Center for Pastoral Effectiveness of the Rockies

Maintaining Ministers in Ministry

The Center

Resources for Clergy

Resources for Churches

Center News and Pictures

The Center for Pastoral Effectiveness is a 501c3 non-profit organization.
For immediate information or feedback: Contact Bill Selby at integrity4u@comcast.net - or call 1-303-521-3850.
   
 

A Trusted Resource

by over 1400 Alumni

Since 1999 

First Things First!  
If you feel like you need support, personal and/or professional, now!!        Even if you didn't think of that until now....,
email integrity4u@comcast.net.
Let's eliminate the reactivity or self-sabotage now,
 BEFORE it happens!




Find out why over  1400 clergy and leaders have attended the Center and continue to describe the Center experience as
"the most valuable continuing education experience!"


What makes the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness such a valuable resource since 1999?  Watch 24 hour news and you will get a reason.  There's lots of anxiety out there!   And we still are dealing with the remnants of  Covid-19!  Who knows what this means for you as a leader.  How is that going to change the face of the church? Add to that the divisive politices that split parties to families, economics, water issues, wars, and cross reference the all with sexual topics. You hear it! You feel it!  And so do the people in your church!  That anxiety always ends up at the door of YOU as their clergy leader!  It is absolutely imperative that you as a clergy leader reflect on how you can deal with this anxiety because that anxiety can get focused, even fixated, on you.  There has never been a more important time for connecting to the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness.

This is a process that, if integrated into your ministry, can assist you in "responding" to all that reactivity rather than "reacting" to it.  And there is a leadership process that can help you manage yourself and maintain healthy leadership with your church and your family.

EMOTIONAL ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
The Center was created to Maintain Ministers (You) in Ministry by focusing on Family Systems thinking.  The Center is a "pastoral" model.  The pastoral role is uniquely different than any other leadership model.  Sure, it includes administrating, preaching, leading, fascilitating but there is something more, something deeper to this role.  It is an emotional role.  The Center connects to that!  The Center was designed BY a minister FOR ministers!  You won't regret this journey.

The Center porcess includes six three-day retreats spread over 18 months.                                                           It costs only $2400 and payments can be spread over the same period.   
The Clergy & Spouse Retreat fee is $750.
The District Superintendent and Conference Leaders Retreat Fee is TBA.

Take a look at the opportunities coming up.
Continuing Centers  
Next Live Retreats

Colorado Track l- Retreat 6 of 6 July 14-16, 2025 Highlands Ranch CO
Bill Selby, Mentor  Derf Bergman, Affiliate Mentor

Colorado Track l- Retreat 4 of 6  July 16-18, 2025  Highlands Ranch CO
Bill Selby, Mentor   Craig Hauschild, Affiliate Mentor

Colorado Track ll- Retreat 3 of 6,  July 29-31
Franciscan Retreat Center, CO Sprgs
Bill Selby, Mentor

Colorado Track lll - Retreat 3 of 6, July 22-24, 2025
Franciscan Retreat Center, CO Sprgs
Bill Selby, Mentor




Track III 3M Next Retreat, Summer, 2025 
Bill Selby, Mentor


New Track 1 Centers 
Track 1, Fall of 2025, Colorado
Derf Bergman, Affiliate Mentor

Track 1, Fall of 2025, Kansas/Nebraska
Craig Hauschild, Affiliate Mentor

Track 1, Fall of 2025, Iowa 
Chris Waddle, Affiliate Mentor

  
  

Don't find a Center near you?  
Then plan one! Just get 8 of your colleagues to join you and 
we will bring it to you.  Find out the discount to host.
Email integrity4u@comcast.net to find out more.


Clergy & Spouse Retreat
Franciscan Retreat, Colorado Springs, CO  TBD

This is a very special retreat for clergy and their spouse.  It is an opportunity for both people to gain an understanding of how ministry is an emotional system of three families, their own, each of the families IN the church, and the family OF the church.  Couples can begin to appreciate how emotional enmeshment occurs and how the church gets triangulated into the familiy and can undermine both couple and children.  Developing both an understanding of the system as well as some emotional tools will be refreshing.  This is also a "retreat" at which couples can relax and reaffirm the relationship at a wonderful retreat setting which is "away" yet very "accessible."  Give your relationship and one another a gift by attending this retreat.  
This resource has a limited registration of only eight couples.

