Seminary Application
I'm currently applying to Seminary. If accepted, I'll attend Bethel Seminary's InMinistry program beginning this fall. I've heard great things about the program and I'm very much looking forward to participating in it.
If you're thinking about attending seminary, or you're just interested in what types of questions someone applying to seminary are asked to answer, you can read the quesions and my essay/response below:
If you're thinking about attending seminary, or you're just interested in what types of questions someone applying to seminary are asked to answer, you can read the quesions and my essay/response below:
Please write your response to the following topics (Please make it one and one half to two typed pages, single spaced.)
1. Describe your Christian experience, including conversion and significant factors in your spiritual formation.
2. Describe your understanding of the task of ministry, previous ministry experiences, and your own sense of call.
3. Comment on your understanding of the mission of the Church and the role of the local church in that mission.
4. Explain why you want to pursue a seminary education.
My friend and I climbed the bleachers and snuck onto the top of the press-box of the football stadium one late summer night at the beginning of our junior year of college. We were both about to leave for a cross-country team camp, but wanted to steal a few moments of the beautiful night before we departed.
We have been blessed with the faith to make very difficult decisions when led by God and then see them blessed through faithful dedication in the after-math. The youth group I lead has grown in a year from forty students weekly to eighty students weekly. My wife Meg felt called to lead a coffee-house ministry through RCC. She saw the creation of a coffee house through from start to finish. It has now been open for five months. The community has embraced it and there will soon be alternative worship services in the space a few times per week. These successes that have come through difficult decisions and hardship have given my wife and me a better understanding of what it means to be called and what it means to do ministry.
Ministry begins with a burden. It is a need witnessed that cannot be ignored. The task of it then, is to see the burden healed. It is to take the steps needed to bring the reconciliation and restoration of Jesus into that witnessed need. That can take the form of providing needed food and shelter, speaking a kind word, producing a community gathering space, or speaking the hard, yet loving truth into real-life situations.
And that, in every sense, is the mission of the church. The church’s mission is to show the love of Jesus to the world that needs it. The local church fulfills that role intimately in each community. It is through true discipleship (Luke 25-33), that we play our part in the body of Christ (1st Corinthians 12), showing that love in word and deed. We do this as the church at large, as the local church, and as individuals.
In our earnest attempts to live that call; we all participate in ministry. To lead the local church in achieving that goal is a daunting task. It has overwhelmed me and it has scared me, but it has been in moments, like the one spent on the top of the football stadium’s press box, that the call I’ve felt to ministry has been made clear. The opportunities I’ve had since, to teach and lead in my current ministry role, have confirmed the pastoral nature of that call. To be faithful to this felt call of ministry, seminary is unavoidable. In fact, to avoid it would be irresponsible. I’ve seen the benefit of sound education and conversation amongst thoughtful and open minds. I’ve also been impressed with the quality of Bethel’s InMinistry program. To be faithful to God’s word, to be aware of the rich history that I’m taking part in, and to teach and lead in a credible way, I know seminary is the necessary next step in following God’s call.
1. Describe your Christian experience, including conversion and significant factors in your spiritual formation.
2. Describe your understanding of the task of ministry, previous ministry experiences, and your own sense of call.
3. Comment on your understanding of the mission of the Church and the role of the local church in that mission.
4. Explain why you want to pursue a seminary education.
My friend and I climbed the bleachers and snuck onto the top of the press-box of the football stadium one late summer night at the beginning of our junior year of college. We were both about to leave for a cross-country team camp, but wanted to steal a few moments of the beautiful night before we departed.
For thirty minutes we wondered at the sunset and stars and reminisced about our recent summer adventures.
As we watched the sun finish setting and the stars appear, our conversation took on a heartfelt tone. The moments that followed still make me smile. It was on top of the press box that night that this best-friend-of-mine told me that he had become a Christian over the summer. We hugged after he told me. We’ve maintained a close friendship ever since.
I grew up in a Christian home. From an early age I remember having a close relationship with Jesus and for that reason, I cannot remember a specific first time in which I offered my life to Christ and asked for His grace. I do, however, remember multiple moments of re-commitment. I remember weekend youth retreats, convicting discussions, and shameful sin that brought me to my knees.
In high school, I attended a Sunday-night discussion group for youth and young adults. It fed a craving I had for thoughtful dialogue and deep conviction. Then, in college, I fell into a group of friends who took the Christian faith seriously, even if they were skeptical of it.
So many lose faith in college. I feared it myself for a time, but it was a big view of God that I found through those high school and collegiate friendships, one that inspired questioning and eliminated the fear of disproving Him, that carried me through my collegiate years. It allowed me to minister to friends through right actions, through campus ministry, and through late-night conversations.
Late into my sophomore year of college my girl-friend convinced me to write a pastor at Ripon Community Church an e-mail. I barely knew the man, but had enjoyed a service or two at the church. On that complete whim, I asked to be a youth intern for him during the upcoming summer.
Four years later, I find myself married to my then-girl-friend, working full-time as a youth and outreach director at Ripon Community Church. I never anticipated life to take these turns. God’s call is something that leads unpredictably. I’ve found that call at the intersection of pride, humility, honesty, and sensitive life decisions. It has been in the midst of wrestling with those things that I have felt tugged toward ministry and it has been in the midst of those things that my wife and I have prayed and spoken most deliberately and emerged most confidently.
We have been blessed with the faith to make very difficult decisions when led by God and then see them blessed through faithful dedication in the after-math. The youth group I lead has grown in a year from forty students weekly to eighty students weekly. My wife Meg felt called to lead a coffee-house ministry through RCC. She saw the creation of a coffee house through from start to finish. It has now been open for five months. The community has embraced it and there will soon be alternative worship services in the space a few times per week. These successes that have come through difficult decisions and hardship have given my wife and me a better understanding of what it means to be called and what it means to do ministry.
Ministry begins with a burden. It is a need witnessed that cannot be ignored. The task of it then, is to see the burden healed. It is to take the steps needed to bring the reconciliation and restoration of Jesus into that witnessed need. That can take the form of providing needed food and shelter, speaking a kind word, producing a community gathering space, or speaking the hard, yet loving truth into real-life situations.
And that, in every sense, is the mission of the church. The church’s mission is to show the love of Jesus to the world that needs it. The local church fulfills that role intimately in each community. It is through true discipleship (Luke 25-33), that we play our part in the body of Christ (1st Corinthians 12), showing that love in word and deed. We do this as the church at large, as the local church, and as individuals.
In our earnest attempts to live that call; we all participate in ministry. To lead the local church in achieving that goal is a daunting task. It has overwhelmed me and it has scared me, but it has been in moments, like the one spent on the top of the football stadium’s press box, that the call I’ve felt to ministry has been made clear. The opportunities I’ve had since, to teach and lead in my current ministry role, have confirmed the pastoral nature of that call. To be faithful to this felt call of ministry, seminary is unavoidable. In fact, to avoid it would be irresponsible. I’ve seen the benefit of sound education and conversation amongst thoughtful and open minds. I’ve also been impressed with the quality of Bethel’s InMinistry program. To be faithful to God’s word, to be aware of the rich history that I’m taking part in, and to teach and lead in a credible way, I know seminary is the necessary next step in following God’s call.
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