Bishop Goodpaster announces awarding of Lilly Grant
Dec. 8, 2010 - The Western North Carolina Conference has been awarded a $900,000 grant from the Lilly Foundation to focus on transition in ministry for those graduating from seminary and moving into the appointment system of the church. The grant and program will be for an initial project over the next four years.
The Transition-into-Ministry for new clergy is connected with other programs that the Lilly Foundation has funded for several years, but the Western NC Conference will be one of several other annual conferences sharing in this project within The United Methodist Church. The design for the conference will involve several graduating seminary students who have at least 30 years of service to offer. These new clergy will serve as interns in a variety of church settings, and participate in several retreats and learning experiences over a three year period. In addition, they will have the benefit of a mentor-coach.
“We will be working closely with the Board of Ordained Ministry and the district superintendents as we finalize the details, the appointments and the intern years. The generosity of the Lilly Foundation will allow us to provide funding for the project, but we will match it with other revenue sources as well,” said Goodpaster.
When the conference learned this summer that it had been invited to apply for the grant, Bishop Goodpaster invited Janice Virtue, Terry Moore and Ashley Crowder-Stanley to work on the proposal and design of the program. They spent a day at the Lilly Foundation offices in Indianapolis, and upon hearing the guidelines and processes, began working on the application.
“I am thrilled that our Conference received this grant,” said Goodpaster. “And, I am confident that this will be a significant experience not only for those who will be involved in the actual program, but for what we will learn and apply to many others. We had a great team, and I am very grateful for Janice, Terry and Ashley and their extra hours of work in putting this together.”
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
WNCC Receives Grant for Young Clergy
Below is what was announced via the WNCC e-News today. I thought this looks very promising and a great opportunity for those coming out of seminary.
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2 comments:
Holy cow, this is awesome. For your Annual Conference, and for its young clergy. I hope it really bears fruit. I can hope and pray that maybe someday my conference will be able to do something like this!
I think it is a wonderful opportunity. It would have been great to participate in it 8 years ago when I graduated seminary. Maybe if this program is a success then it would catch on in other conferences as well.
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