The latest round of FIEC’s Training Fund grants have been allocated to men and women training for ministry in 2022, pushing the total amount of training grants to over £2 million. Adrian Reynolds, Associate National Director of FIEC, writes:
December saw another round of Training Fund grants at FIEC (the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches). What a joy! Before December’s meeting, we had distributed £1,953,905 in over 180 awards across Britain. Our latest grant decisions mean that we’ve now comfortably topped £2 million in help given since 2012.
This time around there were again a diverse set of applications that we were able to support. We were encouraged to see applications from a mix of places (city centre, urban deprived, rural, small town) and people (men and women training for both classic and less obvious leadership roles) – one included a trainee youth worker part-funded with a local authority.
In total we agreed to distribute about £162,000 in ten different grants. Not all these applications had individuals in view, although most did. For those that did not, we have ring-fenced the money for 12 months while they search for someone.
Grants were provided to people studying at Oak Hill College, Crosslands, Union School of Theology, and the Midlands Ministry Training Course, plus a couple of in-house programmes. Most were for two years, though some were for 12 months.
Bittersweet funding
The vast bulk of the money was from a closed church where the building was sold and the funds released to FIEC. In many ways, this kind of funding is bittersweet: there’s a sadness in a church closure and an opportunity for witness gone in a certain area, but there’s also joy that the original founders had the vision to ensure that closed church funds are put to gospel use.
The rest of the money was sourced from individuals and churches who share our vision for seeing men and women trained for ministry. In many ways, these kinds of gifts – though often smaller – are more meaningful. They show that people have grasped what we are trying to do and see the Training Fund as just one way of fulfilling that Biblical mandate in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.
Our next Training Fund meeting is in May and applications will close at the end of March. If you are interested in supporting the fund, or making an application for the first time, I’d love to talk things through with you (you can get in touch through the FIEC website).
For now, join me in thanking God for His goodness and generosity and pray that these gifts would have a long-lasting effect in the church of our Saviour Jesus.
