How long before you received your first call?

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jjraby

jjraby

Puritan Board Freshman
To all people who have completed seminary. How long after graduation did you wait to receive your first call?
 
I suspect it varied depending on the times. Back when some of the dinosaurs here graduated, they had to first call their families to tell them, then their families told their friends, who in turn called them. It probably took a bit for the news to travel before the first phone call came.

Now, with the advent of text messaging, I bet you'll be able to text your friends and they'll give you a return call pretty quickly.
 
I graduated in May of 2006 and was among the last in my class to get a call. I was called to my present work in July 2006.
 
I received two calls before I graduated. One to Chicago RPCNA and one to Los Angeles RPCNA. I finished my presbytery exams before I finished seminary. I received both calls when I was eligible from my presbytery.
 
What steps did all of you take to get to the positions you're in? What suggestions would you give someone who's in seminary now to transition directly into a position? What was most helpful to you in receiving your call?
 
I know more people who either haven't gotten a call yet, because these days there are so many Older pastors who won't retire, that there is no reason to hire a first time call, or even look at there PIF or listen to a sermon. I have a good friend who applied to 50+churches and some said that, even if he is qualified, they aren't even looking at his application because he's a first time call.
 
jjraby said:
I know more people who either haven't gotten a call yet, because these days there are so many Older pastors who won't retire, that there is no reason to hire a first time call, or even look at there PIF or listen to a sermon. I have a good friend who applied to 50+churches and some said that, even if he is qualified, they aren't even looking at his application because he's a first time call.
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Is your friend me? ;)
 
Raby,

Same problem in the legal world. There's an oversaturation of older, experienced attorneys looking for jobs to the point that no one will hire someone without experience, thus creating an obvious "Catch-22" situation. That's why I asked the questions above. My guess is those guys who are the exception did something different than everyone else to make themselves more marketable.

I know we're speaking of a calling to a pulpit in business terms, but if we're good Protestants, and we are, your call to the pulpit is not necessarily all that different from my call to the courtroom. We all have our vocations and I took specific steps in my approach to finding my job that made me attractive enough to hire, even with more experienced attorneys available for hire. My guess is that those who are the exception to the rule mentioned above did the same thing. If you repeat some of the steps they took, it certainly couldn't hurt you.
 
Zenas said:
I suspect it varied depending on the times. Back when some of the dinosaurs here graduated, they had to first call their families to tell them, then their families told their friends, who in turn called them. It probably took a bit for the news to travel before the first phone call came.

Now, with the advent of text messaging, I bet you'll be able to text your friends and they'll give you a return call pretty quickly.
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:rofl: Best. Post. Ever. I laughed so hard that I scared Grace. :rofl:

I finished seminary in December of 2003. I candidated in early January and received a call from the same church. I technically did not "graduated" until May of 2004 (meaning the graduation ceremony and conferring of the diploma did not happen until then), but I had already been installed and ordained in April of that year.
 
Backwoods Presbyterian said:
jjraby said:
I know more people who either haven't gotten a call yet, because these days there are so many Older pastors who won't retire, that there is no reason to hire a first time call, or even look at there PIF or listen to a sermon. I have a good friend who applied to 50+churches and some said that, even if he is qualified, they aren't even looking at his application because he's a first time call.
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Is your friend me? ;)
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Very well may be. As I've said this is a standard problem I've heard. It almost gets to the point of not loosing hope to keep going with school
 
I think finding a post "helpful", in the case of my first post, is a very loose, subjective definition of "helpful".
 
fredtgreco said:
I graduated in May of 2006 and was among the last in my class to get a call. I was called to my present work in July 2006.
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Wow, Fred, that seems to go completely against the popular notion of the spareness of calls in the PCA. If you were among the last to receive a call, and it was only a few months later, that was great for you and your classmates! Which seminary did you attend, btw?
 
I received a call before graduation. But, then I had been serving as pulpit supply for two years prior to that.
 
Marrow Man said:
fredtgreco said:
I graduated in May of 2006 and was among the last in my class to get a call. I was called to my present work in July 2006.
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Wow, Fred, that seems to go completely against the popular notion of the spareness of calls in the PCA. If you were among the last to receive a call, and it was only a few months later, that was great for you and your classmates! Which seminary did you attend, btw?
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RTS-Jackson. We had a relatively small class (15? 20?) and several men became church planters.
 
