CHICAGO, IL (December 9, 2004) – North Park Theological Seminary has been awarded a $2 million implementation grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of the endowment’s Making Connections Initiative, a national effort to expand and energize collaborations that will foster excellent clergy and engaged congregations.
“Making Connections is the latest endowment initiative to address issues facing many Christian denominations in recent decades,” states the award notification from Lilly Endowment. Those issues include “declining numbers of young people entering the ministry, the ‘dropout’ rate among young ministers and the often-felt ‘isolation’ of practicing pastors.”
The North Park grant will fund three programs that over the next five years will focus on effective connections between the seminary, North Park University and the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). The programs are part of a seminary effort “to call a new generation of promising young people into Christian ministry, improve the seminary’s programs of theological education and enhance the ministry of pastoral leaders,” according to a seminary spokesperson. Highlights of the three programs are as follows:
- Youth Nexus: the Center for Youth Ministry Studies will oversee a project that brings high school juniors and their youth pastors to campus for week-long summer institutes called “Youth Nexus,” to engage both groups in theological reflection, worship, experience learning projects and community building recreational activities.
- Connecting the Seminary and University Ministries: the grant will facilitate additional collaboration between the seminary and the Office of University Ministries, which engages undergraduates in worship, small groups, spiritual formation and a variety of ministries within the community, the city, the nation and the world. “The seminary’s resources in theological studies and spiritual formation, the leadership potential of seminary students and the future ministry potential of these undergraduates makes this a collaboration that promises to be particularly fruitful, both for seminary students and for undergraduates who should consider theological study and ministry,” the spokesperson says.
- Pastor in Residence/Professor in Residence: the grant also provides funding to expand significantly the seminary’s Pastor in Residence program to connect the seminary more fully with ECC pastors and, as much as possible, to involve them more effectively in the seminary’s educational process. Funding also will allow implementation of a program that will send selected faculty to key congregations to learn from them how best the seminary can serve them and their developing ministries and to present the resources of the seminary to congregations.
“The schools receiving grants in this initiative (20 to date) have, for the most part, decided to focus their attention on several key issues,” says Craig Dykstra, the endowment’s vice president for religion, including “establishing and strengthening connections with congregations, creating programs for beginning pastors to benefit from the wisdom of established ministers, involving congregations in both the calling of young people to ministry and of supporting young seminary graduates, establishing or expanding programs for urban or rural ministries, and setting up denominational cooperative programs.
“We anticipate that the partnerships established or enhanced through the Making Connections Initiative will strengthen the ecology of institutions necessary to call and equip a new generation of church leaders, just as it seeks to sustain excellent ministry going on today,” Dykstra continued. “We are pleased to offer resources to help forge the partnerships needed to strengthen ministry in congregations in this country. It is an exciting journey.”
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.