This is Ben and this is Keith, and this is Main Street Lutherans. And we have what I think is an interesting episode coming up, but I'm biased because I am on a candidacy committee. And so we're going to be talking about candidacy and what that means. And I will let our guest pastor, Becky Resch, explain that in a little while.

Ultimately, the candidacy process produces a rostered leader of some sort if everything goes as planned, right?

That's right.

But we use roster. It sounds like a baseball lineup. It sounds like somebody's going to go to the, you know, the batter circle. It sounds like. I don't know what else. Rosters. Like some sort of lineup thing.

Classrooms.

Yeah. What are we talking about when we talk about rostering or a rostered leader or the synod roster, if you will?

Yeah. So years and years ago, people in Lutheran churches would simply talk about pastors. Those were their leaders. And we have had on this show already a number of deacons that we have interviewed for various occasions. And so when we talk about rostered leaders, we're talking about someone who is either a pastor or a deacon. Both pastors and deacons in our tradition are ordained. They have very similar. They're not identical formation processes theologically and candidacy, which, again, we're talking about a little bit. But a raster leader is simply a collective term for pastors and deacons and bishops who are also pastors.

So because you can be removed from the roster or you can have your name removed from the roster. So what is, what does that mean?

That would be a situation where either you were electing to leave this roster, maybe you are joining another denomination, and you want them to recognize your ordination. And part of that process is for you to relinquish your ordination in this Lutheran tradition in order to go into that one. So that's one reason. Another might be that you did something you shouldn't have, ethically or legally. And so you are no longer going to be permitted to be a pastor or deacon in the elca. Maybe you have been accused of having an affair with somebody in your congregation or committing a felony or something. And so your. Your name is going to be removed. You're no longer going to be able to serve in that capacity.

And folks on the roster, we used

to call being defrocked.

Yeah. So. So folks who are on the roster get votes in the Senate, right? At Senate assembly, right?

Yep.

And so they get to help make decisions in the church they're eligible for to pastor or to deacon in church environments, right?

Yep, yep. And they are, you know, often given opportunities to perhaps, you know, you might be elected as a bishop. You could serve as dean of your conference. You may be chosen, appointed to be an assistant to the bishop. Although you don't have to be rostered to be an assistant to the bishop. But most assistants are not.

Well, a lot of them are anyway.

Yeah, a lot of them anyway. Yeah.

Cool. So that's the roster.

Yeah, yeah. The roster itself. I don't know that people are talking about the roster so much as we talk about our roster leaders. And I think it's just because it's a collective term rather than just saying pastors and deacons all the time. Right. Say roster ministers.

Yeah. And part of the reason this comes up too, is that there's a. Is it an annual meeting? It's the Rostered Leaders Conference. That happens. It's going to be in Indianapolis this summer. Just jumping in to add that it's actually every three years.

Yep. It's kind of like the ELCA youth gathering for pastors and deacons.

Yeah.

And their. And their spouses and family sometimes. And I, I attended one, I think the first one that the ELCA ever did, which was about, oh, maybe 10 years ago, maybe not quite that long ago at this point. And I. It was in Atlanta. I really did enjoy it. But then the pandemic came and that squashed a number of things. Of course. They had one. Well, actually, Debbie and I were going to attend the one that was to be in Phoenix in 2020. And we were actually going to ask Elizabeth Eaton, who was the presiding bishop at the time, if she would just in a fun, informal way presided our 10 year anniversary renewal of vows. Oh, yeah. But then that got canceled and so I haven't been to one since. Yeah.

So that happens every three years, right? Roster leaders.

Yeah, they. Right, they. They tag it along with youth gathering. So they have a youth gathering one year, and I don't know if the year before, the year after, they have this Frost Leaders gathering. And then there was something else. They're going to pair in there as well. Churchwide, probably that might have been it. Yeah, I think that is it.

Yeah. All right, so we have Becky Resch with us, and here it is.