I was full time pulpit supply for 4 years in the congregation that first called me. I served them for another 15 months before i took mt second call here. I'm just completed my 4th year here, and am now moving to New Jersey to begin my third charge. I hope that this call will be longer than the 4 or 5 years previously. One minister in our federation just completed his 22nd year. I'd like to follow in his footsteps.
 
'Applying to churches', 'submitting resumes'... all seems as if 'the ministry' is just another job.

This awful attitude to 'a first time call' really gets to me as well. How far we have come in so many cases from the scriptural pattern of men training men and raising up new leaders within the local church. If the church knows a man well, this whole 'first time' phobia becomes redundant.
 
JonathanHunt said:
'Applying to churches', 'submitting resumes'... all seems as if 'the ministry' is just another job.

This awful attitude to 'a first time call' really gets to me as well. How far we have come in so many cases from the scriptural pattern of men training men and raising up new leaders within the local church. If the church knows a man well, this whole 'first time' phobia becomes redundant.
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I know we're speaking of a calling to a pulpit in business terms, but if we're good Protestants, and we are, your call to the pulpit is not necessarily all that different from my call to the courtroom. We all have our vocations...
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In a sense, it is just another job, understood in the context that no job is really "just a job" but a vocation that we are called to do and ought to do to the glory of God. The teaching elder and lawyer are not dissimilar to the construction worker or welder. Each has their job, it's just that the teaching elder's position is one of particular spiritual signifigance in so far as its substance.

My point is not to marginalize the vocation of teaching elder so as to "bring it down" to other jobs, but rather than the other jobs ought not to be marginalized as they so are often though of. In this way, I think seeking a pulpit can be thought of like anyone else seeking a job. It's not just a job though, for anyone, but a vocation.
 
jjraby said:
Please tell me what yall did to get a call so quick.
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One of things for us in smaller denominations (the RPCNA has 89 congregations in the US and Canada.. and then there are a lot o RPs in Japan, Australia, China, Sudan, Scotland, Northern Ireland, France, Syria, etc -but they are different synods) is that MOST of the candidates are known to the churches. If there are 10 churches open (which is likely at any given time) and there are 15-20 men who are seeking a call, then the names/gifts/personalities/preferences/styles get around rather quickly.
 
jjraby said:
Please tell me what yall did to get a call so quick.
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At seminary, there were some times in which we met in denominational groups instead of chapel and heard a talk, had a time of prayer, etc. During one of those times for prayer, we had broken up into small groups. I requested prayer as I was finishing seminary and looking for a call. One of the people in my group was a professor, and he asked where I was looking. I pretty said any presbytery besides Northeast and Canada (no offense, but I just don't like snow!). He asked if I would be interested in Mississippi, and I said I would. He knew someone on the pulpit search committee of a church that was looking, and he contacted them for me. The rest is history.
 
jjraby said:
I know more people who either haven't gotten a call yet, because these days there are so many Older pastors who won't retire, that there is no reason to hire a first time call, or even look at there PIF or listen to a sermon. I have a good friend who applied to 50+churches and some said that, even if he is qualified, they aren't even looking at his application because he's a first time call.
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Seems like they are not looking ahead to the future. The Old-Timers can't stay around too, too, long before they are called home to glory. Meanwhile, the young'uns have at least 40-50 years to dedicate to a congregation. There's a lot of good that could be done with such a stable church ministry. If it were me, that's how I would respond to them.
 
Something that needs to be considered though is the experience of the pastor. Unfortunately, people are generally terrible as people and a pastor, in my estimation, is going to have to deal with them. As a result, dealing with sessions, congregations, or the individuals that comprise them is not always a walk in the park and a pastor's experience in dealing with those types of situations is valuable. It's not a skill that a "newbie" is likely to have. I've observed instances where if I were a pastor, I probably would have been fired for how I would have dealt with the situation. It's an ever present reminder that I am not called to be a teaching elder.

It's obviously not dispositive, but the experience relative to a teaching elder is relative to whether they fit with a congregation.

That's at least my lay-opinion.
 
I began the work of planting the Oceanside URC in December 1999, graduated in May 2000, passed Classis exams in June 2000, and was called in July 2000.
 
Though I am not a pastor I got my call the week before I graduated and started the next Monday and I missed my graduation......27 years ago. Still doing essentially the same job at the same place the entire time. :p
 
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