If you are interested, contact the Center to get on a list for our next retreat.
The Center at a Glance
"If ministry were that simple!"



When meeting with clergy in one of our current Centers for Pastoral Effectiveness, I was struck by just how complicated ministry is.  During my tenure the expectations for clergy has seemed to expand, financial pressures seem to have grown, the anxieties of people have seemed to have gotten more enmeshed in the system.  No longer does it seem that being "called to ministry" and wanting to be a "good and faithful servant" to our people is enough.

Members of the smallest of churches are far more aware of what is "out there" than when I began in a small church in Indiana.  The feelings may be parochial but the attitude cosmopolitan.  Sunday's worship expectations of the young are influenced by high tech, high energy, and high life, while many of the people in our churches still struggle to change the flashing 12:00 on the  "VCR."  Just how can a minister meet all the needs while remaining true to the high calling of being spiritually and emotionally present in times of trauma or the celebrations of life?  Add to that the calling of clergy to "preach prophetically" which many times means bringing up very uncomfortable issues within the church as well as society.  That all adds up to a lot of anxious people in the pews and a lot of reactivity within the system.  So what do we do?

Well, it begins with YOU, the leader.  Are you the non-anxious presence in the system we call the church?

When someone is complaining about the latest hymn, another about "those people no longer in church," and still others wanting you to be more "spiritual" or "dynamic" to get "those young families we want" but with no changes to "their" worship, it is very difficult to be a non-anxious presence. 

But this is the purpose of the Center, to assist you to be more healthy as a leader, to grow in your awareness of what raises your anxiety level, and to be more prepared to deal with the anxieties of others while continuing to follow your vision as minister.

As you plan your  continuing education, I invite you to consider attending one of the new Centers that are announced above.  
Over 1400 Center Alumni agree that you will not regret the decision.


Clergy, you need to consider the Center when....
  You don't think you could ever find the time!
  You struggle to balance the needs of yourself, your personal life, including family and/or friends, with the needs of each family in and the
     family of the church.
  You have recently moved to a different appointment, especially a different size or type of appointment.
  You are in or around your first, tenth, twentieth, or thirtieth year of ministry.
  You feel excied about attending such a Center.
  You feel apprehensive about attending such a Center.
  You have recently experienced a major life-change, or trauma or move.

Review the rest of our website for more information regarding the Center for Clergy and Professional Coaching for Clergy along with our resources for  churches including some powerful seminars as well as personal consultations. 
                                                                                                                                                         Peace,  
                                                                                                                                                         Bill Selby
Put your name on a list, just email integrity4u@comcast.net.
Bill Selby, Center Mentor

Rev.Bill Selby, creator of the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness of the Rockies is the Center's Mentor. Bill's professional background includes engineering, higher education, and pastoral ministry. He has studied and used Family Systems theory since the 1970s. Ordained in 1974 in the South Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church, he served a small country church and then a church in a county seat community. He became a member of the Rocky Mountain Conference (UMC) in 1983 and was appointed to 1st UMC in Casper, WY.

His last church assignment was a new church "re-start," St. Luke's UMC in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, in 1987.  It was there that he integrated most fully "Family Systems" into his ministry as he worked to grow a church that was dealing with heavy financial debt, economic downturns, and church families under tremendous stress.

In 1995, he left his first love, church pastoral ministry, with a vision to create an Extension Ministry of and for the church. This became known as Growth With Integrity Resources. The goal of this new ministry was to provide vital resources that clergy and churches need today - while keeping integrity in their ministry and mission. The Center for Pastoral Effectiveness of the Rockies is the cornerstone resource offered by Growth With Integrity Resources. Bill spent 4 years in intensive study and planning to develop the Center. After 3 successful years of leading Centers, The Center for Pastoral Effectiveness of the Rockies became a separate non-profit corporation with the goal of widening its scope to include clergy and religious leaders of all denominations throughout the western United States.  Since 1999, over 1400 clergy have become Center "believers" and alumni or are presently enrolled.  Center sites are or have been in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa with clergy from the United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Episcopal, United Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and American Baptist denominations.


The Center also expanded to provide a variety of resources for the local church and leadership found on this web site.


Bill comes from the small town, Orion, Illinois. He married the girl across the street, Sherilee in 1965.  They have created and acquired a unique "family" whom they cherish dearly.