Well, today we have the opportunity to discuss a topic that many folks in the ELCA and other churches may kind of assume exists and yet they may have never heard of it. And that is candidacy. And we have the opportunity to discuss this with someone who probably knows this better than, well, anybody I know, and that is Pastor Becky Resch, who is the candidacy and leadership manager or the calm, which is the coolest job title acronym ever for regions seven and eight. So the ELCA, in addition to being broken up into synods, and there are 65 geographic synods, plus one non geographic synod, the Slovak Zion Synod that we were just discussing a moment ago. Actually, in addition to the synods, the ELCA is also broken up into nine regions that really don't align with much of anything except they're roughly equal in size geographically or population wise. And so region eight is the synod. There's the region that the Lower Susquehanna Synod and where I'm located is in. It's kind of the Mid Atlantic section of the east coast. Region 7 is from northeastern Pennsylvania up through New England. And so Pastor Becky gets to relate to candidacy committees in every synod in those two regions, is that right?

Yep.

So how many meetings a year does that put you in?

A lot of candidacy committee meetings, to be honest. But it's good, it's good and it's wonderful to meet people from across the church and to walk in ministry with them.

I, we've mentioned on the show, I'm on the candidacy committee for the Lower Square Hannah Synod and I'm for about six years, I think at this point I have found it very, very meaningful. Apart from congregational ministry, it's one of the things that I participate in with the wider church that I have found the most satisfaction in as a, as a pastor, as a leader. And so, yeah, I'm really, really glad to be a part of this. But I don't live and breathe it the way that you do. Becky, with where this is your full time ministry with the ELCA is relating to these, to these committees. Maybe we should just start by, in a couple of sentences, can you describe what candidacy is?

Yeah, candidacy is the process where groups, committees from every senate across the church are in discernment about people's gifts and abilities for ordained ministry. And they try to discern how that person's call fits with the needs and gifts of the church. And, and so basically it's their job to be in discernment and question candidates and read their materials and learn about them, to decide if they will be someone who is healthy and equipped to serve the church as either a deacon or a pastor.

And so it is very different than the theological formation part, the education, you know, the sort of assumption that people go off to seminary and get a degree, which we'll challenge that assumption a little bit in our conversation. But yeah, the notion that you go off you get an education. And that's really important. It's critical for your work as a pastor or a deacon. But there's also that those other pieces that you talked about, the. It seems to oversimplify it to say it's sort of the suitability of that person to be a pastor in the church. But I think that's kind of what it, what it comes down to.

I don't think that oversimplifies it. I think that was really helpful, Keith. Thank you for saying that. I think that was helpful. I mean, you could, you know, anyone who applies and accepts, accepted at a seminary could get a seminary degree, whether it's an elca, at an ELCA seminary, to get a degree not involved with candidacy, to get some other kind of master's degree or to get a degree at a different seminary. But in order to be ordained in the elca, you need to go through candidacy, and that's ordained as either a deacon or ordained to be a pastor. And the role of candidacy committees is to not only look at the academics, like you were saying, Keith, but to look at the person's suitability, their sense of internal call, their sense of external call, who else sees a gift in them to serve. And then eventually, if the person gets, toward the end of candidacy, an external call by a calling body, a congregation or another calling body, and that would lead to ordination for that person in candidacy. You know, there's a 90 some odd page manual you can find on the ELCA website if you want to do a deep dive into all the ins and outs of what candidacy looks like and the role of candidacy committees and what they're looking for in candidates. We talk about different buckets as far as what we expect candidates to be able to do and know and be. And we talk about those buckets right now as being leadership, ministry, wellness, and theology. And so we look at a person's readiness in those areas. And at the beginning, we just kind of expect an awareness that like these things exist, like an awareness of a sense of call and a possibility for growth. And then after some education and some time doing clinical work and other kinds of formation work, we expect that the person will move along and be able to say more about the faith, be able to articulate more about theology and about their practice of ministry. And then by the end, we hope that there's some integration of the learning along the way, the learning and the practice that they've had doing clinical work, but also some time on an internship in either a congregation or another type of ministry site, depending on what sort of ministry they might be called to someday. And so we. We look for growth. We look for how the Holy Spirit's at work in the person's life, and we look for external affirmation from the other people who have had interaction with the candidate through internship evaluations and other things like that, to see how the person's practice of ministry is being lived out. And then the committees engage in really thoughtful discernment to determine if a person's ready at each stage or if they need more time or if they're not suited for ordained ministry in the church. And then the committee has the hard work of saying no to people sometimes, but that's also for the sake of the whole church as well.

