Pastoral residency program receives grant

Posted: 1/06/06

Pastoral residency program receives grant

By Mark Wingfield

Special to the Baptist Standard

DALLAS–The Lilly Endowment has awarded Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas a second round of funding for its pastoral residency program.

The $850,000 grant will fund another five years of the program that brings recent seminary or divinity school graduates to Wilshire for two years of practical training before going to pastorates of their own.

Wilshire began its pastoral residency program in 2002 with an $800,000 Lilly grant and already has produced three graduates–Jay Hogewood, Ann Bell Worley and Jake Hall. Current pastoral residents are Sean Allen, Andrew Daugherty, Amy Grizzle and David King.

Wilshire is among only 10 congregations nationwide to receive renewal grants in late 2005.

Lilly's Transition-into-Ministry programs, from which the Wilshire grant derives, “foster on-the-job training for recent seminary graduates, in order to increase their competence and confidence for pastoral ministry,” explained Pastor George Mason.

Wilshire has adopted the vision of being a teaching church, drawing upon the model of medical training done in hospitals by residency programs.

“Churches want and need pastors with clear ministerial identity who love the church and serve it capably,” Mason said.

“Seminary education provides a necessary foundation of biblical, historical and theological knowledge. But many skills for ministry can only be honed in the practice of ministry. The two-year residency program allows fledgling pastors to practice the craft without fear of failure.”

Wilshire's pastoral residents perform all the functions of the pastorate, and along the way, they reflect upon the work with experienced ministers and encouraging lay members by their side.

The teaching model has been so widely embraced at Wilshire that the congregation has added its own funding for a music ministry residency position, currently held by Brad Jernberg.

This year, the congregation will launch an initiative to secure permanent endowment funding for the Pathways to Ministry program–the umbrella under which the pastoral residency falls at Wilshire.

Other components of Pathways to Ministry at Wilshire include summer internships for college students exploring ministry, scholarships for Wilshire members seeking theological training, and YourCall, a Wilshire-created program to help high school students with vocational discernment. More information about Wilshire's Pathways to Ministry program is available online at www.wilshirebc.org