© 2009 Clear Lake Presbyterian Church

Christian Vocation Committee

Members: One elder assigned to each candidate, plus one additional congregant as sponsor for each candidate. Other members may be added as needed.

Responsibilities:

• Counsel members considering a Church Vocation regarding requirements and procedures and support them in the process.
• Elder liason monitors for the Session the progress and schedule of responsibilities of candidates.
• See that appropriate sources of information on career opportunities and educational requirements are available in the Church Library.
• Prepare and administer annual budget request based on students' projected financial needs, Presbytery required travel and psychological testing expenses. Administer the annual budget as adopted by Session.
• Provide continuing communication between congregation and Christian Vocation students.

Our Seminary Students

Lindsay Hatch

Lindsay married her husband, Brad Hatch, in 2006 who is currently working as an Assistant Manager at Walgreen's. Lindsay is taking classes in Polity of the Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Directory for Worship, Theology and Practice of Mission and Evangelism, Entry into Ministry, Workshop in Sunday and Sacraments and Advanced Greek Exegesis: Church as Household. She serves as a Middler Senator on Student Senate and is a student representative on the QEP Leadership Team which aims at increasing Information Quality among students. Lindsay is also working as a Research Assistant to Dr. John Alsup on a book concerning Household Codes in the New Testament. This summer she will complete a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education as a chaplain at Memorial Herman Southwest. Lindsay is excitedly pursuing a call to parish ministry and is thankful for the church's support during this process.

E-mail: lindsay.hatch@austinseminary.edu

Seminaries - Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

A "seminary" is a graduate school where a person studies to become a minister or educator in the church, or studies theology in a more formal academic way. Seminaries generally grant degrees such as MDiv and DMin as well as the more academic MA or PhD. These schools and seminaries are related to the PC(USA).

The PC(USA) does not endorse or control the content of pages on external sites.

See also Continuing Education sites.

• Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX 78705
• Austin Seminary - Houston Extention Program
• Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031
• University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Dubuque, IA 52001
• Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, Atlanta, GA 30314
• Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205
• Louisville Institute
• McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL 60637
• Ecumenical Theological SeminaryDetroit, MI 48201
• Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
• Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542
• San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960
• San Francisco Theological Seminary Southern California Program, Claremont, CA 91711
• Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond, VA 23227

• Auburn Theological Seminary New York, NY 10027
• Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR 00925

• Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, CA
• Godon Conwell Theological Seminary South Hamilton, MA
• Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson, MI

Pastoral Leadership Search Effort

Panning for pastors

System will identify, cultivate young people who are 'ministerial material'
by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - The Presbyterian Church (USA) is trying to identify and nurture young ministerial candidates to replenish an aging pool of church officers and fill some of the denomination's 4,000 empty pulpits.

The Pastoral Leadership Search Effort, or PLSE (http://www.theplse.org/) (pronounced pulse), was launched last year by a cadre of church lay leaders determined to reverse an upward trend in the number of PC(USA) congregations operating without permanent pastors.

Nearly one-third of the PC(USA)'s more than 11,000 congregations are without pastors. The problem is especially severe among small and rural churches.

The PLSE, in collaboration with the Fund For Theological Education Inc. (http://www.thefund.org/), will try to learn of potential church leaders as early as their high school years and to build a vast churchwide database of young people identified by their congregations as prime candidates for church service.

Attorney John Aldridge Sr., an elder at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, came up with the idea and has campaigned for it.

Aldridge said the PLSE and the Presbyterian Leadership Database will establish a "virtual community" in which gifted, young leaders of tomorrow will be cultivated, in an environment that will help make them "better able to hear and respond" to a call to ministry.

"The concept of PLSE is not a program in and of itself," Aldridge told the Presbyterian News Service. "It is the infrastructure, the pipes and wires that give us the capability to proactively identify and engage gifted young leaders in the PC(USA)."

With their consent, young people's names are added to the database. PLSE helps the nominees with mentors, resources, parish internship opportunities and access to ministry programs in their areas. The names are also made available to PC(USA) seminaries and other entities to help nominees in exploring their calls.

So far, several dozen people have been enrolled, and the pace of nominations is picking up.

"Congregations are excited about the program," said the Rev. Gini Norris-Lane, the Presbyterian PLSE coordinator. "They're excited about that fact that there is a way for them to suggest ministry as a possibility for some of their talented young people in an intentional way that is easy for them."

In September, PLSE officials sent information kits to all PC(USA) churches describing the idea and encouraging congregations to identify high school and college-age students who might have gifts for ministry, and to urge them to consider the pulpit as a possible career choice.

The program is expected to hit full stride by this summer.

"We think the first six months of 2004 is really when we will know and see how much traction PLSE gets at the church level," Aldridge said. "All the information is now in the hands of the churches. Without active, aggressive participation by our congregations, we won't be successful."

Aldridge said it's anybody's guess how many churches will participate during what he calls the "initial thrust."

"I think the higher estimates were maybe up to 50 percent," he said. "The lower estimates were down around 20 to 25 percent, somewhere in that range."

PLSE was unveiled during last year's 215th General Assembly in Denver, CO. It was developed in consultation with a wide variety of Presbyterians, including seminary and denominational staff, pastors and elders.

"It's like we've planted the seeds," Aldridge said, "and the question is how many are going to sprout."

Three other protestant denominations are watching the program closely and plan to use it as a model in establishing their own PLSE programs: the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, and United Church of Christ.

PLSE is funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment and contributions from Presbyterians and other sources. The Fund for Theological Education houses the database and staff at its Atlanta offices.

Aldridge got the idea for PLSE after seeing some startling statistics about the PC(USA) while serving as a trustee of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA.

He learned that nearly 4,000 of the PC(USA)'s 11,150 churches are without pastors, and that almost two-thirds of the vacancies are in churches with fewer than 100 members. More than 40 percent of active PC(USA) pastors are 50 years old or older, and only 7 percent are under 35.

More than two-thirds of PC(USA) seminarians are second-career students, with a median age of more than 35 years. That means they'll have less time in ministry than those who start studying for ordination in their 20s.

The PC(USA)'s office of Churchwide Personnel Services (http://www.pcusa.org/cps/staff.htm) is the denomination's primary point of coordination for the PLSE project.

"It's really reactivating feeder systems for the development of leadership that ... used to work to send people off to seminary," said the Rev. Marcia Clark Myers, the PC(USA)'s associate director for Churchwide Personnel Services. "The whole system is designed around (the idea that) every church has somebody to promote."

For additional information about PLSE, log on to http://www.theplse.org, or contact the Rev. Norris-Lane by phone at (404) 727-1547, or by email at presbyterianplse@thefund.org.