Mission Yearbook: ‘Leading Theologically’ hosts reflect on season of discernment

After completing a season of “Leading Theologically” focused on discernment, the Rev. Zoë Garry, associate director of Theological Education Funds Development for the Presbyterian Foundation, invited her colleague, the Rev. Bill Davis, to the final edition this season to explore some of the highlights from five previous editions. Watch the installment here.

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Garry asked Davis the question she asked each of the previous guests: At what point in your ministry did discernment become an important practice?

For Davis, it was his first call out of seminary, when he served as an associate program director at Calvin Center, the camp and conference center of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta. Davis helped launch the Common Soul program, which they spelled both “soul” and “sole,” “pointing out that we share a common faith and a common walk,” he said.

The program was designed to help young adults discern their call into ministry, either inside the church or outside, according to Davis. Young adults in the program worked in roles including environmental education staffers and lifeguards and also in church settings, giving them experience in children and youth ministry. Over three years, about half of the 18 young adults in the program ended up going to seminary while others discerned calls not to attend seminary but stay in the ministry of camps and conference centers.

“Part of discernment is figuring out what God is calling you to do, but also what God is calling you not to do,” Davis told Garry. 

That reminded Garry of her conversation with the Rev. Dr. Gini Norris-Lane, executive director of UKirk. “Our early 20s is a directional period of many of us,” Garry said. “We can obviously change our life at any moment, but our 20s is a time for pointing us where we’ll go later in life.” She asked Davis: What can we as the wider church learn from UKirk and other young adult ministries like Camp Soul?

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The Rev. Zoë Garry

One lesson about ministry involving young adults is that “to get critical mass, you have to have partnerships and creativity about thinking outside the box,” Davis said. “The gift of UKirk is it’s a place where people come to ask questions, a place and a space where folks welcome young adults who might not be in school but are working in the town.” It’s also “a place to ask questions of faith — big questions like purpose, why I matter, why my degree matters, and how do I figure out how to live as a faithful follower of Jesus seeking justice, not only for myself but for the community I find myself part of.”

“In order to welcome younger folk into the church, we have to be broadly accepting,” Davis said, “and that’s something UKirks do better than others. I think that is the gift Gini provides the denomination and the world — helping people welcome holistically and whole-heartedly.”

In the second episode with the Rev. Tim Yi, youth pastor at Community Church of Seattle, as her guest, Garry discussed “the intentionality of space” and the creation of “trusted relationships with leaders and with youth.” She asked Davis what he as a parent is looking for in youth groups and children’s ministry.

Davis said one of his children sings each week in a youth choir of about 50 children. There are adults in the room, of course, but high schoolers also attend to mentor students and help each section to come together. “My eldest has gotten to know a high school vocalist really well,” Davis said. “When we talk about discernment, I think about the intergenerational nature of community discernment.”

“I think that’s one of the most important things the church offers,” Garry said, “this intersectional and intergenerational space. I’ve always loved that about churches.”

Garry later added, “It’s been an absolute delight getting to have these amazing conversations with what I’ve been untangling for this past year: What does it mean to be in conversation with God in this place and time?” She thanked Davis “for the opportunity to have been able to explore that this season.”

Learn more about the Theological Education Fund at the Presbyterian Foundation here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

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Mission Yearbook: Exploring discernment in a changing church

Continuing a “Leading Theologically” series exploring discernment, the Rev. Zoë Garry recently invited the Rev. Ann-Henley Nicholson, vice president of Enrollment Management and Vocational Outreach at Columbia Theological Seminary, to be her guest. Listen to their 34-minute conversation here.

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Nicholson, a former actor in New York City, told Garry that discernment became part of her practice “well before I was aware I was doing that.” She’s often wrestled with answering the question, “what is my greatest and highest use?”

Asked what questions she’s been hearing recently from students, Nicholson said they include “how might they meet this moment they and the country find themselves in” as well as “how can they articulate what they believe in a way that helps them and doesn’t harm others” and “how might they disrupt what they have come to know about God … and about themselves in an environment that encourages that kind of intellectual and theological curiosity.”

“Some need us to demystify what theological education is. Others are familiar with it and have wrestled with a call to ministry, some for decades,” Nicholson noted. “If they’re invested in the church and they want to see the church continue to exist, then God’s going to continue to call people. Usually when you remind people of that, someone hears a call.”

When Garry was a campus minister, she would ask every senior she could, “are you feeling a call to ministry?”

“I was astounded at how many students would say yes,” Garry said.

Increasing numbers of seminary students aren’t hearing a specific call to serve a faith community, Nicholson said. “I like to say that God’s call always lies beyond the limits of my imagination,” she told Garry.

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The Rev. Zoë Garry

Possessing a “healthy dose of humility and humanity” is “an opportunity for letting the Spirit come in and do its work,” Nicholson said. “It’s also a healthy recognition that this is Jesus’ ministry we have been called to be part of. It’s not ours.”

When Nicholson was a seminarian, “I had to remind myself that we are a community of shepherds, but we are also sheep,” she said. “That continues to preach to me. If I am practicing my ministry from that place, it means I am acknowledging my humanity and my reliance on others and all of Creation and most especially God, within and among us.”

Our Reformed theology reminds us “that ministry is something we’ve all been called to, whether or not we go to seminary,” Nicholson said. “We believe ministry is not restricted to those wearing robes.”

In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “we really do hang our hat on the sense that we cannot do this alone, that God is God and we are not. We need each other and we need all the different gifts within the kingdom to be a fuller human and a fuller church.”

Garry asked Nicholson what’s changed in PC(USA)-related seminaries and what’s remained the same. “You’re crushing it with your questions, Zoë!” Nicholson said, noting the “increase in diversity of thought, theology and vocational possibilities” present in today’s seminaries. Some students are called to ordained ministry. Others are interested in chaplaincy work. “More and more are drawn to pastoral care and counseling,” Nicholson said, while others see their future serving in nonprofit sectors or new worshiping communities.

“We are seeing people called to serve a church that doesn’t yet exist, and yet they are faithful to God’s leaning on their life and the Spirit leading them to seminary to discern how they might use these skills,” Nicholson said. “We’re also seeing more and more imagination in our faculty and their openness to the ways they are called to form and transform these current students and this future ever-evolving church.”

“The constant,” Nicholson said, “is that God continues to call people to ministry in so many different ways, which continues to sing to my heart, reminding me that God is not going to leave the church without a witness. I believe this with all my heart.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

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Let us pray:

Lord of all times, nations and peoples, help us to see each other through your eyes, celebrating the love you have given that binds us together. We ask your blessing upon the churches and peoples, so that we might be and make disciples in your name. Amen.