I am now moving towards the future on 2 tracks: one is the candidacy process, by which the Lutheran church determines that I am called to be a pastor, and the other is the application process by which Wesley Theological Seminary decides whether or not to let me come and study there. Yesterday I completed another major step in the candidacy process.
A few weeks ago, I got a candidacy packet from my synod of the ELCA. One document gave me a list of 4 possible people whom the Synod has chosen to do a pre-candidacy interview. I did a bit of Googling, and I chose one name because the woman had been a CPA, and then when she was in her 50's, she went to seminary. She's 70 now.
We talked about approaches to seminary: full-time or part-time, onground or online. She said that the seminary she went to insisted that she come to be at the seminary full time, so she did. We talked here and there about how seminary had changed through the decades--and how it hasn't. Now there's more room for part-time students at seminary in a way that there wasn't when she was doing her degree.
We also talked about why I was focused on the MDiv--why not go the Word and Service route not Word and Sacrament? I talked about all the people I know who hadn't gotten the MDiv and wished that they had because it would have opened more doors. She advised me to stay open through the process, especially since I won't have that long to have a career, the way that someone just out of college at the age of 21 would have.
The interview lasted about an hour, and it was more like a conversation I might have with a friend, a newer friend with similar interests. She encouraged me to stay in touch with her, and I plan to do just that.
The interview lasted about an hour, and it was more like a conversation I might have with a friend, a newer friend with similar interests. She encouraged me to stay in touch with her, and I plan to do just that.
So I've completed another step, and I'll keep going, step by step.
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