First and foremost, I wanted to mention that I recently learned that the candidacy committee meeting in which I am scheduled for entrance (to begin seminary education) is scheduled for May 18th in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Knowing this is a mixed blessing.  On one hand, it’s cool to know the deadline I’m working toward, AND to know that this important meeting which so heavily has an effect on my life is not scheduled over top of some other crucial thing I might need to be at.  On the other, it’s slightly terrifying knowing that if I for some reason get denied or deferred that I’ll have a very limited amount of time to figure out what my other options might be for the following year.  I’m confident that I won’t have any problems, and that if I do, other opportunities will present themselves, but it’s always a good idea to think about those “what if?” situations.

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On a completely different note, I’d like to direct your attention to the screenshot I took off my computer included below:

You’ll notice 60 page views on the busiest day for this blog, with the busiest day being TODAY.  The second busiest day, just for reference was 53 views, and that was the day I posted my “Why the Summer Intern Called the Cops” blog post.

Here’s what happened…

Julie Stecker, Associate Director of Admissions at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg received a google alert email about my most recent post regarding my decision to attend LTSG.  (Ironically enough, she’ll also undoubtedly get an email notifying her of this one as well, since I’ve mentioned LTSG).

From there, she got in touch with me via Facebook.  I quote her here without her direct permission (Julie, you know how to get in touch with me if you DO for some reason want your comments removed) because I think it adds an essential piece to this story.

We’re really excited that you’re going to be joining our community! And the blog post was great. I mean, obviously, we think so, but it presents a lot of fair and balanced view of why you chose the seminary you chose, which I think could be helpful not only for those looking at LTSG, but people discerning in general.  Would you mind if we shared it from the seminary’s facebook page?  We really do mean it when we say we want people to go to the seminary that’s best for them, even if it’s not ours, so that “feeling right” part is perfect.

In the 2 hours or so since she shared a link to my blog post, I’ve jumped from 20ish views for today to 60 and climbing.  I’m honored to have my story shared with so many different friends of the seminary, and as I told Julie during our conversation, I’m excited at the possibility that someone, somewhere along the line might benefit from reading the comments on my blog.  Furthermore, this blog is a major tool for MY continued discernment; being able to compose my thoughts in written word helps me to organize and understand them that much better.

For anyone exploring a vocation in ministry, I think you’ll all understand the idea of certain things just feeling right or clicking in just the right way.  It’s likely how you ended up starting to look at ministry as a career.  I hope that as you explore your options for seminary, you’ll take the time the find the seminary that clicks and feels right for you.

One thing that is important to note is that for seminary, it’s fairly common to only apply to one school.  This stems from the understanding that seminary is a calling, not merely a decision made on a whim.  For the ELCA seminaries, and many others, it’s not a matter of competing for a certain number of spots in any given class, it’s moreso showing that you have taken the effort to prepare yourself for theological study.

Having decided on attending seminary at Gettysburg, I wanted to take the time to discuss some of the things that I think affected that decision and helped me find LTSG to be a good fit.  The list is is no particular order, just what came to mind as I was writing.

