Funding Future Leaders • A National Endowment for Episcopal Seminarians

Question: If I feel I have a call to the ministry, what steps should I take to pursue the calling?

Answer: If you are prayerfully considering a call to the ministry, speak with the rector or priest in charge in your parish. For general information, contact the Office of Ministry at the Episcopal Church Center or phone 800.334.7626.

Question: How can I find out the cost of attending an Episcopal seminary?

Answer: Contact the seminaries directly. You can find their contact information by going to the seminaries’ websites. You can link to their websites from the Links page of this website.

Question: How can I calculate the effect of seminary costs on my savings?

Answer: Go to Financial and Life Planning for Seminarians and use the customized financial planning tool, developed by Church Pension Group and Milliman, Inc.

Question: I plan to go into ministry in the Episcopal Church, but I am not enrolled in one of the 11 Episcopal seminaries. Can I apply for a Funding Future Leaders (FFL) scholarship?

Answer: While some Episcopal ordained leaders graduate from non-Episcopal related seminaries, the Funding Future Leaders scholarships will only be awarded to those approved by their bishops and diocesan commissions on ministry who are studying for the Master of Divinity degrees at one of the 11 Episcopal seminaries. Some financial support may be available through the Society for the Increase of the Ministry (SIM).

Question: Will Funding Future Leaders finance the education of all seminarians?

Answer: No. Funding Future Leaders will grant scholarships based on financial needs. The purpose of the endowment is to help ensure that seminarians will not add more debt while they are in seminary.

Question: Why is FFL needed? Don’t the sending churches and dioceses pay for their own seminarians?

Answer: Some sending churches and dioceses financially support the seminarians they send. However, the amounts vary widely and rarely match the financial needs of the students. Without a central funding source, no coherent plan exists to financially help those who respond to God’s call to ordained ministry. Funding Future Leaders hopes to raise enough funds to be able to help all seminarians who need financial support. A central funding organization, such as SIM, helps assess the financial need of all. If we as a Church affirm a person’s call, we have an obligation to find a way to fund the training needed to fulfill that call.

Question: What are the most direct threats to an adequate supply of committed, articulate, well-trained clergy in the next 10 years?

Answer: Factors that could contribute to a lack of clergy supply are:

Alarming increase in seminarian debt
Low starting salaries for clergy
Nearly 50 percent of active clergy are within 10 years of age 65
Continuing practice of ordaining older persons

Funding Future Leaders intends only to address the first threat—seminarian debt. Our goal is to fund an endowment that will create an adequate scholarship program, so that Episcopal seminarians will not incur additional debt while they are in seminary.

Question: Besides Funding Future Leaders, what else does The Society for the Increase of the Ministry (SIM) do?

Answer: Besides awarding scholarships, SIM provides pastoral support to grant recipients. Because the Society is not part of the authority structure of the ordination process, the Executive Director of SIM and the Director of the Scholarship Program are in a unique position to offer pastoral care when they visit with grant recipients during visits to seminary campuses twice a year.

Out of the interaction between SIM staff and their grant recipients, the third function of the Society has emerged: advocacy for seminarians. Seminarians have no advocate in the councils of the church, and they cannot advocate effectively for themselves. To do so could negatively affect their future as ministers.

Question: How can seminarian debt be controlled?

Answer: The Funding Future Leaders endowment is only the first part of a three-part solution that The Society for the Increase of the Ministry proposes to help solve the seminarian debt crisis.

The Society provides aspirants to holy orders, and those in authority in the discernment process, the resources necessary to identify, confront and manage accumulated debt, prior to a person’s entering seminary.

In a seminarian’s senior year and during the first year of parish ministry, SIM also provides ordinands with advice and counsel on available strategies for enlisting the help of the employing parish in beginning to pay down accumulated debt.

Question: Is the Society for the Increase of the Ministry (SIM), which will manage Funding Future Leaders, associated with The Episcopal Church or any of the seminaries?

Answer: SIM was founded in 1857 by a group of Episcopal clergy and faculty from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Since its founding, the Society has been independent of seminaries, dioceses and national church bodies. Early leaders of the Society intentionally organized SIM in this manner to keep a clear focus and to remain as free as possible from the political pressures that sometimes arise within the church. Today SIM is a 501(c)3 organization.

However, for Funding Future Leaders, SIM has collaborated with many organizations and individuals including: the Episcopal Church Foundation, the Church Pension Group, the Council of Seminary Deans, the Presiding Bishop, the Office of Ministry Development at the Episcopal Church Center, the Evangelical Education Society of the Episcopal Church, the Standing Commission on Ministry Development, the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal parishes, bishops, Episcopal churches and others, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has started a similar fund for its seminarians.