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Over the past year or two that I have been going through discernment, I have often wrestled with this whole idea of pastoral formation and giving up the part of me that works in public schools and/with the Deaf community. The “safe” side of me says that going the seminary route is way foolish because there are no guarantees for chumps like me (see previous entries if you really don’t know what I’m talking about here). Then the other side of me, the “Aerosmith-Living on the Edge” side of me, says, “That’s half the fun, seeing what God’s going to do next!”
So it goes like a yo-yo, back and forth. Then finally, recently, I was having another talk with God about this and I remember asking, “Why do I have to choose one or the other?” And then it was like God kinda said, “Hmm, yeah, why do you? Why not just do both?” Hunh. Do both? Why the heck not. I’ll do both.
The neat thing about being a student at Luther Seminary is that I have the option of doing a good chunk of their coursework online. It’s not the same as being on-campus in the midst of a learning and worshiping community. However, it will enable me to pursue the other portion of my calling: a Master of Education degree in Early Childhood Special Education (which I would focus my studies on deaf/hard of hearing though the program is multi-disability focused) at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Beautifully, this program is also mostly online and can be completed part-time (i.e. while I work) in two years. Thanks also to a phat grant from the U.S. Department of Education and also being a part-time employee of the University of Alaska system, most of the tuition for this program is paid for.
Because of the very specialized type of ministry I see myself doing, I don’t expect that my pastorly paychecks will be very substantial. I believe it will be important for me to have another job to make sure I can support myself in lieu of a fledgling mission congregation trying to help support me. They would be completely free to support themselves. I will still get to do substantial “outreach” and get paid for it at the same time: working with birth-to-five deaf/hard of hearing children (with/and multi-disabilities) and their families in an early intervention/preschool program.
Once I finish the MEd program at UAA, I can go to Minnesota and complete the Luther MDiv academic portion of the program on-campus. It’s too brilliant. How can I not do both?
