February 10, 2003

Dallas church gets $800,000 Lilly grant
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___DALLAS--A Baptist General Convention of Texas congregation is among 15 nationwide to receive grants from the Lilly Endowment for pastoral residency programs.
___Wilshire Baptist Church of Dallas received $800,000 from Lilly's Transition-into-Ministry Grants Program. The Texas church's pastoral residency program is one of only two funded in a Baptist church and the only one of any denomination in the southwestern United States.
___The other Baptist church funded is Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, N.Y.
___Wilshire's grant will fund seven recent seminary graduates who will work in two-year cycles as ministry residents at the church.
___The first of those residents, Jay Hogewood, already is in place. Hogewood was in the first graduating class of Truett Seminary at Baylor University, then served on staff at First Baptist Church of Richardson. He currently is writing his doctoral dissertation at Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School.
___Two more residents will come on board in August, then two more the next August and two more the following August, according to Pastor George Mason, who directs the program.
___Wilshire's program is named for the church's longtime former pastor, Bruce McIver.
___The Lilly Endowment has been a major funder of religious research and ministry training through the years, but most often through institutions rather than local churches. The Transition-into-Ministry Grants Program, however, has directed funds into churches as well as institutions.
___Nationally, the program has funded 15 congregation-based efforts and seven institution-based residencies.
___The purpose of the grants, according to Lilly literature, is to "nurture a new generation of talented pastors and give them an opportunity to develop their leadership capacities and skills within the setting of healthy and dynamic congregations."
___Such a program is needed, Lilly believes, because the first years of pastoral ministry are both critical and difficult.
___"Many new pastors comment that they were frustrated by a sense of isolation and lack of professional support or guidance," the Lilly guidelines explain. "As a result, the retention rate for talented younger pastors is discouragingly low."
___Pastoral residency programs, according to Lilly officials, provide a "new way for training and developing talented pastors" through mentoring that results in healthy habits.
___The Wilshire residency, like all the others funded by Lilly, will emphasize pastoral, congregational and academic components.

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