• Family – Family has always been extremely important to me growing up.  While I tend to be pretty independent, being close to people I care about is a pretty big strength. Gettysburg is around 3 hours from my parent’s house, and just an hour from where my brother, sister-in-law and two nieces live.
• Location – Gettysburg, PA is an awesome little town.  I can’t even count the number of times I made my parents take me there growing up to see the battlefield and town.  There’s just something really cool about how it is so historically significant but still such a bustling place.  Furthermore, anything they don’t have in Gettysburg is as easy as a drive to half a dozen much larger cities nearby.
• Lutheran Context – While Lutherans the world over can find commonality in our faith, there’s still a pretty decent amount of variety.  It’s kinda like this: if you’re comparing law schools, typically it’s ultimately best to select one in the state you hope to some day practice.  Me going to Pacific Lutheran Seminary in Berkeley, CA would be kinda silly considering that I’ve been born and raised a Lutheran in Pennsylvania and hope to at least stay somewhere within this region.
• Personal References – I know a pretty decent number of Pastors and current seminarians, and have been able to hear first-hand about the Lutheran seminaries in Gettysburg, Philadelphia and Chicago as well as Trinity (in Columbus, OH) and Southern (in Columbia, SC).  I made it a point to talk to people I respect about their choices in deciding on a seminary.  No one said anything bad about any of the seminaries, but the good things I heard about Gettysburg certainly served to reinforce my own thoughts.
• Hipstoric – LTSG’s associate director of admissions Julie Stecker used this word on twitter a few weeks ago to describe LTSG’s vibe.  Both the town and seminary are historic, but also hip and innovative.
• Volunteer Opportunities - A while back, I detailed my involvement with emergency services throughout the last 4-5 years of my life, and my interest long before actually getting involved.  It certainly didn’t hurt my decision toward LTSG that it is the only seminary served by a volunteer fire department (along with volunteer EMS), giving me the opportunity to find some time to volunteer during my education.
• Lack of Distractions - Standing on Seminary Ridge, Gettysburg is quiet.  While several of the things listed above may serve as distractions to some extent, I still believe that Gettysburg is a good place for me to focus on my studies during seminary.

And the most important reason:

It just feels right.  Many of the reasons above are somewhat superficial.  Several of them are things that you could probably find at ANY seminary.  Alone, none of these reasons are really sufficient enough to be a well-formed argument suggesting LTSG over any other seminary.  Even together, the logic isn’t entirely solid.  That’s where the pathos comes into play with emotional appeal.  I spent a lot of time praying about my decision, and something about the time I’ve spent AT Gettysburg, the time I’ve spent THINKING about Gettysburg and the time I’ve spent THINKING about being AT Gettysburg just feels right.

Up next:

• I’ll be doing my initial interview with Pastor David Gleason, a member of my candidacy committee next Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
• Also, I should receive notification about my financial aid award from LTSG sometime between now and the end of the month, which will give me a good idea of where I stand as far as what I need to do to finance my education.

Thank you everyone who has shown support up until this point.  It means the world to me.

Neither is former Presidential candidate Rick Perry.

I’m sure most of you saw his “Strong” ad, as it’s more than a month and a half old at this point.  Earlier this week, Perry withdrew his candidacy, which I don’t think was surprising to anyone given the fact that much of his campaign was a train wreck.

To be perfectly honest, the first time I saw this video, I glazed over his comment about “gays serving openly in the military.”  I guess I just misunderstood him or wasn’t really listening. To me, at first, it seemed like he was excited about servicemen and women being allowed to be openly homosexual, but I realize now that’s not where he was going with the statement.

I’m not writing today to debate that argument however, I’m moreso interested in discussing the reason I glossed over much of the video when I first watched it.

You see, with those opening lines of “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian,” my thoughts were immediately transported to a time when I wanted to be a politician.  I’m still not opposed to public office, in fact I’ve held leadership positions in just about every organization I’ve ever belonged to, but that wasn’t what I was thinking about when I watched Rick Perry’s ad.

I started wondering how I would approach a political campaign, even for something as small as city council member, etc.  Would I talk about my religion as part of my campaign?  What about 5-10 years down the road, I will presumably be a Pastor at that point in time if I continue on the path I’m going now, would that have an effect on a campaign?  Would I ever be seen on television proclaiming to my neighbors, or even the entire country that “I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a Christian… Vote for me!”

And it was in thinking through all of this that I came to a realization about what seems to be a problem in political campaigns of late.

I have no problem with a politician openly stating their religious beliefs.  Nor do I have a problem with that politician’s decisions being affected by their religion.  But there’s a fine line between being a politician whose comfortable speaking about one’s faith, and one who’s pandering to people of faith.

While in the strictest sense of the word, Christians ARE in fact a demographic, we shouldn’t be treated as one in the American political system.  No politician should ever be discussing with their campaign manager “how can I win over the church-goers vote?”

I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Christian, but I sure am ashamed of Christian politicians who try to flaunt their religion to win votes.

