Our Initiatives

Our flagship program, SPEP, strengthens the personal and organizational financial skills of pastors who have been identified as key leaders of healthy congregations. The cohort-based model brings together pastors from diverse backgrounds, pastoral settings, age, genders, ministry experiences and geographic locations. The program includes opportunities for involving spouses and lay church leaders.

Learning outcomes include:

• Building an emergency fund
• Lowering or eliminating debt
• Reducing unnecessary spending
• Negotiating lower fixed costs
• Making progress on personal financial goals.

Through the Financial Wellness Program, MMBB builds relationships with denominational and non-denominational leaders, identifying churches, clergy, and regions where financial wellness workshops can be conducted and instilled, particularly at regional and local events. These intensive, in-person workshops maximize the effectiveness and sustainability of FWPs and incorporate greater access to other denominations that MMBB serves.

Learning outcomes include:

• Debt Management
• Clergy taxes
• Compensation
• Retirement and estate planning basics
• Investment fundamentals
• Church financial management
• Stewardship/fundraising for congregational wellness

More than 38 years ago, MMBB Board of Managers member Dr. John F Mandt, Sr. created the innovative Colloquium, which later became Bridges: Colloquia for Cultivating Ministry. The cohort-based model for supporting pastoral leaders proved fortuitous and became the blueprint for other MMBB programs. Attendees provide each other with peer support and mentoring, reflect on shifting paradigms in ministry, deepen their skills in personal and church financial management and discern pathways for ongoing personal renewal. Colloquia are three-day, in-person events held across the country.

“Bridges Colloquia help pastoral leaders evolve in their personal and professional relationships and truly thrive in ministry.”

-Rev. Dr. Perry J. Hopper, Chief Client Services Officer and Associate Executive Director of MMBB

“When we gather in a space of mutual trust and respect. We can be honest about the challenges of ministry and share our gifts with one another.”

-Pastoral leader in Women’s Colloquium

Derived from the SPEP curriculum, Financial Foundations is a six-module virtual course. It is offered to grantees who receive emergency assistance available to those suffering ongoing impacts from the coronavirus pandemic. This financial education support program is provided in conjunction with funding through a Lilly endowment Inc. grant, and donor support from the Lift up, encourage and empower campaign (2022-23).

Support is available to the following qualifying individuals:

• Pastors who are MMBB members, but who not yet received emergency assistance.
• Pastors who are bi-vocational, particularly those leading small to medium sized churches
• Pastors from and serving underserved racial and ethnic groups.
• Pastors across the United States and Puerto Rico

MMBB Cares directs pastors experiencing mental health issues or looking for professional development to appropriate counseling and/or coaching services. A mental health crisis may present itself as

• anxiety about personal or church finances
• burnout,
• family issues
• increasingly difficult relationships with church members, who are challenged by their own loss and stress.

Through a national marketing campaign, MMBB Cares intends to reach pastors who self-identify as in need of mental health services or looking for professional development and direct them to a dedicated website where they will find options for support. Pathways for support include National Employee Assistance Program (NEAP), the Center for Career Development and Ministry and Midwest Ministry Development for Coaching.