I recently received a surprise call from a former professor of mine. He was gracious and kind to call me to congratulate me on the new job. A former dean himself I accepted the condolences. It was one of those tender conversations of a teacher expressing gratification (if not relief) for a former student’s success. And it was an opportunity for a former student to express gratitude to a mentor and teacher who opened up future possibilities. Those are tender moments, and they happen too infrequently.
At one point in our conversation my former teacher, long retired now, asked, “So, what are seminarians like these days?”
Tellingly, my first response was, “They’re very young.” But that’s probably more about me than about them. I was happy to report that I was most hopeful in my experience with our seminary students. I find them to be optimistic, eager learners (if not always as consistently scholarly as we would want), and very much committed to their Christian calling. They struggle appropriately with the Church as it exists today, critical of her shortcomings but committed to her mission and to her welfare. As a matter of course they shed their naiveté about churches while growing in their commitment to serve the Church in its varied forms, including, amazingly, congregations. And while at times they may voice hesitancy about religious institutionalism they are not hesitant to commit time, energy and talent to those causes, movements, and churches they perceive as authentic and relevant.
While they remain products of their generational epoch they nevertheless show an amazing capacity to appreciate Tradition (that with a capital “T”). Often they show a capacity to shed faddish and uninformed practices and beliefs as they grow in discernment. Many are in a twilight period between protracted adolescence and a foreshadowing of their maturity. In this they reveal a delightful playfulness in their approach to both studies and ministry. One can only hope they never lose that.
I think there is much to hope in today’s seminarians. I think they will accomplish amazing things in the Kingdom. Partly, perhaps, because they do not yet know their limitations. Thanks be to God for that.
Dr Galindo, I just found the G.R.A.C.E. website and have enjoyed reading as time permitted over the last two nights. As always your deeply insightful observations amaze me and teach me so much. I have to say as an “older” person arriving at the doors of BTSR ( child in hand) I came eager to learn, strengthen my understanding of a ministry that I had been doing for over 7 years and do good in all the world as best I could.
While all this sounds idealistic it was cushioned by age and experience which understood that we must walk gently into a congregation.
You graciously had conversation with me several years ago as I was searching for a ministry position. I was looking for a congregation ready or willing to look at ways to minister differently that what is the norm-but not too far out. I was interested in developing holistic ministry in a congregation, doing work with multi-generations and believed that moving congregations to study, worship, mission and fellowship together across age and gender was a healthy one as the world goes today. You were so supportive in my ideas and often lack of ability to clearly articulate what this might look like. I have since realized that some of this evolves which makes congregations uneasy and part of this “new way” can be modeled and understood by great books that are out there……?!.
To answer “where are we” …I left seminary and searched a long time for a congregational ministry but found Hospice Chaplain. I was in this position and learning to accept it as “my place” when a local congregation called me to talk to them about becoming their Associate Pastor. I was there for just over a year, lots of good things happened for the congregation while I was there, but I ended up with a forced resignation. I was serving with a pastor that had been there for 14 years and I was the 7th Associate “under” him. Today, I am unemployed and have no idea where I will turn next.
I was not prepared for the interview process with the search committee. Before seminary I had had interviews for only a few jobs, even though older, because I had only had a few jobs because I carried long tenure at each one. I did not know the questions I needed to ask them! I left a good position with Hospice doing good things not only for the patients and families but also for the staff. I will never doubt I was called to the congregation, what I have realized is that while I was listening, the pastor was not (even thought at first he wanted me to come!). As you can guess there is not just one reason why I had to leave the unhealthy situation; however the pastors inability to be secure in what he was giving to the congregation was not enough when what I was giving was a bright light and new spirit to this struggling congregation. Oh, the questions I should have asked!
Peace and thanks for your work…Jennifer
A couple of years ago, I took an online seminary course that also required a couple of on campus meetings. I hadn’t been on this seminary campus in over a decade. The students were passionate about their call to ministry. They also sounded quite distainful in their perceptions of us, pastors working in the trenches. The several younger students that I met in this course certainly thought that we had failed our call. They also didn’t want to hear anything about congregations compared to ‘families.’ Congregations were not ‘families’ and didn’t operate like families. I so admired and appreciated their passion and also was thoughtful and concerned about their perceptions of experienced pastors. I truly wonder where these graduated seminarians are now. Have their dreams and visions of how they want ministry to look like been realized? Did they get caught in a congregational system whose homeostatic forces didn’t allow these dreams and visions to come to be in the time frame or the way they anticipated? What do they have to teach us old entrenched pastors?