A few months ago now, I attended a conference put on by The Fund for Theological Education. If you’re connected to the church in any way, you need to know about FTE. They have a rather significant budget, and they’re all about supporting young people explore vocation — too all forms of ministry — but, especially, to church leadership.

FTE offers some great scholarships for undergraduates, seminary students, and racial-ethnic PhD students, and more broadly, seeks to cultivate a culture of call that permeates all congregational life.

I attended the Calling Congregations Conference in October, held here in Atlanta. I definitely recommend future conferences to pastors and church leaders interested in exploring how God is calling a new generation of church leaders.

I write this post, however, with last week’s post on “The Huge Problem of the PC(USA) Call Shortage That Doesn’t Exist” in the back of my mind. I suppose it could be argued that because the PC(USA) has plenty of leaders, statistically speaking at least, that FTE’s mission is already complete. But to make that argument, one would have to be pretty out of touch with the denominations I know and love.

Sure, we need to address the PC(USA)’s dwindling numbers, empty rural pulpits, and swelling urban presbyteries, but isn’t the problem, more broadly speaking, one of quality? The church doesn’t need more pastors, it needs quality pastors who, with God’s help, help the church increase in faith, hope, and love.

Also (and this point came up multiple times in the comments of my previous post), we need folks leaving seminary without tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt so that first-call pastors can take a rural call and still pay their student loans.

Finally, I’m very supportive of cross-denominational conversations, especially ones hosted by organizations like FTE who not only have the know-how and grit to ask tough questions about the church’s future, but who have the resources to really do something about it.

Below is a video FTE recently put out. Watch it, and check out their website for great sources of funding for your congregation or ordained ministry-considering young person you know: http://www.thefund.org (you may even see my picture!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc9FoX5YE_s]