Ministry to Emerging Generations

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have  is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.   — Os Guinness, The Call:   Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Nashville, TN: Word, 1998), p. 4.

As I drove from South Central PA to Boston, MA,  and the next day sat in my first day of a Doctor of Ministry program (DMin) in Ministry to Emerging Generations at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a number of thoughts of how I arrived at this place at this time in my life journey played through my head. The call of academic knowledge first began to draw me in when I was only in middle school. As a first year at Grove City College I was keenly mentored by several  faculty who took an interest in my spiritual direction. Upon graduation I wrestled with whether to pursue graduate studies, but opted instead to dive into ministry with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Ministering  alongside undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)  led  me to pursue a Masters in Higher Education at Geneva College and few years later a Masters in Spiritual Formation at Evangelical Theological Seminary. This training assisted me to more fully engage higher education as a mission, touching students and faculty from across the globe with the call of the Gospel.

With this passion, I grew in responsibilities with InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network  (ESN),  becoming  the Associate Director in summer 2012. Through the providence of God evidenced by significant relationships and situations, this fall I investigated and applied  for Gordon-Conwell’s Ministry to Emerging Generations (DMin). By God’s grace and the encouragement of family and colleagues, in January I took the bold step of entering the program.

In class for two weeks with my cohort, we discussed a plethora of topics, which I continued to mull over on my drive home. As in all things, I desire to love God with  head, heart, and hands and to love my neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40).[1]  This leads me to seek to apply what I learn in class in ministry, in my family, in my community, in the very creation as I pursue God’s call as part of the people of God.

It is with great enthusiasm that I explore with you  what I am learning. I consider the ESN  community a collaborative learning community  and desire to share my experience and to engage with your insights as I continue in the program. The two topics on which I plan to focus are:

• The challenges of spiritual formation as families  wrestle with  extended adolescence and the juvenilization of culture, and
• A Theology of Vocation in the context of higher education.

The first will be developed into a fall adult elective at Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ Church (the local assembly of which my family is a part) and serve as the thesis to complete the Masters in Spiritual Formation that I am finishing at Evangelical Theological Seminary as I start the DMin program. The second topic will be the focus  of  my Doctor of Ministry thesis and a new Fall 2015 project for the ESN blog. I look forward to your insights  and feedback on these explorations.

In order to set the stage for these endeavors, my  next post will explore the Big Picture  of Creation-Fall-Redemption that undergirds my academic work. In the mean time, I encourage you to give some thought to how you define/navigate childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and vocation. If you have particular insights and/or resources to share, please  share below. Thank-you.