Now, when a pastor or say someone goes to seminary at, you know, we know a friend of ours, actually, she was on our last episode, Wendy Ferrone went to pts, went to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. And so would she be in candidacy through that whole process? Or what if she became Presbyterian and then wanted to become an ELCA pastor, Would she go through candidacy in that transition?

Yeah. So every. Every deacon or pastor in the ELCA who's on our roster needs to go through candidacy. So if you're ordained in another tradition, you also go through candidacy. If you had a degree but weren't ordained in another tradition, you would still go through candidacy. The. The process might look a little different. The committee typically wouldn't send you back to get another Master's of divinity degree from someplace else, but you would still go through this time of deliberate discernment and formation. In a case where someone goes to a seminary that's not an ELCA seminary, then we work with the candidate to figure out what their formation needs to look like so that they're best prepared to serve the church later. And so usually that means affiliating with an ELCA seminary to take some Lutheran learning, the Lutheran year. So we don't. We don't call it the Lutheran year anymore, but it's still out there, and we call it Lutheran learning. And formation is the way we talk about might not just be a year. Yeah, yeah, it might not be a year. It might be less than a year, more than a year, depending what the person.

If it has a longer title, it must be more important.

That's right.

So is candidacy different for pastors and deacons?

That's a good question. The formation pathway is different because the skills needed for service are different. But everyone who is called to be a deacon or called to be a Pastor still goes through candidacy. When you submit an application, you say which roster, which if you think you're going to be a deacon or you think you might be a pastor that you're interested in, but you don't actually have to decide till the midway point in candidacy. So you can change. Because the first part of the formation process, the first seminary classes people take, are pretty similar. And we want everyone to have a grounding in scripture. We want everyone to have a Lutheran confessions class. We want everyone to have basic pastoral care. And so the, the kind of intro level classes that most candidates are taking are going to be the same for, for most deacons and for most pastors, everyone's required to do clinical education, cpe, clinical pastoral education. For whether you're a deacon or a pastor, that's, that's required for everyone. Then at the midway point in candidacy, that's where that varies. So that's where someone needs to declare if they're going to be a deacon or a pastor. Deacon candidates have a different type of internship than pastor candidates because they're in a very specialized type of ministry. Many deacons are. It can be parish based or it can be community based. I'm thinking of the service as people who kind of bridge between church and world. So their internship is going to look different. We don't want the internship to look the same as for someone who's going to do a parish ministry. If you're going to serve in a, you know, as environmental director at a Lutheran social ministry organization, we want your internship to actually prepare you for that call. Right. So people need to declare at the midway point if they're feeling called to be a deacon or a pastor. And then the formation varies from that point until the end of candidacy at approval and a call for people who have a call to become pastors. It's a 2000 hour year long internship at that point. And it's congregationally based for pastors. For deacons, it can vary a little more.

Sure.

So the basic steps of candidacy are the same for pastors and deacons. But just some of the way those steps play out is colored especially for the deacons by their particular skill set, what it is that they're looking to do in their roles, whether that is music or nursing or camp ministry or whatever that might be. But yeah, the three steps in the process, the decisions that get made of entrance, endorsement and approval are the same for both Deakin candidates and pastoral candidates.

And when do those stages, when do those decisions get made?

