Episcopal Organizations Get $4 Million in Lilly Grants

Kirk Petersen’s article on the Living Church website published October 7, 2020 describes how $4 million in Lilly grants are providing funds to four dioceses and an Episcopal seminary to work collaboratively to build both individual, thriving and vital congregations and to jointly create, test, and develop a scalable plan that can be shared among churches.

Lilly EndowmentThis $4 million dollar investment is part of a much larger “Thriving Congregations Initiative” of which Lilly has endowed a total of $93 million.

Each of the following initiatives are receiving $1 million to support their collaboratively build stronger churches, and a shared roadmap for other congregations, based on their joint efforts and experiences.

  • Strengthen physical spaces in parishes across Indiana:
    Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis in collaboration with the Diocese of Northern Indiana, and Partners for Sacred Places, and with Indiana Landmarks.
  • Develop strategies, commitments, practical methods for sustaining vital and viable ministries
    Episcopal Diocese of New York with the General Theological Seminary.
  • Experiment with innovative ways to adapt ministries to a changing world
    Episcopal Diocese of Washington in support of Episcopal congregations in the Washington, D.C. area
  • Adapting small, bi-vocational clergy led congregations to their changing contexts
    The Episcopal  Seminary of the Southwest in Austin and its Iona Center

The full article is published on the Living Church website and can be read at: https://livingchurch.org/2020/10/07/episcopal-organizations-to-get-4-million-in-lilly-grants/