About us

Teaching Partners and Collaborators

In 2016, Paul invited Jan to join the Transitional Ministry teaching team at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Together, they recrafted the program, curating a learning experience based on sound theology and theory about change and transition, and more centered in deeply studying context. Paul and Jan weave together adult educational theory for learning that seeks to more thoroughly integrate prior knowledge. The result? A nimble curriculum that seeks to respond to the needs of the learners and their context. More than once, in the middle of in-person weeks, Jan and Paul recreated the curriculum mid week to respond to the needs of the classroom. When COVID-19 hit, the Teaching Team responded by creating classes sensitive to best learning practices in an online, interactive format.

Teaching together led to working with Committees on Ministry and presbyteries, offering coaching and consultation in transitions. Jan and Paul created Transitional Ministry Pathways to provide an accessible gateway to conversations about discernment for individuals, staff teams, congregations and denominational leadership.

Jan Nolting Carter

Jan approaches Transitional Ministry with a nuanced understanding of systems, training in Healthy Congregation and Mediation, and a curiosity about the intersection between context and living theology. Ordained for nearly 28 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA for the last 18 years, Jan has served 8 different congregations in a transitional capacity–large and small, rural and urban, thriving and questioning sustainability. She sees, teaches and coaches through the lens of a woman in leadership and attentive to the particular experiences of women. Informed by her early work bringing ethnography to the classroom, Jan has worked with Paul and a team to curate a curriculum for teaching The Art of Transitional Ministry that is sensitive to adult learners and our yearning to grow in community.

Jan holds degrees from Duke University (AB), the University of Pennsylvania (MSEd), McCormick Theological Seminary (MDiv) and Columbia Theological Seminary (DMin).

Jan shared her expertise and compassionate leadership with The Londonderry School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. From 2006-2016, she served as a Board Member, Secretary and President of The Londonderry School Board. During her tenure on the board, she worked with the school to create a strategic plan and an endowment. Jan coordinated the Annual Fund. Prior to leaving the board, Jan chaired the Director Search Committee as the Founding Director retired after 45 years.

Beyond church service, Jan Nolting Carter walks with parents in crisis, offering a listening ear to parents of adolescents struggling with mental health challenges. She serves as an informal parent coach for New Summit Academy, a therapeutic boarding school in Costa Rica and is part of its Parent Advisory Board.

Jan enjoys spending time with her nearly adult children and loves to bike, walk, experience good food and wine and explore new places.

Paul Rhebergen

Paul serves as the unofficial Dean of Transitional Ministry with thirty-five years of experience in interim and transitional ministry and over 45 years of ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA. Paul has served 13 different churches and has been a part of the evolution of thinking about leading change in congregations. Filled with a knowledge of history, Paul approaches teaching transitional ministry with a learner’s heart and a questioning soul. Paul has served congregations across the spectrum, from rural to small town, to suburban and urban. He has ministered and preached in congregations with less than fifty members and more than 1500. In rural settings, he has guided congregations in establishing ties to county and state resources, guiding congregations to become centers for responding to hunger, health and social service needs. He has assisted congregations in reaching across racial and economic barriers to minister with urban neighbors and the “invisible” rural poor. Each congregation Paul has served had a larger worshipping community when he left than when he began. The calls of the installed pastors following his transitional time have continued beyond ten years.

Paul is well versed in systems and change theory. He is a conflict expert, experienced as a trained mediator, a Healthy Congregations Facilitator and a continuous learner in understanding working with complex systems in the midst of conflict.

Paul holds degrees from Lafayette College (BA) and Andover-Newton Theological Seminary (MDiv). Paul is Honorably Retired from the Presbyterian Church USA. In retirement, he coaches and consults, appreciating a more flexible schedule to also travel, read and explore.