Covenant News - Lilly Endowment to Fund Pastoral Sabbatical

Covenant News

Lilly Endowment to Fund Pastoral Sabbatical

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (October 8, 2004) - A Lilly Endowment program that offers clergy the opportunity to pursue sabbaticals for self renewal has earmarked $38,650 to Bethlehem Evangelical Covenant Church in Minneapolis for 2005.

Bethlehem Covenant, under pastor Phil Stenberg, will use the funds to provide Stenberg with sabbatical time that had been approved a few years earlier. He will study for one month at Tantur Ecumenical Institute near Jerusalem. He will also retrace the journeys of the apostle Paul in what is now known as Turkey and Greece, according to a church newsletter. The focus of the trip toe Turkey and Greece is to ascertain in what ways Paul's journey affected that region.

In addition to traveling overseas, Stenberg will attend a seminar sponsored by the Alban Institute, an organization that helps pastors become more effective in their ministries. He is scheduled to be on sabbatical for about two months, beginning in May. The grant has also made funds available for pastoral substitutes while Stenberg is away. Now in its fifth year, the National Clergy Renewal Program offers churches up to $45,000 - as much as $15,000 of that can be used to pay substitute pastors.

Lilly Endowment will spend $5 million this year on grants to 132 Christian congregations from 37 states and the District of Columbia. Many Christian denominations, including Southern Baptist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and Catholic, were given grants. Congregations ranged from under 50 parishioners to more than 4,000.

A separate clergy renewal program for Indiana congregations is also available through Lilly Endowment. The Evangelical Covenant Church of South Bend and pastor Kendall Dahlstrom received a grant in 2000.

An application process for the next round of Clergy Renewal Program grants will be announced in the coming weeks. For more information about the National Clergy Renewal Program, visit the Lilly Endowment Inc. website at www.lillyendowment.org.

Printable version of this page.