So at every stage in the process, the committee will require materials. So, Ben, you can speak to this too, but there's a whole set of materials we need at entrance. Everything from a background check and a psychological evaluation to an essay about how you think God is calling you. And there's a set of, I don't know how many items off the top of my head, 10 or 12 items in the candidacy manual that are required at entrance. And so it's after a time of discernment on the part of the candidate and after some conversations, preliminary conversations with leaders in the church and with leaders in the synod, when all of those materials are in, then that's a time when the person can meet with the candidacy committee for entrance. Endorsement usually happens after at least one third of classes are completed and after clinical pastoral education is completed.

So is that endorsement to do the internship then?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. And a person has to be endorsed right now before they can go on internship. And it says that we trust that you can represent the church in a public way and at every stage. Like I said, the committee can grant the decision, can grant entrance, can grant endorsement, can grant approval, can postpone to say, we think you need a little more time, and here's the specific things we would like you to work on in this time. And that usually is a time frame of 6 to 12 months. We say if it's longer than that, then really the committee needs to say no, not now. To say you do have gifts for ministry. Everyone has gifts of ministry. It's given in our baptism. Right? Everyone has gifts for ministry, but you maybe don't have gifts for ordained ministry. The committee does not see this in you at this time. So we already talked about entrance and when you're ready for that. And then endorsement is about at least a third of your classes done and clinical pastoral education completed. And you need to be endorsed before you can start internship. And then approval at the end is after at least nine months of your internships completed and after most of your seminary coursework is completed. And it basically says, as one of my colleagues has said, you're prepared to be a well launched novice. You're prepared to be a well launched novice in the church. We don't expect you're going to have the same kind of experience in leadership as someone who's been doing this professionally for 20 years, but you're ready to continue to try this ministry as an ordained person in the church. And then ordination doesn't happen until after you receive and accept a call by a calling body. So it's not just you're approved. Suddenly you're the reverend or you're the deacon. You'll candidates are made available to serve in a particular synod and then that synod works with them and works with congregations or other types of authorized worship groups or other types of, in the case of deacons, you know, social ministry organization or another type of calling body that the senate council would work with to extend a call in working with the office of the bishop for that. But after that happens, then that person can be ordained and that's a ministry of the office of the bishop. So even if you get through candidacy, don't just set up your own ordination. I do, I do calls with candidates who are preparing to get to approval and I do first call information sessions with them. And that's one of the things I say because we just need to make it clear like don't plan your ordination. The bishop will do that on the church's behalf.

Right. So how much variety is there between synods in what candidacy looks like?

Yeah, that's another good question, Keith. We actually talked a little bit about this before the recording started to. We have one candidacy manual that guides the process and that's on the ELC website. And like I said, if people are

really interested in link in the notes. So.

Yeah, thank you. They can do more investigating in that. I think all ministry is deeply contextual. Right. It's about the people who, who are in the church in that place. God works through people, through the body of Christ. And that means that what the church looks like on the ground looks different around our country and around the world. And so the process is the same, the standards for ministry are the same, but every committee is going to look different because it's made up of different people in a different location. So I get the privilege of working with 15 synods and 14 candidacy committees. And they all do this ministry slightly differently. And we do get together, the leadership does, to learn from each other and to share resources and best practices. But while the process is the same, it just is lived out in a variety of ways across the church. I imagine. So for anyone who's gone to more than one council meeting or more than one school board meeting or something, it's similar to that, I think, where it just the structure is the same, but the, the people live it out differently.