• I’m really interested in stuff related to emergency services: Fire, EMS, Law Enforcement, SAR, etc.
• I was really excited about finally being able to get my EMT license… That is, until my class got cancelled.
• As part of my call toward ministry, I have a specific interest in someday extending that ministry towards emergency services workers as a volunteer chaplain.
• I’m an optimist who fully believes that even when crap happens and you don’t get what you want, that good things can still come out of it all.

In the last post, I promised a teachable moment.  A way that I turned being upset about not being able to take my EMT class into a “glass half-full” situation…  Well, here it is, but, as always it requires just a wee bit of backstory.

My love of reading and learning has led me to constantly researching my interests.  Looking for new information and new books.  Several months ago, while looking for information about emergency services chaplains, I discovered Wally Johnston’s “Sent to Serve: the Chaplains of 9/11″ on the Amazon Kindle store.  It seemed interesting, but the fact that it was self-published made me a bit leery.  I downloaded the “Free Sample” of the first chapter as a way to remind myself to give it another look at some point to see if it might actually be worth reading, and then promptly forgot about it.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Thursday night, my family and I were staying in our hotel in West Virginia after an afternoon of cross-country skiing, getting ready to go skiing again the next day.  Alone with my parents, I was bored, there wasn’t anything good on TV and while we had drinks and snacks, it wasn’t really helping the fact that I was wide awake without much to do.

I pulled my iPad out of my backpack, opened the Kindle app, and, very much as anticipated, I had read all of the books I had loaded on to it.  I decided to pull up the free sample I had downloaded weeks, maybe even months earlier, and started reading.

It was enthralling, I promptly finished the first chapter and had to purchase the rest of the book.  I spent 10 minutes letting it download, moving back and forth across the hotel room trying to find the place that got better signal, and thus a faster download.  By the end of the night, I had finished 3/4ths of the book.

Numerous chaplains shared their stories and experiences at Ground Zero throughout the book, and as someone who feels called to eventually minister in this sort of capacity it was absolutely fascinating, but I think anyone who has an interest in 9/11, emergency services, and faith (or any combination of the three) would also find it really interesting.

I highlighted a lot of bits and pieces throughout the book, but I think the one that resonates the most, and the one that I really needed to read was this:

I’ve had officers say to me, “Chaplain, I couldn’t do your job.”  I respond to them, “I couldn’t do yours.”

If I’m interested in emergency services, that’s my own prerogative.  I will likely continue my involvement throughout the rest of my life as time and situation allows, but if I do, it will be out of a love of public service and desire to serve the community.  I don’t need to have been a volunteer fireman to minister to firefighters, nor do I need to be an medical provider to minister to EMTs and Paramedics.  I don’t need to keep up my volunteerism to gain credibility as a chaplain, I will gain credibility as a chaplain simply by being a good chaplain.

And that’s it.  It seems like common sense, and maybe it was something I already knew myself, but reading that paragraph on that night helped drive it all home for me.  My apologies to anyone who was expecting a “Jesus lightning bolt moment” at the end of this story.  It’s not often that God truly and visibly comes to us in the wilderness, but if we have faith, I think we can all look back on our journeys and see the way the Holy Spirit has shaped where we are and who we’ve become, and that even though we didn’t seem him at the time, God IS with us in that wilderness.

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As I had mentioned in the last post, I had signed up for an EMT class just over the PA state line from where I go to school at WVU.  The class was set to start last Saturday, January 7th.

That Thursday, January 5th, while I was driving over the mountain into Canaan Valley for a day or two of skiing with my parents, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.  A little bit later, when we arrived, I checked my voicemail, only to find that the phonecall had been from the school responsible for the EMT class.  My class had been cancelled because of low enrollment.  I wasn’t very happy.

As a side note, aren’t you glad I saved the heart-breaking part of the story for the second post?

Honestly, I’d like to think that an EMT class with only 5-6 people in it would be a lot better for the students (and their eventual patients) in the long run, but I’m aware that there is a point of diminishing returns as far as how much it costs to actually host such a class, so I’m not terribly upset.

Here’s the thing…

Throughout my life, I’ve been blessed with wonderful experiences of not getting things my way.  But how can not getting what you’ve been hoping for be a blessing?

