Lilly Awards Grants to Three CRC Campus Ministries

The Lilly Endowment Inc. is giving a total of $4 million in grants to 27 private campus ministry organizations, including three from the Christian Reformed Church, that are working with students at public universities across the United States.

Projects will develop student leadership, connect them with mentors in their fields of study and future careers, enable them to live together in intentional communities and support international service trips, according to a Lilly press release.

In some cases, says the press release, students will engage in internships in congregations and faith-filled service organizations and receive support for exploring careers in ministry.

CRC campus ministries that have received grants from the Lilly Foundation include the ministry at the Campus Chapel at the University of in Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Geneva Campus Church at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc., and Geneva Campus Ministry at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.

• In Ann Arbor, The Center for Faith and Scholarship, which is the Christian study center of the Campus Chapel, plans through its project to host vocational exploration events (retreats, discussion groups, luncheons with Christian University of Michigan faculty to name a few), as well as sponsor ministry and worship internships. It also will use its lecture series to bring in speakers on Christian vocation.
• In Madison, Geneva Campus Church will offer paid ministry and worship internships to help undergraduate students explore calls to Christian ministry. This program will also reach a larger number of students by offering mentored relationships with mature, successful Christian practitioners in a variety of fields.
• Geneva Campus Ministry in Iowa City, Iowa, received a Lilly Foundation grant in support of its new C.O.R.E. Program (Christians on the Road to Excellence). Over the next three years, the C.O.R.E. Program will encourage college students to explore the concept of Christian vocation and help them discern what career God may be calling them to undertake.

Campus Pastor Ed Laarman and Program Director Alicia Vermeer say they are thrilled to add the C.O.R.E Program to Geneva Campus Ministry.

“Our society tends to put faith and work into two separate categories, as if they have nothing to do with each other,” explains Vermeer.

“That is why we need a renewed theology of vocation. This is especially true for college students who are desperately trying to figure out what to do with their lives.”

The campus ministries are part of the Endowment’s Campus Ministry Theological Exploration of Vocation Initiative, which supports vocational discernment programs for college students. The initiative now includes a total of 52 ministries located in 27 states in the U.S. The partnering organizations are rooted in diverse Christian traditions.

“Campus ministries provide time, space and encouragement for college students to examine their faith and values and reflect on how God is calling them to utilize their gifts and passions to live lives of meaning and purpose,” says Christopher L. Cobe, vice president for religion at the Lilly Endowment, in a press release.

“They play important roles in helping students explore the hopes and dreams they have for their own lives and make sense of their faith while they are preparing for future careers.”

The Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based, private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family — J.K. Lilly Sr. and sons J.K. Jr. and Eli — through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company.