Yeah, and I'm sure that every candidacy committee has its own personality and, and for good or bad, their own reputation in the, in their synod and in, in other senates. You know, when I went through candidacy, 20. Well, I've been ordained almost 26 years now. So, you know, I started candidacy 30 years ago and I did not like it. I did not feel that I had a good experience in it. Do I think it was necessary? Absolutely. Do I think it shaped me in positive ways? Yes, I do. Am I glad that it exists in the church? For sure. Yeah. Yeah. We'll sure talk a little bit later on about some of the things that candidacy committee does for the life of the church in a bit and why it's critical. But it was hard and it's emotionally painful. And any process that has you really examining who you are in the eyes of God and in the eyes of the church is. It shouldn't be easy. It's going to be challenging. Yeah. So I think that, you know, and my understanding was that the candidacy committee that I was in front of during those years was a difficult one. I think that every, you know, I'm sure there are not any synods that people are like, yes, this is the best thing. We should all go here. But I suspect that there are, you know, I think that in the Los Grehana Synod, like I said, I've been on the candidacy committee for about six, six years, and I can't say what. What all of our candidates might think of us, but I do think that the committee is made up of a bunch of people. And by a bunch, I mean there's like 20 plus members of this committee.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, It's a big group. So that's one of the things that just makes it hard when. When a person comes in for an interview, you're not only sitting, you're not just sitting in front of two or three people, you're sitting in a room of. Of two dozen people, most of whom not all are ordained, but the majority are. There is pastors or deacons. Just that by itself is intimidating. But these are all people that I think take this. They take the process very seriously. They try to do it justice, but they also try to speak compassionately to these candidates. They are people, they are beloved children of God. And we know that they are doing something really, really difficult and intimidating. And so we really try. I think, and I'm biased, I admit, I think that we try really hard to treat these people like people and to deal gently with them as best we can while being honest to the process. That doesn't necessarily mean that every meeting is just, you know, all peaches and cream, though, for each candidate.

I think committees do really excellent work when they do that. Careful listening. And so even if it's a difficult. Even if it's difficult news to hear every. At every decision point, committees will. The forms are slightly different for every decision point, but basically the committee looks for the candidate's gifts and strengths and abilities and ability to grow and also looks for areas to push the candidate into growing into. To say, these are the developmental areas we want you to work on. And it's hard to hear those developmental areas. It's hard to hear that feedback like, that's a very vulnerable place to be and to hear that kind of feedback from a group of people who you may or may not feel like they know you all that well, but they're really trying to do their best, most faithful work. But I do think that there's something really powerful in candidates and applicants being heard and having their call heard. And when committees do really excellent work, they reflect back what they've heard, they reflect back the gifts that they've heard, and they reflect back the areas of growth that probably aren't surprising to some candidates if the ministry has done well. And that can be a very intense experience of being heard and seen as a person who's a beloved child of God and who has gifts to serve in the church. I also know that when I tell people that I'm in candidacy ministry, that quite a few roster leaders will tell me about how horrible their candidacy experience was or something that they remember as being really, really hard about candidacy. I have one of my own that I tell people sometimes not on this podcast, but it just. We know it's not an easy thing to make yourself vulnerable, to put your call into other people's hands, but we trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in this ministry and that the committees are doing their faithful best.

You know, I remember in the training such as it was that I received in coming onto the committee is, you know, with a small group of other new people to the group. For those of us who are pastors or deacons, you know, we were. We are instructive. Whatever your horror story of candidacy is from your own past, there's no need for you to share it with any of the candidates in this group. This is not about you. This is about them. Maybe you can learn something from it and try to help this committee to do better, but there is no need to be airing those, you know, except perhaps of each other in a. In a social setting. There's no need to be airing those in front of the candidates because I think most of us have at least one moment in the process that's that was really a struggle.

It's very vulnerable space. I mean, it's, it's. And it's the vulnerabilities because there's growth involved. Right. I mean, it's hard to grow and to be stretched and it's not always comfortable. And, and so that's just, that can just be difficult space for candidates and applicants to be in. And the candidate. The committees that are really doing the careful work are well aware of that and are trying to tread carefully and with intentionality in how they walk with candidates.

Yeah. So we have this. Well, Bishop Yahil Curry, the presiding Bishop of the elca, was introduced as a person who went through the TEAM program, which has an effect of the candidacy. I'm kind of unclear on what parts of the seminary related and what parts are teams related with candidacy. Can you explain how that works or at least how that parallels the typical, you know, entrance into seminary and candidacy?

