Prepping for the Pulpit

Martha Marlowe (front), Deborah Marlowe, and Jonathan Harris.

Kay Hinton

For students of Emory’s Candler School of Theology, some of the most valuable learning happens off campus.

With financial support from alumni and other donors, the Candler Advantage Advanced Summer Internship in Congregational Leadership offers rising third-year students the opportunity to work full time in a parish and share what they learn with other students in the program.

Jonathan Harris 13T spent last summer at University Heights United Methodist Church in Decatur, led by the Reverend Donn Ann Weber 84T. Harris valued the experience because he expects a small neighborhood church like University Heights to await him after he is commissioned as a provisional elder in the South Carolina Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church this year. By the time the summer was over, he had preached six times, organized vacation Bible school, and developed a church-wide recycling program.

Harris’s Candler Advantage opportunity was funded by the Reuben B. and Martha S. Marlowe Endowment, a scholarship fund that Atlanta attorney Deborah Marlowe 80C created in 2009 to honor her parents. Reuben Marlowe 55T 80T, a minister in South Carolina, died in 2010. Martha Marlowe is helping build the endowment.