A $2.9 million gift by businessman Cal Turner Jr. to Vanderbilt Divinity School will result in 21 new United Methodist ministers and professional development seminars for pastors and lay leaders in Middle and West Tennessee.
“Fewer outstanding people are choosing to enter the ministry and more are leaving over time,” said James Hudnut-Beumler, dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School and Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History.
“This decline is in great part fueled by the increasing cost of education paired with the limited earning potential of those who choose the ministry. Nevertheless, the call to ministry and service is strong for many of our students, and our job is to remove as many of the financial barriers as we can, so promising candidates can accept admission to Vanderbilt Divinity School.”
The Cal Turner Leadership Scholars program will award seven fellowships each fall in 2007, 2008 and 2009 to candidates for the Master of Divinity program who intend to pursue congregational ministry in the United Methodist Church. The fellows will receive a full scholarship to Vanderbilt Divinity School plus an annual stipend for living expenses dependent on their work at a local congregation. The total value of the fellowship will amount to $90,000 per student over three years.
“Our church today has many leadership burnout issues,” said Turner, chairman of the Cal Turner Family Foundation and the retired Chairman and CEO of Dollar General Corporation. “If this program can have an impact on the clergy leadership of the church, that will have a multiplier effect on our society. These men and women who become effective ministers will have great impact on the lives of others, who will in turn have great impact on the lives of others, and so on for many years to come.”
Turner’s gift will also fund the Turner Center for Church Leadership and Congregational Development, which will provide continuing education programs for clergy and lay leadership in Middle Tennessee. The Center will be led by Vanderbilt professor, M. Douglas Meeks, The Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies and Theology.
Church leaders are sometimes unprepared to respond to what’s new in their ministries, be it from upheavals in civil society or just the result of moving to a different church and context.
“These leaders need continual formation in effective forms of leadership, in theologically sound reconceptualization of ministry and mission, and in the spiritual formation that would give them the courage and perseverance to lead in this time of crisis,” Meeks said. “The center will commit itself to bringing the best possible resources of academy and church to the task of creating new leadership in the church.”
Cal Turner Jr., a member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust, was the third generation to enter the family business that started as J.L. Turner & Son in 1939 as a wholesaler of basic dry goods. In 1968, the company changed its name to Dollar General Corporation and went public. There are more than 8,000 Dollar General stores in the United States.
Media Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu