Showing the way to aspiring pastors

A grant gives young pastors practical experience.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DALLAS -- The Rev. George Mason held baby Jennifer close to his chest as he made his way through the sanctuary, introducing her to the congregation at Wilshire Baptist Church.
This is your family, he told the baby during her dedication on a recent Sunday morning. He also reminded those gathered of their responsibility to help rear the child.
Jay Hogewood understood this all too well. Wilshire is also rearing him -- to be a pastor.
Hogewood, a 33-year-old doctoral candidate at Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School, already has a r & eacute;sum & eacute; that would catch the eye of a pastor search committee. While attending Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University, he was interim pastor of a small church in Cranfills Gap, Texas. And when he began his doctoral studies, at Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, he once again pastored a church. He came back to Texas to lead the singles ministry at First Baptist Church of Richardson for a couple of years.
Most would say Hogewood seems ready to lead his own church now.
Residency
Instead, though, through a grant program run by the Lilly Endowment, he's signed on as a "pastoral resident" for two years at Wilshire Baptist Church. The program enables him to hone his preaching skills at a fairly large church, one with about 1,000 Sunday worshippers. He gets to serve a congregation and learn the business side of keeping a church going -- all under the wing of an experienced minister, Mason.
"The experience with George and Wilshire has been phenomenal," said Hogewood, who is in the first year of his two-year residency.
"It's a luxury, it's a challenge, and, at the end of the day, it's probably the most formative moment in my training for the ministry."
The transition from seminary student to pastor can be daunting. Studies have shown that many first-time pastors become frustrated and burn out, sometimes leaving the ministry altogether.
According to the Alban Institute, an interfaith research organization, only 4 percent to 8 percent of pastors are 35 or younger.
Hogewood didn't want to end up a failed statistic.
Practical learning
He said he realized that much of what it takes to be an effective minister and church leader can't be learned in seminary. So when the opportunity arose to go to a "teaching church" and witness firsthand its day-to-day operations -- working closely with a pastor he admired -- he gladly accepted.
Wilshire is one of 15 churches in the country to receive a Lilly Endowment Grant for Pastoral Residency. The philanthropic group said it hopes to address what it sees as "an impending leadership crisis in American congregations." Through various programs, the group hopes to help congregations and schools shepherd young people into the ministry; to help young pastors succeed in their first jobs; and to offer sabbaticals to veteran pastors in need of time off for renewal.
Wilshire Baptist received $800,000 over five years to provide a teaching environment for seven residents, who will each serve two-year stints.
Gretchen Wolfram of the Lilly group likened the program, which started in 1999, to a medical residency. It gives seminary graduates a chance to immerse themselves in every aspect of a church's workings while being mentored by a senior pastor.
"Putting a young seminary graduate into a church [unassisted] is like putting a Ph.D. in biochemistry into a classroom with no teaching experience, or sending a medical school graduate straight to Johns Hopkins Hospital," she said.
Mason, 46, said he always wanted to lead a church, but that he also wanted to be a teacher. The residency program gives him an opportunity to do both.
Benefits
The grant allows Wilshire to pay residents a salary. They also get health and dental benefits for themselves and their spouses.
Each resident is paired with a host family, someone to make the young newcomer feel at home in the community. The resident meets regularly with a mentoring committee and with a person from the congregation assigned to be a "faith partner." The resident helps plan Sunday services and leads a Sunday school class and a Wednesday prayer group. He works in all aspects of the church's life: administration, missions, worship, fellowship and ministry. And he performs funerals, weddings and baptisms, and preaches the Sunday sermon a handful of times each year.
Mason meets with Hogewood each week for about two hours. It's an opportunity for the younger man to pick the brain of the senior pastor, to critique past sermons and discuss upcoming sermons.
The goal isn't that the budding pastors turn out to be like him, Mason said. It's for each to become the best pastor he or she can be.