Grants

The Ministry in the City HUB provides grants to individuals, small groups, and organizations to support the work of doing, thinking about, and connecting together around ministry in cities across North America. These grants are made by invitation only.

Currently, there are four categories of grants: Congregational and Community, Strengthening Pastoral Formation for Ministry in the City, Affinity Working Groups, and Collaborative Seed Grants. Grantees attend three meetings in a cohort-based learning community as well as optional informal networking events and resource workshops.

Another way we steward and support creativity in ministry in the city is the “Creative Community Care” online residency and the subsequent traveling group exhibition which will be on display beginning in 2024. Learn more below.

CONGREGATIONAL AND COMMUNITY

  • These grants provide support for urban pastors, churches, faith-based community organizations, and theological institutions to share resources, ideas, and practices for life-giving ministry in cities across North America. Typically, we invite those who have not previously had access to resources or grant funding.

STRENGTHENING PASTORAL FORMATION

  • The Ministry in the City HUB aims to support communities, institutes, churches and seminaries in strengthening their capacity for forming pastoral and church leaders for ministry in cities. This initiative involves seminaries, theological institutions, and churches and intends to help communities and institutions explore and assess their own urban context and church life; gain clarity about their mission and programmatic offerings; and strengthen and support the design and implementation of plans to address key challenges and opportunities for pastoral formation and flourishing congregations in urban settings.

AFFINITY WORKING GROUPS

  • Affinity Working Groups provide time and space for HUB learning network members to engage in focused ways with 4–7 others interested in a similar topic and 
questions around ministry in the city. We anticipate working group members to explore, deepen, and assess their own vocation, urban context, and church life; gain clarity about vital questions and issues in a particular focus area (eg. youth, arts, etc), especially in light of the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, and learn from group members’ lived experiences and other sources of knowledge and wisdom. We particularly encourage action learning and reflection processes.

COLLABORATIVE SEED GRANTS

  • Collaborative Seed Grants involve artists partnering with pastors, youth workers, churches, and/or faith-based organizations on a seed or start-up project that integrates the arts or a creative practice with ministry and community. This can be an opportunity to try something new with partners one may not have previously been able to work with. We anticipate this proposal will bring together at minimum two partners to collaborate and explore and assess their own urban context and church life; design a new, or expand an existing, project that brings together creative arts, faith, and community within and beyond the church context; and learn from and with each other how collaborative ministry can sharpen and enrich
possibilities of transformation and impact in the church and community.

"CREATIVE COMMUNITY CARE" VIRTUAL RESIDENCY

  • We brought together eight socially-engaged Christian artists for a nine-month season, examining the intersections of their practices in creativity, community, and care during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021). This was followed by a series of online public workshops led by resident artist pairs in 2022. The traveling exhibition of artists' work will begin in Santa Ana, CA in March 2024, and travel to various cities around North America.