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Foundations for Spiritual Leadership (FSL) to
Ministry Residence Program (MRP)
Looking back (FSL)
 For
11 years we’ve mentored, learned, worshiped, and grown with the 20 priest
who have benefited from the extraordinary programs we know as FSL. We say
goodbye to FSL with hearts filled with gratitude and sadness. We thank God
for introducing us to the Revs. Carol Pinkham-Oak, Wallace Adams-Riley, Ernest Graham,
Anne Kirchmier, Andrea Bowlby Martin, Joseph
Pae, Duncan Burns,
Jenni-Ovenstone-Smith, Cathy
Rafferty-Quinn, Mpho Tutu, Leslie Chadwick, Kurt Levensaler, Laura Gettys,
Nick Szobota, Jean Milliken, Mark Furlow, Erika Takacs, Daniel Lennox, Jared Cramer, Kim
Seidman, Nick Myers, Justi Schunior, and the Rt. Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon. They shared
themselves with us in ways that will keep them in our hearts and prayers for
ever.
 
FSL was made possible through several grants from the
Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the generosity of our parish. This
teaching congregation created
fertile environments for learning early in priesthood how to create healthy
settings for the practice of ministry.
Looking ahead (MRP)
Alarming rates of young clergy leaving their ministries
within the first five years after ordination continue. FSL and Lilly have
done significant work to arrest this trend and together move toward an
expanded version now known as Ministry Residence Program, or MRP. This
practice of immersing newly ordained clergy in a congregation, giving them
strong mentors and a wide range of opportunities lets them gain confidence
quickly, learn from their challenges, build on their gifts, and develop holy
habits.
Christ Church is part of this innovative program that
extends the FSL concept to the broader church community. We are one of six
churches, three dioceses, and Virginia Theological Seminary in partnership
to make MRP possible. In late 2009 the Lilly Endowment gave
a matching grant that will fund this program for 3
groups of 6 emerging clergy. Together we are in the planning stages
of this program and developing our gifts as a teaching congregation even
further.
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