Fall 2025
This fall we are launching a series of groups specifically for United Methodist clergy in North Carolina. We are looking for 10-14 people to participate in a 12-14 session series, “Near Bethsaida” starting mid September. This group will meet on Wednesdays virtually for 1-hour (exact time TBD based on participants). Click the contact button below to sign up or learn more. The cost to participate includes a Peterson House journal, resources, and facilitation by both our Director and Associate Director. We would love to have you join us!
The theme, “Near Bethsaida” comes from the pattern we see in the gospels where Jesus often retreated with the disciples to a place “near Bethsaida” to rest. This was a place that belonged to Bethsaida, but was not in the town proper. It was secluded. It appears this was a place where the ground was uncultivated and used for grazing. How fitting. Each of the sessions will narrow in on a biblical figure or group that found time and space to seclude themselves- to be still. What can we learn from their pattern of renewal? How might theirs shape ours?
We would love to have you participate in this new series. Our hope is it will strengthen UMC clergy in North Carolina to better serve the church. Advancing Christ’s kingdom is no small task, but if you let it, it will come through the work of your hands. And it helps if those hands and spirits are strong. We find that the strength that comes from regular formational time in Scripture with others is just the way and place to accomplish this.
There is no preparation for any of these sessions no homework of any kind. All we ask is that you are able to participate in at least 10 of the sessions. Each session is one hour. The meeting times of the groups will be determined based on sign ups and communicated by the first week of September at the latest.
A big thank you to the UMC Conferences in North Carolina who have helped shape how we offer these groups as well as their financial support to make them happen!
Meet Your Facilitators
John Rogers and Janise Matyas Smith
When will these groups meet?
Our hope is to have two different groups of UMC pastors participating with one meeting virtually on Wednesday mornings from 9-10AM EST and the other, also on Wednesdays and virtually, either late morning or early afternoon. Final meeting times will be set by September 8. Whether the groups are blended with pastors from both the Western and North Carolina Conferences or each group specific to one conference, that too will also be decided and communicated by 9/8.
September 17
September 24
October 1
October 15
October 22
October 29
November 5
November 12
November 19
December 3
December 10
December 17
What is shaping how you do ministry?
Eugene Peterson in, “Working the Angles, The Shape of Pastoral Integrity,” wants to offer “an antidote to the powerful pressures that reduce pastoral vocation to a managerial religious job of running a church or ministry by defining the distinctive work of the pastor as listening and helping others to listen to God as God speaks in Scripture, prayer, and the neighbor.” We want to help you listen to that voice better.
No doubt there are plenty of things that demand some of your time that are not as life giving as a slow and purposeful time in Scripture, but by protecting some of your time to let your spirit be formed by God’s word we have seen how this will help you do that work better. Your reservoir of spiritual health is not so deep not to need ongoing investment in it. You are better for it and there is no doubt your congregation is as well. The kingdom grows with greater strength when your spirit is cared for. And how good it is to be able to do this with others where you are able to not just be attentive to what the Spirit is saying to you when you hear a text read over you, but also how the Spirit is moving in others’ lives as well. Join us for a taste of unhurried delight with Scripture where you can experience this for yourself.
