AST Awarded "Pathways for Tomorrow"

Collaborative Project Planning Grant

Atlantic School of Theology has been awarded a $50,000 USD Planning Grant to work with its collaborating partners to develop a full proposal for a Large-scale Collaboration Grant as part of the Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative. The Large-scale Collaboration Grants are intended to support the institutional capacities of the collaborating organizations to prepare and support pastoral leaders for Christian churches.

AST is working with St. John’s College in Winnipeg, the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism in Saskatoon, St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, Henry Budd College for Ministry in The Pas, MB, and the Canadian Council of Churches on a project to develop curriculum and training for lay and ordained leaders in Ecumenical Shared Ministries.

In an Ecumenical Shared Ministry (ESM), people worship and serve God in a unified way while still maintaining their denominational identity and connections. An ESM is any combination of denominations sharing a program, mission, ministry, staffing, worship and/or building.

In thousands of towns, cities, and rural communities in Canada there are multiple Christian churches struggling with aging membership, dwindling financial resources, and crumbling buildings. This reality has opened an incredible opportunity to revisit the call of Christ to unity, that his followers might be one as he and the Father are one.

Once established, the Ecumenical Shared Ministries Training Program (ESMTP) would operate with a combination of local resources housed with the collaborating partners and online teaching that uses the resources of AST. It would provide resources to train and equip those preparing for ordained ministry, lay congregational leaders, and those who have served as pastoral leaders for some time in their own distinct traditions. It would allow the limited resources of each of the collaborating organizations to come together to be more than the sum of their parts, giving learners access to innovative scholarship, practical skills, and a network of practitioners and mentors to empower them to live into this vibrant model of local ministry.

As an independent ecumenical theological university accredited by the Association for Theological Schools, Atlantic School of Theology (AST) is well-positioned to lead this collaborative endeavour of organizations across Canada. The network thus built would then become self-sustaining as each partner, already doing parts of this work, could build their efforts together for mutual benefit.

AST President Heather McCance says, “I’m truly passionate about helping to equip people to lead and serve the people of God. Ecumenical Shared Ministries are a creative way to do this. I’m really excited about this project and look forward to further developing it with our partners in hopes of securing the grant to make it a reality.”

Tito Madrazo, Program Director at the Lilly Endowment writes, “Invited schools are not in competition with one another [at this stage], but funding is not guaranteed either. The Endowment will award grants only to theological schools that demonstrate through their proposals the readiness of the collaborating organizations to launch high-quality collaborative endeavors that will enhance significantly their capacities to prepare and support pastoral leaders.”