Release date: Feb. 20, 2003
Contact: Elaine Justice, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0643 or ejustic@emory.edu

Candler's Youth Theology Initiative Awarded $2.2 Million

Emory University's Candler School of Theology has been awarded a four-year, $2,182,200 grant by the Lilly Endowment Inc. for its Youth Theological Initiative, a 10-year-old center for research and theological education of youth that became a model for such programs across the nation.

The grant will enable YTI to continue its popular summer academy--a month-long residential program for youth--continue and expand its youth ministry education, and begin a fund-raising program to ensure its long-term financial support.

"Ten years of support from the Lilly Endowment has enabled YTI to model a new form of theological education for youth and youth ministers," says Russell E. Richey, dean of Candler. "This grant will allow us to continue and expand this important work."

The grant will enable YTI to offer its theological summer academy program for rising high school seniors for the next four years. Each summer, YTI will bring as many as 54 students to Emory for an ecumenical exploration of Christian theology and public issues in a mentoring and diverse community.

Over the last decade, Candler has brought 617 young people to its summer academy. A two-year research project on YTI alumni that is near completion indicates that "the majority have remained theologically engaged in church and society, whether they are ordained clergy, lay church leaders or in secular professions," says Faith Kirkham Hawkins, director of YTI.

In addition to the summer academy, YTI also contributes to youth ministry education at Candler, with YTI staff offering courses in youth ministry, and youth and culture for the seminary's students. A new element funded by the grant will help Candler expand this effort, making youth ministry education courses and programs available to pastors and lay leaders.

The grant also will enable YTI to begin a fund-raising program to ensure the initiative’s long-term financial future. Over the four-year period of the grant, YTI hopes to raise funds to cover as much as 50 percent of its operating costs for the following four years.

"Theological education with youth benefits the youth themselves, their religious communities and the wider society," says Kirkham Hawkins, who also is assistant professor of youth and education at Candler. "We've learned that helping young people engage in sustained and critical theological reflection promotes within them a commitment to renewal of the church in society."

That is why Candler is so committed to an across-the-board effort with youth, says Kirkham Hawkins. "Developing a group of theologically articulate and reflective youth strengthens the church as much as developing an educated and reflective citizenry strengthens democracy."

YTI began at Emory in 1993 with support from Lilly and became the first of what has blossomed into more than 50 theological programs for teens at universities and seminaries across the United States and Canada.

While designed for the same age group, the programs have different formats and emphases. Some are intended to recruit young people into parish ministry. While Emory's YTI also encourages young people to explore careers in parish ministry, it also fosters a more general lifelong love of theology. YTI also serves as a living laboratory on how youth respond to and use theological education.

YTI currently is taking applications for its 2003 summer academy, scheduled June 28 – July 26. Applicants must be rising high school seniors. For more information, contact Kirkham Hawkins at 404-727-2917 or fhawkin@emory.edu.

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