The Administration of the Free Lutheran Bible College is pleased to announce the 2024-2025recipients of the Thorpe Leadership Scholarship: Lily Groven from Crookston, MN; Grace Nysuten from Wanamingo, MN; Caleb Cox from Monongahela, PA; Cort McDonald from Leonard, ND; Curt Green from Fosston, MN; Samuel Davis from Arlington, WA; and Zachariah Davis from Arlington, WA. The Thorpe Scholarship is awarded to second year FLBC students who show potential for future leadership. This year FLBC received 16 excellent applications. 

Rev. Gordon Thorpe, who was once the youth pastor of longtime AFLC leader Rev. Robert L. Lee, endowed a leadership development scholarship beginning in 2022. Each year since, Free Lutheran Bible College students apply and are selected to receive this half-tuition scholarship. Recipients participate in a leadership development cohort that meets weekly with President Mobley and other FLBC staff. 

Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, Jakob Rolf, Anna Renn, Olivia Underwood, Ryan Erickson, and Caden Larson read through and discussed the book Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders. While covering a variety of topics, such as Christian ethics, leadership, and servanthood, President Mobley came to know these individuals personally and was able to encourage their leadership efforts; “I am grateful to God for the opportunity to train servant leaders, and this scholarship cohort is a great tool to do so. Students consistently end the year with a more robust understanding of leadership as servanthood and suffering, not making commands and getting your own way. The benefit far exceeds the generous scholarship, as students seek opportunities to learn and grow.”

One of this year’s recipients responded:

“Although I am unsure as to what this next year will hold for me, I recognize that it is within the uncertainties that God works remarkable things. He has given me talents and gifts that I so often use only to glorify myself. Yet when I give up andfollow His calling for my life, I gain a purpose and joy in using these gifts that I would never have thought possible. I know that if He desires for me to grow in leadership, He will provide opportunities for me to do so in ways that glorify and magnify His name.” 

Please pray that these students will continue to seek wisdom and insight from the leaders in their lives and ultimately from the King of our lives, Jesus Christ.