wfn.org | Seminary-debt program spells relief

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7156 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

14-May-2002
02174

Seminary-debt program spells relief

1st-year grants in BOP program aid 37 graduates in 28 presbyteries

by Jane Daveler, Board of Pensions 
and Jerry L. Van Marter

PHILADELPHIA - Amy Lehr and Hunter Camp met at Columbia Theological Seminary, married one month after graduating, and answered their first calls at small churches in Virginia.

They started out with their wedding gifts - and $25,000 in combined student debt.

"It was an overwhelming year for us, with all those changes at one time, " Lehr recalls. "The debt was an added weight on our shoulders." The two young pastors were earning modest salaries (Lehr is serving two churches in one full-time position). Paying off their loans might have taken years.

But they are among the early beneficiaries of the Seminary Debt Assistance (SDA) program launched last year by the Presbyterian Church (USA) Board of Pensions.

The seminary debt-relief program offers grants of as much as $2,500 per year for four years to M.Div. graduates of PC(USA) seminaries who accept first calls to churches with fewer than 150 members and annual budgets of less than $100,000.

According to the Rev. Marcia Myers, the PC(USA)'s associate director of churchwide personnel services, 37 SDA grants were made in the start-up phase of the new program. Graduates of all 10 PC(USA) seminaries received assistance; the recipients are serving churches in 28 presbyteries.

The 43 new pastors who applied for grants had an average educational debt at graduation of $19,000. Fifteen of the 37 who actually received grants are female, 22 male. Eleven recipients are single, 26 married.

The BOP assistance seems to have served as a catalyst for congregations. Lehr's two churches, her family and her hometown church have agreed to pay off the remainder of her seminary debt.

"We feel wonderfully free and blessed that would be assisted in this way," Lehr said. "This is testimony to me that we have an abundant and generous God."

SDA grants are from BOP general-assistance funds, not from members' dues. 

For more information about the program, call your presbytery; contact the Board of Pensions by phone at 1-800-773-7752; or log onto the BOP's Web site: www.pensions.pcusa.org:80/index1.html.
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