Wheat Ridge Grant Completed
In the spring of 2003, Ministry Mentors was informed that they would receive a $35,000 grant from Wheat Ridge Ministries. The grant, paid out over a three-year period that ended June 2006, helped Ministry Mentors—Serving Those Who Serve—grow organizationally in order to serve a greater number of clergy.
Wheat Ridge Ministries (originally called Wheat Ridge Foundation) is an independent Lutheran charitable organization that provides support for new church-related health and hope ministries. Their mission statement says it well: "Lutherans seeding new ministries of health and hope in the name of the healing Christ.”
One of the more prominent ministries given initial support by Wheat Ridge is the Stephen Ministry program, used worldwide by over 8,000 congregations, representing many denominations. (www.stephenministry.org.) Dr. Ken Haugk, founder of Stephen Ministry, is a Lutheran pastor with a doctorate in psychology who created an organized program to encourage lay people to support each other through confidential listening.
Ministry Mentors’ founder, Dr. Donald Fagerberg, also a Lutheran pastor, is a trained Stephen Ministry Leader who saw the need to offer an organized form of peer mentoring and coaching for clergy. Both Wheat Ridge and Ministry Mentors believe that health and wholeness in congregations includes support for pastors.
To learn more about Wheat Ridge Ministries, visit www.wheatridge.org.