Sure. So right now, in the ELCA constitution, there have been two ways for someone. Two Education, primary educational pathways for someone to eventually be ordained. You can get a Master's of divinity degree, an MDiv, or you can get a team certificate or be entered into team. The TEAM ministry program TEAM is an alternative pathway that's made available for people who might not have an undergraduate college degree or might have an associate's degree but don't have a bachelor's degree. It's a pathway for people who were raised up by their congregation to serve in that congregation. Originally, it was specifically for ethnic specific congregations and authorized worshiping bodies. It has expanded to very rural or very urban places, places that are having difficulty for the bishop's office to find a call. Team candidates don't identify themselves as saying, I want to do this particular process. It's someone who has a call to serve in rostered ministry, to be ordained, to serve the whole church, but who, who maybe has a pathway that's going to be focused more on learning in a particular context. Basically, instead of going to different ministry sites throughout the formation process, the person will usually stay with the same site, either their home congregation or another congregation that the Synod appoints and will do all of their contextual learning and education internship in that same site, and will often be called there for their first call. That someone who's entered into team does not need a Master's of Divinity degree, although many people in team do get a Master's of Divinity degree. A team certificate or another way to meet competency is what the expectation is for that. And so you're still entered into candidacy, there's still the entrance endorsement approval. You still need clinical pastoral education, you still need supervised internship. But the classwork process is different. And there's a certificate instead of a degree program. And the learning information happens in a slightly different way instead of happening in multiple sites throughout time. It is one site that you're walking along with and you're learning to be a leader while they're kind of raising you up to be the leader in that place. At the same time, just a different pathway and formation.

You know, it reminds me, I. A friend of mine in Illinois is. He's a pastor at a church that is. It's called the. I think it's independent Christian churches. And I thought that was another name for non denominational. But it ends up being sort of a denomination. It's a breakaway from the Disciples of Christ that didn't want to respect authority of a larger church. So when I asked him about his ordination, when he was celebrating his anniversary, he said that the congregation had a committee that approved their ordination. And so it was done that way. And they did have an organization at one of the colleges that made sure that certain classes were taken and that sort of accredited their education to be ordained. But ultimately it was that congregation that decided whether they were ordained or not, that they would be installed to as soon as they were ordained. And so it seems like the team process is sort of similar to that in a way. I mean, it's under a higher thing, but that the church backs the person they decide to throw in, that this is our person that we want to lead us.

Oftentimes traditionally it has been that way where, you know, the, the president of council is the person who they lift up is, yes, we want this person to be our next pastor. And so it's kind of a mutual discernment of the applicant who becomes a candidate and, and the congregation and the office of the bishop to determine if this is a healthy place for this to happen. Sure. In. I don't know when this started. I think in more recent years though, it, it has been a way for candidates who are typically over 40, who bring other life experience, who maybe are working full time or part time while they're in seminary at the same time, who maybe would be people that the office of the bishop says, yeah, I think this person could be leading in a congregation as they're learning. So sometimes the office of the bishop can actually appoint a particular learning site that the congregation didn't raise up this person, but it's a separate congregation that was not Their home congregation. But that the bishop's office things would make a good pairing for the learning to happen in that site the whole time throughout Team people aren't entranced specifically into team. Your entrance into candidacy.

Right.

And then if the office of the bishop thinks I think this person would be really good for it and if the candidate thinks I think this would be a good way for me to learn, then then they can be entered.

So the senate offers it as an option.

Yeah. And. And Churchwide needs to approve it. The bishop, the letter. The bishop needs to recommend that the person would be a good person for. So we do have people who think they'd be a good team candidate. And the candidacy committee is like, well, no, we think you'd be a great candidate, but we don't think you'd make a good team candidate. Sorry, you're going to have to do a different path. So. So it, it gets a little. Got a little in the weeds there, but it gets a little. A little interesting sometimes with discernment on what the person individually kind of thinks God's calling to them to do and also what the external sense of call is there. Sure.

