Delayed Vocations : For Many, Ministry Is 2nd Career

Although moving ahead in their careers, their economic security solid, they still feel they aren’t tackling the real stuff of life. So they shift directions, take a new tack.

That’s the story of a growing proportion of older, experienced men going into the nation’s seminaries to study for the ministry.

Most haven’t been disenchanted with their previous work, feeling rather that “it had its good points, but it didn’t deal with values and the solid issues of people’s lives,” said the Rev. Ellis L. Larsen of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, who has broadly examined the phenomenon.

They felt limited, in a sense, to relatively surface matters and “wanted to get where they could deal with the tough issues,” he said.

“They wanted to deal with people about the meaning and purposes of existence, about life and death and the significance of it.”

Extensive Survey

Larsen has completed an extensive survey of the nation’s new surge of older, work-tested seminary students, including detailed interviews with many of them.

More than two-thirds were highly educated, he says, working as doctors, lawyers, teachers, airline pilots, social workers or scientific researchers before opting for seminary.

The swift increase in “delayed vocations” has come only in the last 11 years. In 1975, the average age of seminarians was 26, but it has risen to 31, Larsen says, with the proportion of older students doubling during that period.

They now make up 44% of the nation’s 52,335 seminary students, he says, with 30% of the students ages 30 to 39 and 14% over 40. The other 56% are younger than 30.

Before the recent shift, almost all seminarians were in their 20s, and now just slightly over half are in that age group.

Larsen, who still is preparing his findings for later publication by the Assn. of Theological Schools, said in a telephone interview that the older students weren’t leaving previous careers in disillusionment.

“Most of the men had sensed a calling to the ministry early in life, but for some reason, weren’t able to follow it then,” he said. “But their opportunities have changed and they now can fulfill that youthful calling.

“They wanted to contribute in some more meaningful way. They wanted to get away from high-paying jobs where that was not the focus.”

Barred in Their Youth

For women, whose numbers in seminaries have nearly quadrupled since 1974, to 14,900, the transition for older ones has been different since they generally were barred from ministry in their youth.

Most mainline denominations, such as Lutheran, Episcopal and Presbyterian, have joined other Protestant bodies in opening their doors to the ordination of women, although Southern Baptists still are feuding about it.

“Now that women had the same opportunity as men in most Protestant bodies, they said, ‘Yes, that’s where I really belong,’ ” Larsen said. “They sensed that ‘late vocation’ call.”

He said improved economic conditions and decreasing age discrimination have eased the trend toward shifting careers.

Sixty percent of the older students plan to go into parish ministry, he says, with the rest aiming for other ministerial jobs such as counselors, teachers or chaplains.

The Rev. William Baumgaertner, associate director of the Assn. of Theological Schools in Vandalia, Ohio, said career mobility in which a person serves in several professions in his lifetime has become acceptable.

“It wasn’t accepted 20 years ago,” he said. “But it doesn’t raise an eyebrow now. There is an openness to it.”

Back of Their Minds

He said most of the older seminarians “have had a good experience in their other profession, and now want to go on to something more. Usually, it’s something that’s been in the back of their minds.”

Even though they found good in their previous profession, they had come to consider it “insufficient for the whole purpose of life. They want to make a contribution of a different kind from before.”

For the older women, he says, many already have raised their families, and with the widened opportunities now open to them in the ministry, have headed for it in growing numbers.

The association’s annual report says that overall seminary enrollment edged down about 1% in 1986, but that the number of women in seminaries continued rising, going up 2.2% in 1986 and now making up 26% of the total enrollment.

In 1972, it was 3,358, 10% of the total.

There are 201 seminaries in the association, including nearly all Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox seminaries.