Well you see, in high school, I really wanted to be the drum major of our high school marching band.  I had the leadership potential, and would like to believe I had the musicality, but when it came time to audition and select a candidate at the end of my sophomore year, someone else was selected.  At the time I was heart-broken, but just a few short weeks later, I was offered a job at Camp Lutherlyn, which I’ve blogged about in the past.

The responsibilities of being drum major required a lot of running around; attending various trainings and being at all of the band’s summer rehearsals.  If I had been selected drum major, I never would’ve been able to take the job at camp that first summer, and might never have worked at camp at all.

Think of the “butterfly effect” implications of me never working at camp…  During my five years on staff, I directly and indirectly worked with hundreds of kids.  I’m not naive enough to believe that I made lasting impressions on all of them, but let’s say I made an impact on at least one.  Where would he/she be today if I had never worked at camp?  Maybe they’d be in only a slightly different place, on only a slightly different path, but those campers that I interacted with would be different.

We could spend hours mind-numbingly analyzing and guessing (because it would only be a guess) how different things in the world would be if I had never worked at camp, but you could easily understand the magnitude of change by thinking about how I personally would be different.  I can tell you for a fact I wouldn’t be the same person.  I wouldn’t be as confident, as goofy, or as compassionate, and while I’ve always been fairly mature and responsible, I know for a fact that camp has boosted both of those traits infinitely over the years.  Furthermore, who KNOWS what sort of state my faith might be in.

The simple fact of the matter is that as much as I hoped and prayed to become the drum major, good things happened in spite of not getting it.  Great things, which were made possible specifically by the fact that I did NOT get what I wanted.  This isn’t the only time that such a thing has happened, I often try to see the proverbial glass as “half full” in anticipation of similar occurrences, and it’s amazing just how often your glass can turn out half full if you just have a little faith.

And so, it was with that anecdote in mind that I realized that I could not allow myself to be upset about missing out on taking an EMT class.  I knew that somewhere along the line, God was going to give me a different opportunity, a teachable moment, a way to see my glass as not only half-full but overflowing.

Who knew that moment would come so quickly… BUT, unfortunately, it doesn’t come until part 3, posted tomorrow or Friday.

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Throughout most of my life I’ve had a pretty intense interest in emergency services.  I can’t even remotely pinpoint where it all started, but I do know that my older brother who is 8 years my senior shared the interest and undoubtedly played a part in fostering it in me.  Together, we watched Rescue 911 and ER and dozens of other shows and movies.  It all fascinated me.

I was about 10 years old when my brother became an EMT.  I had always looked up to my brother and that pretty much cemented my desire to someday, somehow become involved in emergency services.  Around a year later, on September 11, 2001 the nation was glued to its television sets as countless first responders rushed into collapsing buildings “so that others may live.”  There wasn’t much I could do as an 11-year old, but my interest grew even deeper.

When I was in high school, I was able to join a local wilderness search and rescue team, a volunteer commitment that I have continued throughout my time here at WVU, and something that has only made me want to dive deeper into the world of public safety.  Search and rescue is particularly interesting because it gives a much larger picture of emergency services.  Any time I go out on a search, I’m typically working with not only my fellow members of the SAR team, but typically a combination of fire, EMS and law enforcement personnel.  You get to work with a wide variety of people, amazing people, coming together toward the common good of helping their fellow man.

As I’ve started discerning a call toward ministry, it seemed natural that I might someday want to pursue  emergency service chaplaincy.  And logically, I thought to myself, the best way to develop credibility as a chaplain would to be to stay involved.  Unfortunately, it seemed like I might have to give up on SAR after 5 years of volunteering with two different teams, there simply weren’t any volunteer teams near any of the seminaries I was interested in.

So what other options did I have to “maintain my credibility” in hopes of someday being able to as a Pastor, also volunteer my time as a chaplain for a local police or fire department?  It definitely earned a certain ELCA seminary some brownie points to know that it had a local volunteer fire department nearby that I could volunteer with for EMS and rescue.  I just needed to finally get my EMT license that I had been looking forward to for years.

