
• First Call Pastors
• Interim Ministry
• Designated Pastors
• Parish Associate
• Military and VA Chaplains
• Specialized Ministries and Ecclesiastical Endorsement
• Immigrant Ministers
• Retired Ministers
• Christian Educators
• Commissioned Lay Pastors

Ministers of Other Denominations

• Ministers of Other Denominations
• Ministers Transferring into PC(USA)
• Orderly Exchange with Formula Partner Churches

Ministry Support Pastoral Care of Church Professionals

• Board of Pensions
• Compensation
• Annual Ministry Reviews
• Professional Development
• Sabbatical Leave

Saying Goodbye

• A Healthy Goodbye
• Ethics for Departing Pastors
• Exit Interviews

The Search Process

• COM and Congregations in Transition
• Resources for Transition
• Outline for Pastoral Leadership Transition
• Congregations in Transition – Vacancy and Pastoral Search
• Congregation Mission Studies and Strategy
• Pastor Nominating Committee
• Reference Checks
• Background Checks
• Model Pastoral Call Form
• First Call Candidate

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