Simon Cox Blog: Billy Graham Center Receives $1 Million Grant to Equip Leaders for Revitalization Through Evangelism

Wednesday 24 October 2018

Billy Graham Center Receives $1 Million Grant to Equip Leaders for Revitalization Through Evangelism

I am thrilled to announce that the Billy Graham Center, where I serve as Executive Director, recently received a $1 million grant to expand our Church Evangelism Initiative, which brings together senior pastors for revitalization in their churches.

The Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College has received a grant of $1 million to help establish the Church Evangelism Initiative. It is part of Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving in Ministry, an initiative that supports a variety of religious organizations across the nation as they create or strengthen programs that help pastors build relationships with experienced clergy who can serve as mentors and guide them through key leadership challenges in congregational ministry.

Lilly Endowment is making nearly $70 million in grants through the Thriving in Ministry initiative.

As Billy Graham stated at its opening, the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College is a world hub for evangelism and training, and is now becoming a major thought leader in church revitalization. The vision of its Church Evangelism Initiative is to see thousands of churches across the United States and beyond develop communities where people find their way to Christ and where every disciple of Christ is equipped and mobilized to reach and make new disciples.

In the past three years, the Church Evangelism Initiative led revitalization efforts among the senior leaders of 120 churches across 7 states. With support from Lilly Endowment’s Thriving in Ministry, the Church Evangelism Initiative’s fruitful efforts will considerably expand to gather pastors into pastor cohorts of 6-10 each for peer mentoring, problem solving and mutual support. The result is that pastors will thrive in their congregational leadership and thus enhance the vitality of the congregations they serve.

“We have piloted an approach to revitalization that has begun to work in many churches, and now, thanks to the Lilly Endowment grant, we can expand significantly in both the ...