A few days ago I had my annual pleasure of speaking about placement with our entering seminarians during orientation. I usually tell them about how thrilling call night is—one of THE MOST EXCITING days of a man’s (and a family’s!) life! The night you look forward to for four years, the moment you learn that God really does have a place for you to serve in His kingdom . . . and where. After your wedding day and the birth of your children (and your baptism, though many of us don’t remember it), this night is IT.

But this year I had a feeling—confirmed by a quick show of hands—that our entering class had on their collective minds a little less thrilling concern. Nearly all of them had heard that 31 men—13 from our seminary and 18 from St. Louis—hadn’t been able to enjoy call night this past spring because there simply weren’t enough requests for candidates to go around. So here’s what I told them.

First, this is actually a great time to be starting at the seminary, call wise. To begin with, I updated them on those unplaced guys. Nearly all are now in congregations, which means we’ve nearly completed placing the two largest classes since the 1980s. Fact is, we’ve placed more men the last two years than in almost three decades. Last year’s class and this year’s class were identical size—huge! And, yes, there were calls enough for all of them. It’s just that with two consecutive classes that large, it took a while for enough calls to come in. Now the upcoming classes are substantially smaller. But the number of requests for candidates should continue to be large and growing. That’s because the even larger classes of the early 1970s are now reaching retirement age. Do the math. Our recruitment at the two seminaries today is nowhere near replacing the men from those classes. Men starting the seminary this year will be stepping into all those shoes—and right now that looks like more shoes than we’ll be able to fill.

But, second, I told the guys, you didn’t come here “to get a job.” If that’s what you were all about, you could have stayed where you were already living or mailed your resume to all those companies who do what you already know how to do. You didn’t come here to get a job. You came here to serve the Lord. Which means you trusted Him to care for you in matters a lot more challenging than mere creature comforts. Sure, He knows you and your family need an income, a place to live, a way to pay for your kids’ college. And He knows how to provide. He fed Elijah by a flock of ravens! But you trust Him for much more important things than that. You know He’ll be with you in each sermon you write, each time you comfort a woman who’s lost her husband, each time you say that silent prayer for tact and diplomacy before addressing a touchy issue at the voters assembly. You trust Him to give you and your family eternal salvation by Jesus’ death and resurrection. And you came to the seminary because you wanted to share that trust—and the reason for it—with lots and lots of other people. Didn’t you!

It was a different kind of pleasure sharing all that with the new class . . . but it’ll be just as thrilling for them when call night comes!

Dr. Carl C. Fickenscher II
Associate Professor in Homiletics
Dean of Pastoral Education and Placement