And so, I took advantage of my liberal amounts of free time this semester that come as a perk of being a second-semester senior to register for an EMT class across the state line in my home state of PA.  I wanted a PA license rather than one in WV because while Pennsylvania would allow me to transfer a West Virginia license, it would be much easier just to get it in PA.  The class I found was perfect, fairly close to Morgantown, and only met on Saturdays, so even though the drive was slightly longer than I’d like, I would only be doing it once a week… (continued in part 2, posted tomorrow, January 10th.)

In my time at WVU, I can hardly remember a time that Robert, our organist, was not able to make it to play for the service.  As I walked into the chapel this evening though, Chaplain Reigel informed me that our service would be a cappella, that our accompanist was unable to join us.

I’m a musician, and I have great reverence for the power of music, especially sacred music.  When it comes to church music, I think the organ is a beautiful instrument that really brings a lot to it.

But not having an organ for a full church service?

It was actually pretty cool.  In some small way, I felt more in-tune (no pun intended) with the music, more in touch with the lyrics of the hymns.

Am I ready to say that every church needs to let its organ start collecting dust and go without? Of course not, but every once and a while, it can be a really interesting experience.

And I can’t help but think of one of my favorite hymns, and how its origins just might be traced back to a similar (albeit more catastrophic) lack of organ accompaniment.

Here’s the thing…

I also read those pages this morning and realized they were a bit out of date, so I took a bit of time to update them.  It’s not really new information for those of you who know me, but those of you who don’t might find some of it to be interesting.  So take a look and read a bit more about me and why I’m writing this blog if you’re new to it all.

“ The entrance essay is an autobiographical reflection which should contain insights and understandings gained during the period of discernment leading to your decision to apply for candidacy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  It is not expected that your process of discernment is completed.  You are asked only to provide an honest assessment of your current self understanding.”

Writing this essay was basically the first step during the candidacy process because it forces you to sit down and truly think through your sense of call.  And I took a LOT of time over the summer writing it.  I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t chosen to share it until now, but I hope that sharing it might help people who still don’t quite understand why I’m at where I am now.

So, here it is, uploaded to googledocs, for your reading pleasure, my ELCA Candidacy Entrance Essay…

www.bit.ly/ELCAEssay

Furthermore, it occurs to me that the last time I posted something that was directly relevant to the title of this blog “Jono the Lutheran” i.e. candidacy stuff was well over two months ago.

Fail.  I’ll take the giant red “F” now, because not only did I not post, but I neglected to post during a period of time where there really was a pretty decent amount of stuff happening.  But, here’s a brief summary:

• Back on September 1st, I officially completed the initial candidacy entrance application and my entrance essay.  In all honesty, I had filled out the application months ago, and was merely waiting to be finished with and satisfied with my essay before submitting this paperwork.  I’ll devote a post entirely to my essay later in the week, because it’s that important
• A week later, on September 8th, I went home to Pennsylvania and my home congregation Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Delmont.  As part of the ELCA’s candidacy process, candidates must be registered with an active congregation and need to have been a member for over a year.  Obviously this wasn’t an issue, but the Pastor and church council need to fill out some paperwork to this extent, and I wanted to make sure that every member of the council was still able to put a face to my name.  I attended the monthly meeting of our church council as a guest and took the time to re-introduce myself to them, and hand out copies of my essay.  I talked a little about the candidacy process,my discernment process and also answered a few questions.I was nervous initially, but after a while I loosened up and was able to be a lot more casual with the council members.  The following Sunday at church, our interim Pastor announced to the congregation that I’m hoping to go to seminary and apparently a lot of older members came up to my parents to congratulate them.  It’s good to know that I have support coming from all around.
• I knocked out the next big chunk (and often considered the most daunting part) of candidacy stuff earlier this week…  Monday afternoon, I sat down with my campus pastor Matthew Riegel who proctored my psychological tests.  Over the course of about 6 hours, I filled in well over a thousand “scantron” bubbles for different kinds of personality and psychological tests.  It was obnoxious, but it’s done and submitted. If a month or so, I’ll meet with a psychologist/psychiatrist at the Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute who will go over my scores and further evaluate my psychological health in a one-on-one interview.