The Endowment Fund has collected personal stories of clergy and lay people who explain the importance of theological education. Some share how they have personally been transformed. Others witness the impact their studies have had on their present ministry. Others urge the need to improve and sustain theological education. Our first testimonials were made with delegates to the General Conference in 2016. This proves in itself how theological education has led to a new generation of leaders in the church. It shows how the Methodist ministry joins personal and social holiness transform communities.

New Avenues of Theological Education
The Endowment Fund is particularly interested in promoting new avenues in theological education around the world. Digital technology allows us to align resources and work with new synergies. The Methodist e-Academy in Europe, created in 2005, is the very first example of it. In many European countries and languages, there has never been a United Methodist seminary, and limited resources would never allow for building one up. But in collaboration with the Methodist Churches in Britain and Ireland, the United Methodist Church in continental Europe has built up a hybrid educational program in German and English for its future clergy. It offers Methodist Studies in history, theology, and polity for students who have received their basic theological education in non-Methodist institutions in their native language. An additional value of this hybrid educational model is the creation of relationships between students of different countries and languages: they become friends and experience the value of the Methodist connection. You may learn more about the program of the Methodist e-Academy in Europe here.

The Endowment Fund has been inspired by the example of the Methodist e-Academy in Europe and is engaging in developing Methodist theological e-networks among existing theological institutions, adapted to the very diverse local potential. It brought together the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry and a US-School of Theology (initially Perkins), the British Methodist Church, and Cliff College for enabling new forms of blended learning, on-site and online, and new forms of cooperation and synergy that strengthen existing institutions. Pilot projects have been held in East Africa.

First Fruits
The Endowment Fund is continuing its campaign of raising a capital of $ 25 million for scholarships, resource material, and new avenues of theological education, and raising a capital of $10 million for professors in Methodism. Since 2020, the Endowment Fund has begun to disburse a yearly amount from the interest on the collected capital while allowing the capital to grow. It is the first fruit of all the efforts of past and present donors. These first fruits are disbursed for projects in new avenues of theological education. Such projects have the highest potential to improve and extend theological education in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines.

• Background on the endowment effort is given in the section Present Challenge.

• Get yourself involved in supporting the endowment initiative in the section Donor Giving.

• For additional information, have a look at the section on Resources.