Each year Disciples Home Missions (DHM) distributes approximately $100,000 in direct financial aid to seminary students actively preparing for a life of vocational ministry. Since DHM has already awarded all available monies for the coming 2005/06 school year, we can report that DHM's work in this area will translate into 51 students each receiving an average of $2,000 this coming year, to help them pay for their ministry education.

As a part of DHM's work to help prepare more Disciples for a life of ministry in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), one of the important requirements for all students seeking financial help through DHM's scholarship program is that they are in an Under Care relationship with a regional Commission on Ministry, or actively in the process of coming Under Care.

Students responding to a call to vocational ministry by attending seminary aren't always familiar with the Christian Church's processes for licensing and ordination, or the deep value of the covenantal relationships each church member and congregation enjoys as part of a larger regional church. Students don't always know they will need to work within a relationship of accountability with a region as they seek to have their call to ministry nurtured and affirmed. Regions are always working to empower the ministry discernment and preparation of seminarians, but they don't always know about each person from their region who is enrolled in seminary, or especially those students who did not grow up in the Disciples' tradition but who now feel called to serve as ministers in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Being "Under Care" is the formal relationship a student enters into with their home region of the Christian Church (or the region in which they are attending school). It is a relationship of discernment on the part of the student and the regional church. In this relationship the region provides oversight to the student as they investigate the authenticity of their call to ordained ministry in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and all the preparation that such a possibility requires. Being Under Care does not lock a student into ordination as an inevitable outcome. It does, however, provide a doorway into a valuable relationship between the student and the regional Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) that is vital to any Disciple seeking to fulfill the requirements for vocational ministry. It is usually more advantageous to a student if they seek to come Under Care of a region's Commission On Ministry early in their educational work, rather than waiting until their final year of seminary.

If you are a student who would like apply to Disciples Home Missions for scholarship aid to help you afford ministry education, please contact DHM for further information. If you would like more information about coming Under Care within the regional church of which you are a part, please contact your regional minister. Either your home pastor or a staff person in the office of Search and Call at Disciples Home Missions can give you contact information for the office of your regional minister.