FaithFront, a Tabor College program aimed at leadership development for high school students, is no longer operating, as the Lilly Endowment grant that funded the program has concluded. Lilly Endowment is a private philanthropic foundation.
FaithFront operated from 2016 to 2024, but Mennonite Brethren have long had a program aimed at calling out high school students and young adults for ministry. Ministry Quest, also funded by a Lilly grant, preceded FaithFront, originating at then-MB Biblical Seminary in 2002.
From 2002 to 2010, Ministry Quest worked with more than 115 churches, including 12 Southern District churches and seven Pacific District churches, and had almost 300 high school participants. Almost half of Ministry Quest alumni (120), participated in programs at Multiply, then MB Mission Services International.
A change for Ministry Quest came in 2010 when the end of Lilly funding coincided with a leadership change at Fresno Pacific University and MB Biblical Seminary. The seminary, now Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, became a part of Fresno Pacific University, and in 2011 Ministry Quest was transferred to Tabor College.
“I had been working alongside Ministry Quest for those years and thought it was a great program and convinced the executive team to take it on at Tabor,” says Wendell Loewen, Tabor professor of youth, church and culture. “So we ran a Ministry Quest type program from 2012 through the summer of 2016. I like to say it was a Ferrari program on a Toyota budget. We just didn’t have the Lilly funds.”
When a new Lilly grant proposal targeted Ministry Quest type programs at undergraduate institutions, Tabor applied for and received grant money in December 2015, allowing the college to launch FaithFront in place of Ministry Quest in August 2016. Funded by Lilly grant monies and a subsidy from USMB, FaithFront improved resources for congregations and students while still calling and equipping young leaders for ministry.
“FaithFront was really Ministry Quest 2.0,” Loewen says. “What we were hoping to do was introduce young people at a younger age to the possibility of ministry as a viable career. It did expand into seeing your life as ministry, so no matter what you do, you have a calling. Calling was a centerpiece of what we were doing. So if we introduced students to being open to and aware of their calling, that will be progress for me.”
In eight years, 2,893 students and 72 leaders participated in FaithFront. Of those, 34 students enrolled at Tabor College, 22 majored in religion, theology or ministry and four entered seminary or full-time Christian ministry.
“It was one way to address the leadership gap,” Loewen says. “The hope is that we made progress, and we will look forward to hearing the stories (of transformation).”
Read more:
https://christianleadermag.com/faithfront-equips-students/
https://christianleadermag.com/ministry-quest-equips-teens-with-leadership-potential/
https://christianleadermag.com/ministry-quest-is-a-win-win-win/
https://christianleadermag.com/ministry-quest-moves-to-tabor-college/
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor. She joined the CL staff in September 2017 with six years of experience as a professional journalist. Shafer is an award-winning writer, having received three 2016 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence and an Evangelical Press Association Higher Goals award in 2022. Shafer graduated from Tabor College in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in Communications/Journalism and Biblical/Religious Studies. She and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
