We share Sir John Templeton’s vision that there are important benefits to local religious communities and ministries when they engage with mainstream science. How can we help more Protestant churches and influential parachurch ministries in America engage science? How can we make it more common that science is engaged in these ministries? We have over a decade of experience tackling these questions, but before we can launch a major effort in response, we have three major tasks to accomplish. (1) We need to clarify our brand – helping to make our work more recognizable; (2) We need to continue to build our audience – especially among clergy, ministry leaders, and scientists of faith; and (3) we need develop our preliminary business plan for our work as we begin to fundraise in order to sustain this important initiative well into the future.
To this end, we propose a 12-month, $157,550 grant (towards a $287,790 project) to undertake these three tasks and to put us in a better position to help American congregations and ministries engage science – thereby gaining humility, developing a richer notion of God, and regaining some of the cultural credibility that the Christian church in America has been losing for decades.
