After raising $87 million since 2017, Luther Seminary has publicly launched its Listen! God is Calling campaign.

The campaign is designed to address the core challenge facing faith communities today: The churches Luther Seminary serves struggle to form Christian identity and practice with their own members, their children, and their neighbors. Luther Seminary is uniquely positioned to address this problem by equipping future leaders for the church, by learning and modeling new practices, and by forming Christian communities in our world.

The seminary’s campaign has three funding priorities:

Scholarships – $30 Million

Student debt is one of the greatest barriers for future pastors and church leaders. Luther Seminary is committed to making theological education affordable and accessible. The Jubilee Scholarship covers tuition costs for all newly admitted Master of Arts and Master of Divinity students at Luther Seminary, allowing them to follow their callings without financial barriers to ministry. 

Innovation – $30 Million

The world has changed dramatically and is in a period of heightened global disruption. Like many before us, Luther Seminary is called to watch for what God is doing in the midst of the disruption and to discover how we are being called to cultivate the new life God is bringing forth.

Luther Seminary has begun learning and modeling new practices for seminary education and ministry through several campaign-funded initiatives:

• MDivX  – an accelerated, 24-month Master of Divinity program.
• Faith+Lead – a digital platform used by more than 400,000 church leaders from around the globe, providing courses, breakthrough practices, learning communities, coaching, and a private social network for pastors and lay leaders.
• Seeds Project – a 12-month fellowship pilot created to accompany innovative leaders in their ministry experiments. Luther Seminary plans to share the pilot’s results across the broader church.

Sustaining Fund – $35 Million

The Sustaining Fund advances the mission of Luther Seminary to educate leaders for Christian communities called and sent by the Holy Spirit to witness to salvation through Jesus Christ and to serve in God’s world. Due to declining seminary enrollment and retention and retirements of pastors in the ELCA, 1,000 congregations that can afford a full-time pastor do not have one. Support for the Sustaining Fund will help us reverse this trend. 

The impact of the Sustaining Fund includes:

• • World-renowned faculty – Students are taught by some of the best faculty in their fields in classes with an average 12:1 student-to-instructor ratio.
  • CPE and internships – The seminary provides students with 300 clinical pastoral education and internship sites annually.
  • Working Preacher – Working Preacher is a trusted source of inspiration, interpretation, and imagination for more than 2.7 million preachers across 200 territories and countries.
  • Lifelong Learning – Luther Seminary provides continuing education for more than 4,000 pastors and lay leaders each year.
  • God Pause – This daily devotional has more than 11,000 daily subscribers.

To learn more and contribute, visit the campaign website or contact Barb Hutson. 

About Luther Seminary

Luther Seminary educates leaders for Christian communities across the country and around the world. An innovator in theological education, the seminary is committed to exploring leading-edge approaches for Christian ministry, proclamation, and faith formation in a rapidly changing world. As one of the seven seminaries in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Luther Seminary has educated more than one-third of ELCA pastors, lay professionals, and leaders of many global Lutheran and ecumenical churches. Learn more at luthersem.edu.