The College of Pastoral Leaders

THE COLLEGE OF PASTORAL LEADERS Endowed by Robert Priddy

By Melissa Wiginton

Unique among the initiatives of the Weaving Promise and Practice for Ministry campaign, the College of Pastoral Leaders (CPL) serves those already in ministry. Graduates leave seminary with zeal for ministry; for most of them, zeal inevitably wanes as they hit hard, dry spaces, or it is sapped by overcommitted, crazy-busy lives. For all the vocation’s joys, it can be hard and often lonely to do the work of ministry over a lifetime. CPL tangibly responds to pastors’ needs for revival.

The College of Pastoral Leaders operates through a grant program for sustaining clergy. Each year, CPL offers small groups of practicing clergy financial awards which enable them to refill the reservoirs of energy needed for ministry. The $1.3 million campaign gift by Robert Priddy of Wichita Falls established an endowment to permanently sustain the program. Currently, Austin Seminary is able annually to award six grants of $10,000 each to be used over a two-year period. A committee of administrators and practicing clergy selects the recipient groups from a pool of competitive applications.

The possibilities for renewal activities stretch as far as the pastoral imaginations of clergy. CPL’s distinction lies in its trust of pastors to structure the gift of time and money to meet their most pressing needs for vitality. Unlike a lectionary study group or a training for skills devel opment, CPL encourages pastors to answer the vocational question: What makes more of you? Or, more simply, What makes you come alive, and who do you need with you to make this happen?

The responses from the more than 800 pastors who have received grants range widely. Clergy members self organize in groups of four to six members, some drawing from relationships established in seminary and others pulling together colleagues with similar contexts or core questions for ministry. They gather together for remarkable pursuits: Quarterly camping retreats in the wilderness. Trying what they have never done before, so they remember how to be brave. Immersion in arts, from collage to cut glass to dance to personal writing to poetry in preaching. Monthly one-day retreats in the city with no cell phones or internet. Exquisite meals they couldn’t afford without the funds. Places visited they’ve longed to see. Always they stay connected through regular communication, shared joys and difficulties, reflection and study. The beauty of this gift shines in the lives of pastors and chaplains from diverse denominations, races, and geographical locations—bringing light from Austin Seminary to illumine the lives of the churches’ servant leaders. On behalf of the many ministers who have found their way back to vitality through the College of Pastoral Leaders, we are profoundly grateful.

Melissa Wiginton is vice president for Education Beyond the Walls, which administers the College of Pastoral Leaders grant program. The photograph is of the “And Now What?” CPL cohort, taken in March on their visit to the VisArts pottery studio in Rockville, Maryland; from left: Rev. Barbara McKenzie, Rev. Ramonia Lee, Rev. Gloria Grant, and Rev. Diane Hugger.