LSTC 2024-2025 Fund for Leaders Scholarship Applications Now Open!

The 2023-2024 ELCA Fund for Leaders Scholarship is now open! If you’ve been discerning your call to ministry and would like to apply to LSTC but still have concerns about the financial realities of attending seminary, the Fund for Leaders could be for you. 

From Dec. 1, 2023, to Feb. 23, 2024, students can apply here for scholarships offered by the ELCA Fund for Leaders. These include the ELCA Fund for Leaders Direct Full-Tuition Scholarship, the Fund for Leaders Federal Chaplaincy Ministries Scholarship, the Fund for Leaders Mission Developer Scholarship, and the Fund for Leaders Synod, Congregation, or TEEM Scholarship.  As Rev. Marissa H. Key, Director of the ELCA Fund for Leaders said in this year’s annual report, “[The] ELCA Fund for Leaders exists because we know that our church will always need theologically trained pastors and deacons to guide us in showing and sharing Christ’s love in our communities.” 

The ELCA Fund for Leaders scholarship program supports students attending ELCA seminaries. By making seminary more affordable, the ELCA Fund for Leaders enables more future ministers to go to seminary and helps them graduate with less debt, empowering those whom God calls into ministry to go and serve as the church needs and the Holy Spirit leads.

• The ELCA Fund for Leaders Direct Full-Tuition Scholarship is for students who are beginning a degree program at an ELCA seminary and have begun the ELCA candidacy process in order to become a rostered pastor or deacon in the ELCA. Fund for Leaders Direct Full-Tuition scholarships are awarded to students in their first year of seminary and, as long as students remain eligible, funding is guaranteed for the duration of required seminary coursework.
• The ELCA Fund for Leaders Federal Chaplaincy Ministries Scholarship is for students who are attending an ELCA seminary and are preparing for ministry as a military, Veterans Administration or federal prison chaplain. These scholarships are awarded through ELCA Federal Chaplaincy Ministries.
• The ELCA Fund for Leaders Mission Developer Scholarship is for students who are rising middlers or seniors or TEEM (Theological Education for Emerging Ministries) candidates at an ELCA seminary, who are identified and nominated by their seminary and by ELCA Christian Community and Leadership (CCL) as mission developer candidates.
• The ELCA Fund for Leaders Synod, Congregation or TEEM Scholarships are offered to ELCA seminary students by synods and congregations that have established a scholarship fund through Fund for Leaders. The TEEM Scholarship is for all current TEEM ELCA seminary students and those who will begin the TEEM program this current fall semester, who are taking coursework. The TEEM scholarship lives within the Synod or Congregation Scholarship.

In 2022-2023, the Fund for Leaders distributed 132 FFL Churchwide Scholarships, 204 Synod and Congregational Partner Scholarships, and 77 TEEM scholarships, supporting 345 students and a total of 413 scholarships and distributing over 3.1 million dollars in assistance. 

To be eligible, applicants must be planning to enroll at an ELCA seminary as first-year students (juniors) in the fall semester of the 2024-2025 academic year, with no more than one semester’s worth of coursework already completed. Applicants must also have begun the ELCA candidacy process with the intent of becoming a rostered minister of either word and sacrament or word and service.

Visit the ELCA Our Scholarships page for more information about these and other Fund for Leaders scholarships.

Apply here for admission to LSTC.Please contact admissions for any questions at admissions@lstc.edu or call 773-256-0694.