Seminary Receives $25,000 ATS Grant to Train Pastor-Minded Church Planters
Covenant Seminary recently received a $25,000 Moving Forward in Mission Grant from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) to further the Seminary’s goal of recruiting and training more pastor-minded church planters for the Presbyterian Church in America and beyond.
The grant, part of the ATS Organizational and Educational Models Project, will provide additional support for Covenant’s recruiting efforts in part through the creation and distribution of enhanced print, audio/visual, and digital marketing materials specifically for its Church Planting Track. Additionally, the grant will enable the Seminary to explore new recruiting pipelines by supporting attendance at national conferences dedicated to church planting, as well as hosting such a conference on the Seminary campus.
Dr. Robert Kim, Associate Professor of Applied Theology and Church Planting, and Philip and Rebecca Douglass Chair of Church Planting and Christian Formation at Covenant, notes, “Preparing church planters has long been a part of Covenant’s pastoral training mission. A good number of qualified graduates each year end up planting churches through Mission to North America (MNA), the PCA’s church-planting agency, or with other similar organizations or ministries. But the need for new churches—and well-trained planters to lead them—is great. To help address this need, the Seminary a few years ago instituted the Church Planting Track, a specialized series of courses and related internships for the Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Master of Arts (Biblical and Theological Studies) (MABTS) degree programs. Covenant is one of only two ATS-accredited Reformed seminaries to have such a track. The ATS grant will significantly enhance our ability to recruit appropriately gifted and interested students specifically for church planting.”
The grant not only helps the Seminary fulfill part of its overall purpose to “glorify the triune God by training his servants to walk in God’s grace, minister God’s Word, and equip God’s people—all for God’s mission,” but also dovetails nicely with several pillars, or priorities, of the school’s recently implemented Strategic Plan titled Centered on Christ’s Mission to Train the Next Generation.
Dr. Thomas C. Gibbs, President of Covenant Seminary, elaborated: “One priority is to increase enrollment of pastor-minded students by building on relationships with influencers, alumni, and prospective students. This grant will increase the Seminary’s ability to reach and recruit students with an intentional focus on church planting. Other strategic priorities are to strengthen local, intercultural, and global mission, and to steward well the Seminary’s relationship with our denomination. The grant will help here by fostering deeper partnerships with sister PCA Agencies, other church planting agencies and networks, and global mission ministries to see church planters prepared and sent around the United States and the world. The grant will also help to further institutional financial sustainability, central to which is growing our student body base, especially in the MDiv and MABTS program, to which the Church Planting Track is connected. In all of these ways, the grant will help the Seminary keep moving forward in mission. We are immensely grateful for the work of ATS and for this grant, and we look forward to seeing how the Lord will continue to build his church through it.”
Watch Covenant Seminary’s blog and social media throughout the coming months for more information and stories related to church planting.
