FTE awards fellowships to college students who demonstrate superior academic achievement and exceptional promise for ministry, with the aims of introducing them to theological education and encouraging their vocational discernment. The 70 Undergraduate Fellows represent 20 denominations, 55 undergraduate institutions, diverse geographical regions, and a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Each Undergraduate Fellow will receive a $1,500 award to be used for educational expenses or for a special project to explore ministry. To those Undergraduate Fellows who apply, FTE also provides a $500 stipend for a mentoring project to further investigate ministry and discern vocation with a guide.
Seth Zirkle is a Wabash College junior from Evansville, Indiana, and is the son of Mr. Richard L. Zirkle.
All 2002 Undergraduate Fellows recently attended the 2002 Summer Conference on Excellence in Ministry, "The Pastoral Imagination," held June 20-23, 2002, at St. John’s University School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. With keynote speaker Marcia Riggs and preachers Brad R. Braxton, Abbot John Klassen, and Janice Riggle Huie, students explored issues of vocation, theology, and ministry. Fellows also participated in a variety of worship experiences, roundtable discussions with practicing clergy, seminars with theological educators, and workshops focused on the liturgical and artistic. Undergraduate Fellows particularly benefited from interacting with the Ministry Fellows, recent college graduates preparing the enter Master of Divinity studies in the fall.
Partnership for Excellence Director Melissa Wiginton is convinced that the combination of the conference and the stipends provide an engagement with theology and ministry which is essential for young persons who exhibit the character traits and intellectual abilities necessary for excellent ministry, but who are yet undecided about their call. "This fellowship offers a gift of relationships, time and money with which a young person can attend to and foster the pastoral imagination she or he already possesses. It enables him or her to be a steward of God’s mysteries, perhaps nurturing them as gifts for ministry in God’s church," Wiginton says.
Established in 1954, the Fund for Theological Education has grown in both scope and commitment as one of the leading voices in theological education. The Fund has awarded some 5000 fellowships and counts among its alumni many of the most prominent theological educators and church leaders in North America. Today FTE continues its efforts to attract the best and brightest students to the practices of ministry and theological teaching and scholarship.