A Day in the Life
While all of you probably have some idea of what a pastor’s job entails, and some of you know what being a college student is like, most of you probably will never experience the unique life of seminary. With only a month left of my first semester, I’d like to provide you with an insider’s look at what seminary is like. This is even a difficult generalization to make, because each seminary is different, even in the ELCA. So, perhaps I should rephrase that this is what MY life at seminary is like.
The week: LSTC holds classes only four days a week. “You must have it easy,” you are thinking. Actually, this is done intentionally for us, especially second-year students, where Sunday is spent at area churches. So, my “work week” begins on Sunday. LSTC encourages first-year students to church-hop and experience the diversity of worship in Chicago. To keep up with my Slovak skills, I have been worshipping once a month at a nearby Slovak Lutheran Church called St. Peter and Paul in Riverside, Illinois. I have also visited a predominantly African-American ELCA church, a Thai community church, and Augustana Lutheran (right across the street).
Worship: LSTC encourages worship in our own community as well. We have daily chapel at 11am Monday through Thursday as a break in our work week, and on Tuesdays we have an opportunity for Compline prayer at 5pm and 9:40pm. No, even future pastors do not always attend every chapel service, and it is not required. However, it is a great way to form community and be renewed spiritually as well. Our worship service on Wednesday is longer with a full communion service, and Thursday usually features a senior class preacher. I have enjoyed sermons from seminary professors, librarians, and visiting bishops during our worship service. Music is led by various students and our immensely talented cantor/organist/choir director Daniel Schwandt. We have had an entire worship service led in Spanish, a care of the earth liturgy, and a litany for the Jeena 6 this semester.
Classes: Most first-year Master of Divinity students (M.Divs for short) take four classes. LSTC offers M.A., Ph.D., and D.Min. degrees as well. Currently, I am taking Pentateuch and Wisdom Literature, Intro to Pastoral Care and Counseling, Church History I (up to the Reformation), and Biblical Greek. I have two classes that just meet once a week for three hours, one that meets twice a week for an hour and a half, and one that meets three times a week. The classes I am taking provide a nice balance between practical ministry and theology.
Outside of school: I mentioned in my last post that I have two part-time jobs, and most students here work to help with expenses. Thursday night is our Friday, and there are usually several community life activities held, from “poker night” to a recent “All Saints Day” party. Because most students live in seminary-owned apartments close to campus, it is relatively easy to find a friend and go to the local Third World Café for a coffee or borrow a movie from the University of Chicago library.
Overall, seminary students aren’t so different from other people. Sometimes the conversation is a little out of the ordinary, like discussing the virtues of Friar Tuck pastoral blouses (which are remarkably pricey) or whispering to your neighbor in worship that the hymn you just sang would be great for confirmation kids. Homework takes a considerable amount of time, and it is a bigger workload than my undergraduate experience. However, we seminarians constantly remind ourselves that our purpose at school is to serve the larger church and community. Check out the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago’s website if you’d like to learn more! http://www.lstc.edu/