How the Congregational Leadership Fund Helped Landisville Mennonite Church Reimagine Its Leadership Team
When Landisville Mennonite Church’s leadership team began planning for 2026, they knew they wanted more than a typical team-building retreat. Three years removed from the height of the pandemic, congregational leaders were navigating new questions about how to lead well, together. With support from Atlantic Coast Conference’s Congregational Leadership Fund, Landisville invited speaker and executive leadership coach Jean Kilhefer Hess to guide a spring 2026 leadership retreat focused not just on strengthening working relationships, but on reflecting honestly on post-COVID leadership styles and exploring practice-based worship and vision.
This type of leadership development is one of the key needs the Congregational Leadership Fund was created to fill.
What Is the Congregational Leadership Fund?
The Congregational Leadership Fund exists to strengthen leadership capacity across Atlantic Coast Conference congregations. It provides financial assistance in three key areas:
- Continuing education for pastors and lay leaders
- Short-term congregational leadership needs
- Faith formation initiatives that build up leadership within the congregation
The vision behind the fund is simple: healthy congregations grow out of healthy, well-resourced leadership. Congregational leaders and pastors sometimes face needs, whether for training, coaching, or support during a transition, that may stretch beyond their congregation’s own financial capacity. This is especially true for smaller congregations and those served by bi-vocational pastors, who often carry significant leadership responsibility with limited budget or staff time to match. The fund is ACC’s way of partnering with congregations to close that gap, so that financial limits don’t have to mean limited leadership development.
Landisville’s Story
For Landisville’s leadership team, the retreat became an opportunity to step back and ask deeper questions about what faithful leadership looks like now. Carolyn Rudy, chair of the congregation, shared what she hoped to gain going into the weekend: “I had hopes to have a greater understanding of what the responsibilities are for a leadership team and tools for engaging participation in that role.”
Jean Kilhefer Hess guided the group through a reflective look at Landisville’s own leadership history while offering a practical framework for effective teamwork and relationship-building. Carolyn shared that the retreat provided, “a relaxed atmosphere to ponder history of leadership at LMC while laying out a framework for effective work and relationship. [Jean] emphasized ‘home team,’ which I felt really pulled us together as a group. I would love to have further resourcing.”
The retreat was the start of something. Landisville’s team came away not only with new tools, but with a hunger for continued growth together.
Available to Your Congregation, Too
Landisville’s experience is just one example of what’s possible. Whether your congregation needs support sending a pastor to a continuing education opportunity, bringing in outside expertise for a leadership challenge, or resourcing a faith formation initiative that builds up your leaders, the Congregational Leadership Fund is here to help make it happen.
If your congregation has a leadership need that feels just out of reach financially, we’d love to talk with you about how the Congregational Leadership Fund might help.
How to Apply
A few things to know before you apply:
– Applicants must be a member of an ACC congregation.
– Priority goes to continuing education for pastors or lay leaders, faith formation, and short-term congregational leadership needs – with special priority for congregations with less financial capacity and bi-vocational pastors.
– Applicants need the endorsement of their congregation (elder or church council chair) and their conference minister.
– Grants are reviewed twice a year: applications received December through May are reviewed in June, and applications received June through November are reviewed in December.
You can find the application form and full guidelines here or reach out to the ACC office directly at office@atlanticcoastconference.net or 717-394-8107.