Donor Profiles:

Seminary's high school youth initiative receives $250,000 renewal grant from Lilly

PHILADELPHIA (November 2001)--A grant renewal of $250,669 has been awarded The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP) by Lilly Endowment Inc. for ongoing funding of its Theological Education with Youth Initiative.

The funds will enable continuing innovative ministries focusing on high-quality theological encounters and vocational exploration with high school age youth. Announcement of the grant came from Christopher L. Coble, Program Director of Lilly's Religion Department.

LTSP is one of 22 institutions across North America receiving such renewal grants in the Lilly funding stream called Theological Programs for High School Youth.

Earlier funding was awarded to the Seminary in 1999, covering Theological Education with Youth activities for 2000-2002. In 2000 and 2001, TEY has offered theological and vocation conversations with Counselors-in-Training at three outdoor ministry centers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. They are Bear Creek Camp and Conference Center in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Calumet Lutheran Camp and Conference Center in New Hampshire, and Lake Chautauqua Lutheran Center in New York. The program has also conducted two two-week Summer Theological Academies for promising high school seniors on the campus of Wagner College in Staten Island, NY.

Expressing gratitude for the ongoing funding, LTSP President Philip D. W. Krey said, "Through the Theological Education with Youth programs The Lilly Endowment is helping seminaries, in cooperation with other institutions, to rebuild the systems by which young persons are cultivated for church vocations."

"We are elated at Lilly's action," says the Rev. H. William Bixby, Director of the TEY initiative. "It underscores the tangible sense of purpose which is developing, a sense of the power of theology at its best to fund the imaginations and form the intentions of young people of our churches."

Lilly has also approved planning grants to 23 first-time recipients, including the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (LTSG), a sister seminary of LTSP. Gettysburg's planning grant will underwrite the developing of unique ministries of theological and vocational strengthening with youth. LTSG's planning grant will also help to make possible sample participation by youth in forthcoming CIT and Summer Theological Academy ministries offered by LTSP's Theological Education with Youth.

"The prospect of a partnership linking these historic seminaries and their strengths is particularly exciting," Bixby says. All eight ELCA seminaries received grants (five renewals, three planning grants) in this round of Lilly awards.