Lilly Endowment Inc. grant of $500,000 has helped get needed technology into more hands
by Erin Dunigan for the Presbyterian Foundation | Special to Presbyterian News Service
Monitors are installed at Primera Iglesia Presbiteriana en Lajas in Puerto Rico. (Contributed photo)
When Pastor Erika Irizarry Rodriguez received a technology grant from the Presbyterian Foundation, she breathed both a sigh of relief and exclaimed a shout of joy.
The $5,000 grant is part of a program which allows the Presbyterian Foundation to provide technology and training grants to pastors who serve small congregations and congregations of color in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Rodriguez was able to use the money to buy a new computer for the church, two screens to be used in the worship space, as well as a new copier, toner, paper, and a mouse and PowerPoint programs for the computer.
“Our computer was more than 10 years old,” Rodriguez said. “We could go get coffee while we were waiting for it to do something. The copier — we never knew if it would eat the paper, or if it would just take forever to make the copies.”
Both were, in her words, beyond obsolete.
“The new technology has given us new life, new motivation, new inspiration for doing new things and for continuing on in the ministry,” she said.
Lilly grant answers need
The grant program was born out of necessity, says the Rev. Dr. Dave Loleng, Director of Church Financial Literacy and Leadership at the Presbyterian Foundation. As churches switched to online services and meetings thanks to the Covid pandemic, many pastors were struggling to make outdated technology work — or were forced to dig into their own pockets to pay for new equipment or software.
This was especially true for pastors of color, particularly those serving smaller congregations. With fewer resources and more demands, the need for new technology was stronger than ever.
Loleng applied to the Lilly Endowment Inc. to create a grant program for pastors of color and received $500,000 to support such a program; $250,000 has already been awarded to pastors who applied for grants in 2022. The other $250,000 requires matching funds; the Presbyterian Foundation is working with other organizations to create the match and another round of grants. No date has been set at this time for the next grant cycle.
“The pandemic was a time when people truly needed online connections to their congregations and their pastoral leaders,” Loleng said. “What I heard time and again from pastors was that they simply couldn’t function well without better technology, whether that was hardware or software. It goes beyond cameras for livestream worship. They sometimes needed better quality cell phones, or a paid Zoom subscription so they could hold longer meetings.”
Sixty-three grants were awarded to pastors for technology needs in 2022; most were about $5,000, depending on needs.
The Foundation is also working on videos to help pastors learn how to more effectively use technology. Those videos will be released later this year.
Serving a need
Rodriguez’ church is benefitting greatly from the new technology.
The church, Primera Iglesia Presbiteriana en Lajas, sits in the center of the coastal town of Lajas, on the west side of the island of Puerto Rico. Services are held on Sundays and Tuesdays, with monthly women’s meetings on Saturday. The majority of the church’s membership are 60 years old and over, but there is a small youth group that meets as well.
Rodriguez has been the church’s pastor for the past 18 years, since being ordained in 2005. Her husband helps out with the praise team and is beginning to grow in confidence in sharing the word during the Tuesday prayer meetings. Their son runs the sound system for the church, and their daughter plays piano and sings for the praise team.
“I have a wonderful team of people who help with the ministry here,” she said. “Even my parents, who are elderly, help out where they can.” The two screens the church purchased have helped in the Tuesday and Saturday meetings, allowing those presenting to use video teaching elements.
During the pandemic, Rodriguez noticed that many in her congregation began to feel weighed down with the heaviness of the situation. In addition to the challenges of the pandemic, Puerto Rico also faced severe earthquakes during 2020, followed by the devastation of hurricane Fiona in September of 2022.
During this time, she began to get requests for prayer from members of the congregation. “I already had two chats set up one in WhatsApp and one in email — so I began to record short prayers and send them in the chats,” she said.
These short, recorded prayers (one or two minutes each) have now become a regular fixture in the life of the church. But their reach has gone well beyond the pastor’s original intent. “I began to have members asking if they could forward the prayers to their families, to their friends, to their neighbors,” she said. She sends the prayers five to six nights per week. This small effort on her part is felt exponentially as the members of the congregation share them with their own networks.
Small changes, big impact
In the same way, the technology grant has helped the church make what might seem like incremental changes — but with a far greater impact, mainly because the church functions as a parish church, regardless of whether someone is a member or not, the church ministers to them. “We have people from the surrounding neighborhoods who come and ask if we can perform the funeral for their loved one, even though they are not members,” she said. Rodriguez accepts these requests willingly as part of the congregation’s service to the community.
“Coming out of the pandemic and the earthquakes and the hurricane, it was hard not to feel demoralized,” she said.
But that attitude is beginning to shift. “Receiving this technology grant has given us new tools, new vision, and new energy to revive our ministry in the midst of what has been a very challenging time,” she said. In addition, the grant has also given the church peace of mind, knowing that the computer and copier are not going to die at any moment. “We are so thankful for this opportunity that we have been given,” she said.
Her dream is that with these new tools and this new life that the congregation can continue to grow and share the word and that they can invite their friends and neighbors to join them.
Erin Dunigan is an ordained evangelist and teaching elder in the PC(USA). She is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a photographer, writer and communications consultant and lives near the border in Baja California, Mexico.
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