Developing Your Church Year
Your calendar is already preaching.
It's telling your congregation what matters, who carries the work, and what you expect God to do this year. Developing Your Church Year helps you make sure it's telling the truth.
Most pastors build a calendar. Few build a year.
Every fall, pastors sit down to plan the next twelve months, and most of what gets produced is a list of events, not a vision. Themes get chosen because they sound inspiring, not because they came from an honest read of where the church actually is. Departments compete for the same few weekends. Nobody can say, with confidence, why this is the year's priority instead of that one.
Clarity for Your Calling
Gain an honest, discerning read of your congregation and the confidence to lead decisively into the year ahead.
Wisdom for Navigating the Season
Learn how to navigate leadership pressures, department requests, and growth with pastoral maturity.
Strength for the Long Journey
Develop the structure and spiritual rhythm that protects your family, health, and pastoral endurance.
A church year built this way might be busy. It's rarely clear.
Developing Your Church Year is a guided process, not a planning retreat with a nice theme. You'll move from pastoral discernment to a congregation-wide, aligned church year, built on a framework that's already shaped hundreds of pastors through the Senior Pastor Builders Cohort.
Senior Pastor Builders · In-Session Working Time
Led by Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr.
"A church year is the prayerfully discerned and disciplined ordering of the church's spiritual life, leadership, ministries, structures, resources, and time around what God is calling the congregation to become and accomplish."
— Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr.
After 50 years of pastoral ministry, including leading a congregation through multiple growth seasons, cultural shifts, leadership transitions, and major expansion, Bishop Walter Thomas now turns his focus to investing in senior pastors.
This cohort is not built on theory. It is built on lived experience, tested leadership, and a desire to see pastors thrive in the next season of their calling.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr.
Senior Pastor Builders · 50+ Years Pastoral Leadership
This is for the pastor who already senses something isn't aligned.
- You've preached the vision. People said yes. The calendar got bigger and the clarity didn't follow.
- You're the only one who can see the whole board, and it stopped feeling flattering a while ago.
- Your first real year in this role is being built in public, with no room to learn by trial and error.
- The calendar runs itself now. You're not sure anymore whether what's running is vision or just tradition.
Whichever one describes your year right now, this process is built to answer it.
Direct Mentorship & Real Pastoral Counsel
Four live sessions. Monday evenings.
Each evening builds on the last, moving you from discernment to a retreat-ready set of priorities — all leading to the two-day retreat where the year gets built.
- 01Monday, Nov 2
The Compass and the Vision-Shaped Church Year
You'll be introduced to the Compass framework and begin discerning what God is calling your congregation toward this year.
- 02Monday, Nov 9
Clarifying Vision and the Desired Transformation
You'll sharpen the vision into language your church can actually act on, not just admire.
- 03Monday, Nov 16
Reading Context and Assessing Capacity
You'll take an honest read of where your church really is right now — spiritually, relationally, and organizationally — before deciding what to build.
- 04Monday, Nov 30
From Vision to Priorities and Retreat Readiness
You'll narrow everything down to three to five annual priorities, and prepare everything you need to bring into the working retreat.
Direct Interaction with Bishop Thomas
Every Monday session includes teaching, interactive breakout reflection, and real-time Q&A tailored to your church's context.
The Two-Day Working Retreat
Everything from the four sessions comes together in Baltimore — and leaves as a finished year.
This is where the plan becomes a year.
The four Monday sessions prepare you. The retreat is where it all gets built. Over two days in the Baltimore area, you'll do the work that can't happen over video: building out Leadership and Departmental Alignment, finishing your Four-Quarter Church Year Map, and leaving with a 30/60/90-day plan already in motion. This isn't a recap of the online sessions. It's where everything comes together.
- Leadership and Departmental Alignment Map
- Your finished Four-Quarter Church Year Map
- A 30/60/90-day plan already in motion
- Full resource, budget, and systems alignment
Not a theme. A year.
By the end of the cohort, you won't leave with an inspiring slogan — you'll have an integrated, operating system for your entire church year.
- A completed Annual Vision Charter
- A Context and Capacity Profile
- Three to five annual priorities, each tested and clear
- A Leadership and Stakeholder Development Map
- A Departmental Alignment Map
- A finished Four-Quarter Church Year Map
- A 30/60/90-day implementation plan already in motion
- A resource, budget, communication, and systems alignment plan
Discerning Frameworks · Proven Outcomes
Built for the senior pastor. Open to the team carrying the vision with you.
Developing Your Church Year is designed for senior pastors who carry the final responsibility for their congregation's direction, regardless of how long they've been in the role. Whether you're building your first year in a new assignment or re-examining a year that's run the same way for over a decade, the process meets you where you are.
Executive pastors, church administrators, and assistant pastors are welcome to participate alongside their senior pastor, or on their behalf when the senior pastor has asked them to carry this work forward. The process is built around the senior pastor's discernment, but building the actual year takes a team, and the room is open to whoever will help carry it.
In The Room · Senior Pastor Builders
What this requires of you.
Four live Monday evening sessions, full attendance at the two-day Baltimore retreat, and the willingness to bring an honest, unfiltered read of your church into the room. This is working time, not a webinar you can half-watch.
4 Monday Evenings
7:00–8:30 p.m. EST live teaching, interactive alignment, and Q&A.
2-Day Baltimore Retreat
Dec 7–8 in-person intensive where your full annual map is finalized.
Honest Assessment
Bring your real context, not an idealized version of your church.
Everything in one place.
Developing Your Church Year · Senior Pastor Builders Cohort 2
- Format
- 4 Online Sessions (Monday Evenings, 7:00–8:30 p.m.) + 2-Day Working Retreat (Baltimore area)
- Dates
- November 2, 9, 16, 30 (online) · December 8–9 (retreat)
- Investment
- $2,500
- Led by
- Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr.
Your calendar is already preaching. Decide what it says.
Cohort 2 begins Monday, November 2.
Led by Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr. ·
Common questions from senior pastors.
Ready to secure your place?