Littleton, Colo. – Denver Seminary has received a grant of $1.25 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help to expand the understanding of compelling preaching, support aspiring and active preachers, and develop communities of learners for long-term benefit of the global Church.

The effort is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Compelling Preaching Initiative. The aim of the initiative is to foster and support preaching that better inspires, encourages, and guides people to come to know and love God and to live out their Christian faith more fully.

The Seminary’s grant will support a range of dynamic educational activities, including peer learning groups, workshops, and webinars, all designed to benefit seminary students, preaching pastors, church staff, and lay leaders. However, according to the initiative director Pastor David Ward, the work is about more than enhancing preaching skills. It is about cultivating core values such as humility, self-awareness, teachability, and intellectual curiosity.

“We intend to elevate the effectiveness and importance of preaching in the churches of Denver, the Colorado Front Range, and across the nation,” said Ward. “We will seek to encourage the development, networking, and ongoing learning of godly preachers, beginning with our Master of Divinity students and alumni, and rippling into our partner churches, schools, and beyond.”

Denver Seminary will also launch a new preaching track in its Doctor of Ministry program and create a media resource library.

Denver Seminary is one of 142 organizations that are receiving grants through the Compelling Preaching Initiative. Reflecting the diversity of Christianity in the United States, the organizations are affiliated with mainline Protestant, evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Pentecostal faith communities. Many of the organizations are rooted in Black church, Hispanic, and Asian Christian traditions.

About Lilly Endowment Inc.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of diverse religious traditions by supporting fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe.

About Denver Seminary
Denver Seminary is a non-denominational graduate school of theology located in Littleton, Colo. The Seminary’s mission is to prepare men and women to engage the needs of the world with the redemptive power of the gospel and the life-changing truth of Scripture. Established in 1950, Denver Seminary offers on-campus, fully online, and hybrid degree programs, and has an extension campus in Washington DC and a Korean Global Program. In addition, the Seminary offers programming for lay ministry through its Hispanic Programs and Black Church Programs.