La Sierra University was recently awarded a $1 million Individual School Grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative. The grant will help the H.M.S. Richards Divinity School launch The Center for Vocational Discernment and Formation (CVDF) this school year. The multi-year project is designed to strengthen the training and spiritual resilience of Christian leaders serving the Seventh-day Adventist church and the world, through formalizing a process of vocational and ministerial discernment.
The five-year, $1 million grant covers programming between 2025-2030. Implementation will be aided through partnerships with ministerial organizations around the Pacific Union Conference. The initiative is intended to reinforce the divinity school’s capacity to uphold its core mission: preparing Christian leaders for effective ministries in the church, academy, and world.
“This grant is important because it recognizes the reality that the future of seminary education relies on the future of congregational life,” said H.M.S. Richards Divinity School Dean Friedbert Ninow. “Through the generosity of the Lilly Endowment’s latest round of its Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, the H.M.S. Richards Divinity School will be able to tie seminary and congregation together in a process that will help students as well as congregants to discern their calling.”
The establishment of the CVDF responds to a crisis recognized by the divinity school as occurring among clergy and churches within the Adventist community in the western United States. As noted in the divinity school’s grant proposal, through a series of focus groups, conversations with clergy and denominational leaders, the school learned that ministers often feel adrift and uncertain of their purpose, leading some to experience burnout, leave ministry, or wonder if they should stay.
The Center for Vocational Discernment and Formation aims to address these concerns by administering a comprehensive program to achieve three primary goals:
- To facilitate the discernment of individual Christians toward lay or ordained ministry within their congregational settings.
- To provide robust spiritual formation for every divinity school student, sustaining them in ministry and clarifying their callings.
- To spiritually form constituent congregations through direct partnership and lay ministry training, ensuring they become long-term ministry partners and organic sites for divinity school recruitment.
The CVDF will operate as a hub for recruitment, ministerial preparation, and support for alumni. The discernment-formation program will be a co-curricular requirement for all divinity school students in professional programs, integrating seamlessly with their theological education.
Alumnus Aren Rennacker, who last fall took the reins of the new Growing Young Leaders initiative at the Pacific Union Conference, noted, “I am thrilled to hear about this generous grant for La Sierra University. Developing the next generation of leaders in the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a paramount venture that La Sierra has long been undertaking—now, they can do so in even greater ways.”
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By Darla Martin Tucker
