The field is already established
Churches can already buy strategy consulting, transition help, specialist project work, coaching, software, and ongoing support.
For Brian Arnold + Brad Henson · August 25, 2026
I studied the field.
Here is what I believe we should build.
Corrected Path would help a church make one important decision and carry it into practice. It would begin with one clear service, draw carefully from CCI's real execution experience, and keep the church free to choose who does the work.
9organizations studied
4business models compared
1service recommended for launch
What I studied
What the market taught us.
I reviewed official service, process, FAQ, pricing, and leadership pages. I wanted to understand how these organizations make money, how they deliver, what they do well, and what a church can understand before it calls.
Several firms already implement
We should not claim that everyone else only delivers a report. The best firms stay involved and help churches act.
Clarity is still an opportunity
A church should be able to see the price, scope, responsible lead, expected work, and follow-up before it signs.
We should begin with one service
The first three paid engagements should test one focused Intensive before we present a broad menu as established.
Nine organizations · four ways of serving churches
What works—and what we should borrow.
Strategy + implementation
The Unstuck Group ↗
Guided strategy engagements that move from assessment into activation.
What works
A clear journey from present reality to an operating plan.
What we should borrow
Use a staged process. Make price, congregational listening, and the named lead visible.
Strategy + implementation
The Malphurs Group ↗
Tools and training lead into assessment, consulting, and implementation coaching.
What works
Churches can enter at different levels and continue beyond the initial plan.
What we should borrow
Build an accessible ladder, while keeping scope, total price, lead continuity, and quality review clear.
Strategy + implementation
Ministry Architects ↗
Assessment and hands-on consulting across ministry areas, with practical implementation support.
What works
They work alongside the church instead of leaving it with a report.
What we should borrow
Stay close to execution and publish the timeline, included labor, milestones, and change limits.
Strategy + implementation
Church Answers ↗
Clearly priced virtual consulting, organized partly by church attendance.
What works
The clearest published pricing among the five closest firms reviewed.
What we should borrow
Keep the entry simple and the price public. Add named owners, a 90-day plan, and later follow-up.
What works
Evidence-based preparation and careful attention to fit.
What we should borrow
Use that readiness discipline, but refer candidate sourcing, vetting, background checks, and placement.
Transition + coaching
Flourish ↗
Coaching and embedded transitional leadership focused on leader and church health.
What works
Readiness and pastoral health come before organizational pressure.
What we should borrow
Protect the pastor-coaching relationship and state clearly where coaching ends and consulting begins.
Specialist execution
Ministry Solutions ↗
Specialist project work in finance, facilities, mergers, succession, and execution.
What works
The right expert is brought into complex work and stays near delivery.
What we should borrow
Build a referral bench and use a separate scope whenever a church needs specialist work.
Recurring support
Church Fuel ↗
Standard onboarding followed by monthly membership, software, and recurring support.
What works
Repeatable work, a steady support rhythm, and visible recurring prices.
What we should borrow
Standardize the parts that repeat without pretending every church needs the same answer.
Communications execution
Church Communications Group ↗
Recurring communications services with practical production and support.
What works
Strategy becomes completed work, training, and ongoing help.
What we should borrow
Use this as an adjacent model for the CCI lane, while keeping consulting and implementation separately chosen.
Research limit: this compares what each organization explains publicly. It does not claim to know the quality of private client work or turn thin online reviews into accusations. Sources were reviewed August 25, 2026.
The conclusion
The opportunity is not to invent a new kind of church consulting. It is to deliver proven strengths with clearer scope, visible pricing, named leadership, protected counsel, client choice, and measured follow-up.
The recommended business
One decision at a time.
One clear way in.
We do not begin as a search firm, communications agency, leadership library, or all-purpose church consultancy. We begin by helping one church make one consequential decision well.
Listen + decide
Corrected Path gathers the evidence, explains the choices, and helps the church form a 90-day plan.
Guide the work
If the church continues, Corrected Path keeps owners, decisions, milestones, and pastor support clear.
Choose who builds
The church may use its own people, CCI, another provider, or decide that no implementation purchase is needed.
Scripture guides the workThe church makes the decisionThe minister and family matterNo manipulation or forced vendor
Services + pricing
What we sell, what it costs, and what the church receives.
The first offer stands on its own. The partnership is optional and begins only when the church has the authority, people, and capacity to carry the decision forward.
First conversation
No fee · 45 minutesDecision Readiness Call
Pastor plus one authorized leader. We name the decision, confirm fit and authority, and identify any reason to refer the work elsewhere.
Launch service
Church Clarity Intensive
$7,500 virtual
$9,500 onsite + preapproved travel
30 days · up to 36 virtual or 40 onsite team hours
- One church, one decision, one campus
- Up to eight interviews and twelve key documents
- One congregational pulse up to 250 responses
- Decision brief, interpretation meeting, and 90-day plan
Payment: 50% at signing and 50% before the final interpretation meeting.
Optional next step
Clarity-to-Durability Partnership
$18,000
Six monthly payments of $3,000
Six months · up to 72 team hours · after the Intensive
- Up to three active outcomes and twelve milestones
- Twelve execution calls and six governing-team sessions
- Six protected leader-coaching sessions
- Scorecards, closeout, and 90/180-day follow-up
Either party may end with 30 days' notice. Future months are not invoiced.
If the church buys both$25,500 virtual · $27,500 onsite
Travel, outside tools, specialist work, and production implementation remain separately approved and priced.
Build later—not at launch
Two offers worth developing after the core service works.
