Seminary Rockstar Influencers

Ask any seminarian or rostered minister why they are in ministry, and you will hear names: the names of people who encouraged them in one way or another along this path towards a life in ministry.

Lately we’ve heard a lot about the coming clergy crisis, as more pastors retire without replacements behind them. People look to the seminaries to try to figure out what is wrong, but the process of hearing a call to ministry begins long before the seminary admissions office. It begins with those names that come up when you ask someone why they chose ministry. Who influences people towards ministry and how do they do it?

Last month, a small group of “Rockstar Influencers” came to campus. I call them Rockstar Influencers because they are in places where they have more access to people who might have gifts for a professional life in ministry, and some ideas about how to be influencers for those people. This group included campus ministry folks, camp directors, synod staff, and congregational pastors.

They came to find out about all the new aspects of PLTS – new faculty, new merger, new curriculum on the way, new space for the seminary to thrive in the move down the hill to the center of Berkeley. We also had conversations about how to be an influencer. We listened to a panel of students tell us about their influencers, and then we parsed out what we were hearing about the experiences and words we heard, and shared ideas from each person’s setting.

Here are some of the findings, which you can read as “Instructions on How to Be an Influencer”

  1. Invest in people: Every student had a story about someone who took a special interest in them and pointed out gifts they had. Some talked about being told “I see you as a leader…” and some talked about hearing the words, “would you try…[preaching, teaching, reading, etc.]
  2. Welcome people: Some stories were about feeling especially welcomed in a church, by the congregation and the pastor. This was especially true of people who are not cradle Lutherans.
  3. Give people leadership roles: Each student talked about experiencing meaningful leadership, sometimes from a young age. This Sunday, try finding a child who will join you in the back of the sanctuary and send people out, saying “Go in Peace, Serve the Lord!”
  4. Show your work: Our students also talked about watching someone in ministry do good work and have fun doing it. Think of it as a mini-apprenticeship.
  5. Have theological conversations: Our students talked about having significant theological conversations with leaders that showed the church is open to the hard questions in life, without needing answers.
  6. Continued encouragement: We heard great stories about people’s continued connections to their influencers, like receiving text messages that say, “hey future colleague!”
  7. Send people to events: Many students talked about being selected to attend a specific conference that was part of what helped them hear their call.
  8. Baby steps: you don’t need to say “you should think about being a minister.” Instead, start with the steps above: Welcome people, give them leadership, show your work, encourage people to go to camp, encourage people to work at camp, encourage people to consider a year of service like Lutheran Volunteer Corps or Young Adults in Global Mission. At some point it is important to say the words “Have you ever thought about seminary?” But it doesn’t have to be the first and only way to influence.

You probably do some of these things already; my hope is that this creates an awareness to what you are doing, so that we all might do it more often and more intentionally.  It often takes a lot of little things that add up to the day they contact the admissions office and start considering seminary. I am reminded of a quote from Paul Rogat Loeb, in The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear who says:

“The links in any chain of influence are too numerous, too complex to trace. But being aware that such chains exist, that we can choose to join them, and that lasting change doesn’t occur in their absence, is one of the primary ways to sustain hope, especially when our actions seem too insignificant to amount to anything.”

One more thing we learned from the student panel: When asked what she would say to the church if she had the opportunity, one second year student, Erika Tobin, said this: “Don’t be afraid.”

Alleluia. Preach it, sister.

Can you think of someone who should be considering seminary right now? Email hjohnson@plts.com with their contact information. 

Rev. Holly Johnson, Director of Admissions

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