When I was in seminary, you know, in the. In the late 90s, I had a number of classmates, you know, I was what we colloquially call a pipeliner. I never thought about being a pastor until I was already in college. But you know, I graduated from high school, I went to college. When I finished college, I went straight into seminary. And so I was ordained in my like mid, late 20s. I had lots of classmates who were in their, you know, late 30s, 40s, early 50s, who, you know, people who had had careers. They were nurses, they were police officers, they were teachers, they were actors. And many of them had been to college, you know, in their teens and twenties, but had not been in college for, you know, a couple of decades perhaps. But they were following the quote, kind of traditional path. They were going to go to seminary, spend four years there or more get an M. Div. And then be ordained for folks that have not been to college or again did not finish a bachelor's degree. And so, you know, they would have. I had one or two classmates who actually, you know, in their 40s, went to college because they wanted to go pastor. So they went and got a four year degree and then went to a four year seminary. And that was how they did it. So for people to have an alternative that folks that have got the calling, the leadership, the ability, but not the college degree to remove that burden when you're Talking about a person who has life experience that feeds into the ability to do ministry. Why not? You know, I think it's commendable that the church has come up with a path that allows for that. I think it makes sense. Is it perfect? Of course not. We're tweaking these things all the time, but I think it makes sense that it's there. Ben, I cut you off before you were about to say something. What was it?

So we focus mostly on what it is for the candidate or for the person who wants to become an ordained minister. What does this do for the congregations? And, you know, if I'm. I'm not, I don't feel a call to ministry, but, you know, I'm looking at this Lutheran, Lutheran Church. Why should I? What is it about ordination and the candidacy process and the seminary that makes this all valuable to me as a person who wants to go to church? And, you know, what does it. What's the advantage, you know, over that church down the street where anybody can go up front and do the whole thing?

Yeah, I think you just answered the question with that last little bit where anyone can get up and do the thing. Right. I mean, there, there is something to be having some reassurance that, that the, the pastors and deacons in the church did go through this process of candidacy, of discernment information, and so that, you know, that they have some gifts and skills that other people see in them to do this so that you can't just get ordained online and, and become a pastor in one of our congregations. That you need to have a process of learning information for it to happen. And I think that's comforting. It is, for me, anyway. Yeah. I want, I want someone who can speak with some authority about scripture. I want someone who is going to preach the gospel to me. I want someone who's going to be kind to my children. Like, I want someone who has good interpersonal skills for. Who can visit the elderly and not put their foot. Foot in their mouth too many times. Right. Like, you want people to have some gifts and skills for ministry. And I think it's reassuring that there's groups of people throughout the church who actually assess that before having. Having people go out there to serve professionally.

Right.

Well, and I think that skips over the, the core, which is the background check that the, the church can do that is beyond what a congregation can do. Congregation might go down to the point police department and say, hey, can you run their, you know, run their license plate for me and their driver's license and then also the, the psychological evaluations. Right, that I'll tell you, it's, it's a bat, they call it a battery. It feels like it, it's not so much assault, but there's definitely battery there. And so it's, I mean it's, it's, it's a process and they really go into the makeup of a person. And, and that is given without bias to the candidacy committee to evaluate whether a person is a good candidate. Not just to be, you know, an ordained minister, but, but to be a colleague of the people on the candidacy committee because they're, they're looking, you know, a bad pastor gives a bad name to a lot of people.

Yeah. And the psychological evaluation serves a few purposes too because I mean, it can raise up things that are particular concern where the committee's like, oh no, this is a, no, like this person should not be around, should not be a leader in the church in an ordained capacity. But, but it also, at its, again, at its best, helps us know what we can be working on and help us, helps us identify our gifts too. To say, oh yeah, like that kind of looks like me and yes, these are gifts that I bring and oh, how can I hone this in this next, next stage of my learning? And, and also, oh yeah, I do sound like my mom when that comes out of my mouth or whatever. Right. And so, so there's things in the evaluation that can be really, really helpful for candidates. And it's not easy, but it's good. Like it's rich learning about ourselves that, that we have the opportunity to do as people who apply for candidacy and that people who have then come to our churches know that, that their leaders have gone through this, they've have had to look at themselves pretty deeply to learn about themselves and who they are and then how that affects how they serve.