Pre-Search Transition Readiness
$12,000 provisionalTwelve weeks after an Intensive. Prepares the church and committee, but excludes sourcing, vetting, background checks, and placement.
Association Cohort
$30,000 for six churchesCondensed church profiles, shared teaching, limited individual sessions, cohort coaching, and aggregate sponsor reporting.
Can these prices support the work?
The price must protect the promise.
The working target is 55% contribution before overhead. That leaves up to 45% of collected fees for loaded delivery labor and direct tools.
ServicePriceTeam-hour limitRevenue / hourMax direct costContribution
Virtual Intensive$7,50036 hours$208$3,375$4,125
Onsite Intensive$9,50040 hours$238$4,275$5,225
Six-month Partnership$18,00072 hours$250$8,100$9,900
When we stop selling
If two of the first three engagements run more than 10% over the hour limit, fall below 55% contribution, or repeatedly require unplanned founder rescue, we pause and correct the scope or price.
Execution
What happens after a church says yes.
Every engagement follows the same six steps. The language is simple because the work should be simple enough for the church to understand and hold us accountable.
Make sure the work fits
A free 45-minute call with the pastor and one authorized leader names the decision, confirms authority, and identifies work we should not accept.
Result: a clear yes, no, or referral.Agree on the boundaries
The church receives a written scope, calendar, fee, responsibilities, confidentiality terms, and freedom to choose who implements.
Result: no hidden work and no hidden vendor requirement.Listen before recommending
The Intensive includes up to eight interviews, twelve key documents, and one congregational pulse of up to 250 responses.
Result: one shared picture of the church’s strengths, constraints, and decision.Help the church decide
We present the evidence, explain the options and tradeoffs, and help the authorized leaders choose no more than three outcomes.
Result: a decision brief and a 90-day plan with owners, dates, and budgets.Guide the work
If the church continues, we hold regular execution calls, leadership reviews, protected coaching sessions, and a simple scorecard.
Result: the church owns the change; Corrected Path keeps it clear and moving.Check what lasted
We close the engagement, return at 90 days, and check again at 180 days to see what is operating without us.
Result: honest evidence of adoption, drift, or needed correction.Controls that protect the church
Good intentions are not enough.
A second reader
Material findings are checked by another senior person before recommendation.
Written changes
Added work replaces, pauses, or is priced separately before it begins.
Protected coaching
Attendance may be reported; personal coaching content does not cross without written permission.
A clear stop line
Legal, clinical, safeguarding, employment, tax, property, and search matters go to qualified specialists.
The sister-company relationship
What Corrected Path owns. What CCI can deliver.
CCI gives us practical experience in discovery, scoping, communications and technology delivery, training, support, and long-term client relationships. Corrected Path should adapt those practices without turning consulting into a hidden CCI sales path.
Listens, advises, and guides
Confidential assessment, decision support, pastor coaching, leadership alignment, execution guidance, and follow-up.
Owns every decision
Doctrine, polity, priorities, budget, people, and the choice of who—if anyone—does implementation work.
Performs separately approved work
Communications, technology, production, training, or another specialty under its own scope and contract.
The boundary in plain language
Common ownership would be disclosed. Personal coaching notes would not move into CCI. Only the church-approved implementation brief would cross the line. The legal entity, contracts, insurance, privacy rules, and intercompany terms must be completed with professional counsel before launch.
The proposed founding team
Pastoral weight first.
Operations in service of it.
These roles are proposals for Brian and Brad to approve or revise. The public facts below link to their source records.
Proposed doctrinal + executive guide
Brian Arnold
Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church Paducah, former President of Phoenix Seminary, and a three-time Southern Seminary graduate.
Primary responsibility: theological boundaries, ethical stop decisions, pastor counsel, institutional judgment, and high-consequence decisions.
Proposed pastor-practitioner + methods lead
Brad Henson
Lead Pastor of The Church at Woodlawn, with thirty-one years studying and practicing leadership and a doctorate in Emergent Leadership.
Primary responsibility: listening, church-culture interpretation, assessment method, evidence review, leader formation, and change pacing.
My role
Justin Reed
I would build and manage the work: scope, pricing, schedules, research records, scorecards, client communication, and the CCI handoff. I come last in this presentation on purpose. Brian and Brad bring the theological and pastoral weight; my job is to serve them, keep the promise clear, and make sure the work gets done.
The first 90 days
Build carefully. Start one. Learn before scaling.
Three paid Intensives are the first real test. The 90-day company build gets the documents ready and completes the first engagement; the next two begin no faster than one per month.
Agree on the company
Who we serve, theological boundaries, founder roles, decision rights, availability, and the CCI relationship.
Finish the working documents
Scope, contract, confidentiality language, interview guide, decision brief, scorecard, and referral list.
Run three dry cases
Use past or fictional situations, time the work, test each document, and correct anything that is unclear.
Deliver the first paid Intensive
Start one qualified church, finish the 30-day engagement, and line up the next two no faster than one per month.
What the first three engagements must tell us
Did the church find it useful—and can we deliver it responsibly?
- Actual team and founder hours
- Client burden and rework
- Price and contribution
- Decision clarity and 90-day adoption
- Where the process confused or overpromised
What I need from Brian + Brad
Four decisions for our next meeting.
- 1
Who can we serve faithfully, and what theological or polity boundaries must be written down?
- 2
Are these the right founder roles, decision rights, prices, and time commitments?
- 3
Do we agree to launch only the Church Clarity Intensive and test it three times before expanding?
- 4
Which church is the right first paid engagement—and which two should follow?