Greetings from Montreat! We ended 2025 in a flurry of movement and did our best to keep you all up to date. Wise perhaps to begin with an “in case you missed it” update on happenings during the last quarter of the year before casting our attention to the new year. ICYMI Updates Lilly Endowment Grant Awarded: In early October, we received the exciting news that Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded the Montreat Conference Center a second grant of nearly $1 million to continue and expand our Thriving Congregations initiative for another five years. Over the first five years of the program, 30 congregations have taken part in the program, and participants are reporting reengaged congregations, revitalized mission initiatives, and in some cases, growth in membership and …
Montreat Receives Second Lilly Endowment Grant to Support Thriving Congregations
In early October, I ventured to Indianapolis, Indiana for a diverse gathering of nonprofit leaders representing organizations that shared at least two things in common: 1) a hopeful commitment to the vitality of the wider church, and 2) our institutions had all received grant support from Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of its Thriving Congregations Initiative. I was already feeling buoyant as, a week before that gathering, I had received the exciting news that the Lilly Endowment has awarded the Montreat Conference Center a second grant of nearly $1 million to continue and expand our own Thriving Congregations initiative for another five years. Our first Lilly Endowment grant, awarded in 2019, established a partnership with The Black Mountain School of Theology & Community and launched our Thriving Congregations program. At its heart, the program envisions churches as dynamic “schools for the faithful,” where …