live & learn

“Cultivating Ideas” faculty webinar series in the spring

Join us ONLINE to hear some compelling, fresh ideas from Austin Seminary’s faculty. Throughout the academic year, professors are sharing ideas and insights they have been cultivating in teaching, writing, and ministry. Come, gather seeds of scholarship to grow in your own church and community. Each FREE session is on a Thursday from Noon to 1:00 p.m. (CT). Sign up for one or all!

February 15: Rodney Caruthers (New Testament) “The Kingdom in Parables”

February 22: Jennifer Lord (homiletics) “Making the Most of the Font”

February 29: William Greenway (theology) “The Passion of Torah Is the Passion of Jesus Is the Passion of Lent”

March 7: Eric Wall (sacred music), “Songs Along the Way: Music and the Lenten Journey”

April 11: Bobbi Kaye Jones (pastoral ministry) “Conversations with Alumni from the Road”

April 18: Andrew Zirschky (youth ministry) “Why Your Church Isn’t Forming the Faith of Children and Teens, and What You Can Do about It”

April 25: Crystal Silva-McCormick (evangelism and missions) “Euro-American Christianity and Indigenous Suffering: Are We Diseased?”

May 2: Patricia Bonilla (Christian education) “TraumaInformed Faith Formation”

May 9: Gregory Cuéllar (Old Testament) “Resacralizing the Other at the US-Mexico Border”

College of Pastoral Leaders Clergy Renewal Grants

College of Pastoral Leaders celebrates two decades of resourcing pastors

Begun in 2004, the College of Pastoral Leaders (CPL) has provided funds to more than 800 pastors to engage in twoyear cohort-based programs that encourage sustainability and faithfulness. With $10,000 grants, CPL encourages groups of pastoral colleagues—such as former seminary friends, pastors within the same judicatory, clergy in neighborhood ministries—to coalesce around a specific goal and together design a project, create a budget, and implement their program over the two years of the grant cycle. The College of Pastoral Leaders facilitates personal renewal, professional vitality, and pastoral excellence.

Emerging out of CPL in 2020, the Latinx Leadership Renewal (LLR) program has provided three one-year $3500 grants toward the revitalization of Hispanic congregational leaders.

Deadlines for 2024

Grant application is May 10

Awards are announced by June 30

Start date for grants is July 1

AustinSeminary.edu/ifelong-learning

Stories by and for immigrants

Mónica Tornoé, director of Latino/a programs at Austin Seminary, had an essay published in Faith & Leadership from Duke Divinity titled, “Events and books help undocumented immigrants tell their stories.” Arising from her own immigrant experience, she shared her ministry at Austin Seminary, especially through the project Undocumented Stories, designed to educate people about immigration through storytelling.

Ideas for a social-justice stocking

Check out these children’s books on immigration by Mónica Tornoé