Yeah. I think to, you know, put it bluntly, you don't want someone who has a past as a sexual predator becoming ordained. You know, you want to know that you've got somebody who's got healthy boundaries, you know, when it comes to setting time, you know, for themselves and taking care of their physical and emotional health and, and the, the health and integrity of their family, you know, that they're not going to burn themselves out working, you know, 60, 80 hour weeks, whatever, and, and ignoring their own kids, you know, for the sake of, of ministry. Part of the process is looking at how much financial debt a person has when they're coming into the, you know, you're not, you're not entering into a career that's terribly, you know, up there in the economic scale. So if, if you are just coming out of college and you've got $250,000 of. Of loans to pay back, this may not be the right time for you to be entering into a field where, you know you're going to come out the door starting out with, you know, slightly less than what you'd be getting paid as a public school teacher. You might want to, you know, pay off some of that debt and then come back and consider this again, that sort of thing. So I think that like I said at the beginning, this is. These are the things that we want to be able to assume our church leaders are, you know, what, you know, who they are, what they can and can't do and just that awareness and that ability. I think that we as congregants take that for granted and to some extent we should be able to. That's what candidacy does for the congregation and the church.

Let me add one, because that's very scary, the financial thing. Right. Because it makes it sound like no one should pipeline. Right. But the candidacy committee has resources. The collective experience of those folks can get folks in touch with ways to get scholarships to find ways, ways to pay for that. We've talked with a fellow who is going through finishing up seminary actually and he has individual congregations around the country that are sponsoring him that are making it financial doable. And chances are he didn't know. Well, I absolutely know that he didn't know these people before he started this process. But it was because of the people in the church, whether it was his local church, but whether it was. But almost certainly someone in the candidacy process or as college that made those connections and made it possible. And so the candidacy committee isn't just an evaluation thing. They help along the way too, or can.

And the scholarships have changed a lot since Keith and I were in seminary. Fund for leaders now has amazing scholarship opportunities for people and most of the seminaries have tuition free enrollment for Masters of Divinity and MA degrees. So I hear Keith, what you're saying about the int. The high debt load at the beginning, like it's like maybe you just see a financial counselor and here's some people that we have that are available for you to do this to help pay off your debt before you come back. And we have had. I've been in committees where that's been the case where they, they have made that recommendation or requirement. But there's much better financial assistance now for attending seminary than there has been in the history of the elca. And that's such a gift because then people are able to lead better from a better position where they can actually talk about money without shame in a congregation. And it makes stewardship and everything else about talking through budgets and the ministry that happens on the ground so much better for candidates and for the church if they're not up to their eyeballs in debt. So that that has been a huge gift to the church. And a lot of that's been made possible by donors and also by the closing of congregations who have done legacy giving to make scholarships possible for the future leaders of the church. And it's such a gift. But that is something else that can be lifted up at the beginning of candidacy as something to work on.

Yeah.

Well, Becky, thank you so very, very much for taking time to be with Ben and I for this episode. We really appreciate it. We appreciate the explanation. And as I said at the beginning, I think we unconsciously appreciate that candidacy exists and that people like you in particular put forth a lot of heart and soul into making it as beneficial a process as possible for both the people looking to become pastors and deacons and the congregations and other church bodies that they're going be to be serving. So thank you for your ministry and again, thank you for your time being with us.

Thank you. It was good to be here.

Well, thanks again to Pastor Becky Resch for joining us to talk about that process of candidacy and that journey to become a rostered leader in the church. Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fot and produced by Phote Media Productions. You can find all of our content, contact information, links and a transcript in the episode notes. And if you're interested in going to seminary and in joining the rostered leaders, we do have a link to the candidacy manual in the episode notes, so go ahead and check those out.

And on that same page, there are also some other really helpful things for you as a potential candidate, things that you can a look at and see if this is a call for you.

Yeah. And until next time, go in peace. Serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.