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Developing Young Servant-Leaders

The Episcopal Church’s demographic situation is challenging, many younger parishioners are disengaged from church life, it grapples with a chaotic world filled with injustice, and there is an emerging shortage of clergy. The Anglican Church of Canada faces similar problems.

In the past few decades, dozens of ministries and groups have formed to address these issues. These groups are broad, with many different audiences and approaches, but many are approaching the need to mentor young Christians at the cusp of their adult lives and point them in the direction of Christian service.

Mentorship and fellowship programs function differently, from intensity levels to relations with outside organizations. Some are focused exclusively on Episcopal laity, while others are ecumenical or even welcome nonbelievers. Some focus on the needs to form clergy, while others focus on Christian vocation in the world.

Bill Fullilove, professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary | Bill Fullilove

“The number one distinction is simply the audience,” said Dr. William Fullilove, professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, and a longtime student of mentoring programs. “Everyone needs a mentor. What segment of people are you trying to impact more broadly?”

These ministries generally operate similarly in parallel. Several of these groups have arisen specifically to address the issues faced by college students, mostly tying their commitments to the academic year and attracting college graduates at the beginning of their professional lives. Despite distances between them, and sometimes operating in different communions, they align on methodologies and highlight the common needs of the younger generation.

“Mentoring means very different things to different people,” Fullilove said. “It’s not being a pastor, counselor, or coach. People say they want to be mentored, but many do not have a precise theory as to what it means. My definition is someone who can step into another person’s life, with a transformative approach based on the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is an advisory and respected role, but not necessarily authoritative.”

The Nashville Fellows and the Fellowship Initiative

In 1994, The Falls Church in Virginia established the first in a wide network of 31 ecumenical mentorship programs. “Fellows programs are a model that target men and women in their first years after undergrad” studies, Fullilove said. “It’s a whole life discipleship program, not simply a faith-and-work ministry. Young adults looking to serve in the church and the world are surrounded by a holistic discipleship environment that includes church, community service, and vocational advising.”

There are differences between the fellows programs across the country, which reflect the different leaders and priorities. They are connected and collaborate, but operate independently. Since 2014, Nashville, Tennessee, has hosted a fellows program as a collaboration between St. George’s Episcopal Church, West End Community Church, and Covenant Presbyterian Church. It just completed its 11th annual class with 13 fellows.

“We recruit recent college graduates to spend nine months giving their lives away and starting well, to start their post-college lives in deep community and serving the church,” said John Allen, executive director of the Nashville Fellows. “We’re closely linked to local churches. They’re assigned a church. A big part of fellows is giving up personal freedoms for the greater good. The fellows then are put up in a home and serve in the youth ministry or worship ministry.”

“The program is small enough that it reflects its directors,” said 2019 fellow Daniel Huff. “There is a certain culture and tone that shifts based on the director, not in a good or bad way. John has done an excellent job publicizing and promoting the program.”

Nashville Fellows’ classes range between six to 16 individuals from diverse backgrounds. Many work in healthcare, communications, finance, and hospitality. Some even travel internationally to attend the program. The program involves a rigorous schedule of church participation, coursework, community time, paid work during the week, and monthly weekend retreats and conferences. Fellows are embedded in local church families throughout the academic year, from August to May, and learn to live in unfamiliar circumstances. Many of the students are deeply challenged by the program, encountering liturgy, women’s ordination, or more conservative church leaders for the first time.

“For many of them, it’s something they’re scared and excited about,” Allen said. “Many of them have never seen another family besides their own. They’re seeing how a different kind of family functions. Radical generosity and hospitality are part of following Jesus.”

“I found it at times quite challenging,” said 2020-21 fellow Garner Nottingham. “There were challenges with the interpersonal dynamics, with 11 of us living closely together and baring our souls to each other. We handled it well, which led to us becoming closer, and I count my fellows classmates to be among my closest friends to this day. The coursework led to some disagreement. I was a little surprised, as someone from Washington, D.C., coming from a progressive high school and college, about some of the doctrines of the [Presbyterian Church in America] churches, particularly regarding the lack of women’s ordination, and had some concerns with their teachings around inclusion and sexuality. However, I also learned a lot from our PCA teachers, especially regarding Reformed theology, which I find very valuable — although I don’t think I’m in danger of becoming a five-point Calvinist. I think the average Episcopalian would benefit from this understanding, especially because of our shared Reformed theological heritage.”

Regardless of the challenges, the program creates valuable space for growth and maturity. “Initially, I wasn’t thrilled to move to Nashville for the program,” Huff said. “But the Lord seemingly closed other doors and drew me to Nashville, and I was frustrated with that. But throughout the year, I fell in love with St. George’s and the community. There was a lot of learning, humility, and friction, but I think there was a lot of growth due to our differences. By the end, I felt it was a valuable thing.”

The Johnson Service Corps, Durham, North Carolina

Other Episcopal Church mentorship programs make social justice a core pillar.

The Johnson Service Corps is one of eight Episcopal Service Corps sites, offering mentorship and growth opportunities for young adults. In the past 24 years, Johnson has graduated 153 alumni through its intensive 10-month program.

“We focus a lot on the intersection of justice and spirituality,” Executive Director Julia Tyler said. “We feel like justice without spirituality gets burned out, and spirituality without justice is hollow. We’re constantly marrying the two. How can we create justice that is sustainable, loving, and well-resourced? Having a strong spiritual community is a big part of that.”

She added: “We affectionately call our program a mini-monastery. It’s an interfaith community, with intense spiritual practice, and everybody takes turns rotating practices for that day. And we have special guests who talk about vocational callings and their spiritual journeys. This year we had a Muslim, a Presbyterian, two Southern Baptists, and two cradle Episcopalians in our program. It’s a very open environment where it’s safe to learn and question things.”

Johnson’s deep connections to Durham’s community gives it access to volunteer mentors who make up the program’s backbone. The six fellows each year are supervised and mentored by members of the community, including in spiritual life, professional growth, and development, and figures who can help them develop stronger working relationships. Johnson intensively trains all its volunteer mentors and then helps assign them to the fellows, meeting with them at least once a month. Johnson Fellows’ schedule is similar to that of the Nashville Fellows, with structured church volunteering, coursework, and several workdays during the week.

Tyler said many of Johnson’s Fellows leave the program as passionate community leaders who freely volunteer their skills and passions, which is an impressive sacrifice for a generation facing severe economic pressures and challenges. “Our mission is ‘developing young adult servant leaders.’ Many of our alumni have gone on to become big leaders — rectors who center racial justice in their congregations, doctors serving underserved communities, lawyers doing law work to support immigrants and refugees, etc. They’re just superhero-talented people who could be making a ton of money but use their gifts to make the world a better place.”

Jean Martinez is a paralegal in New York City who works with undocumented minors. He says he gained people skills and spiritual maturity from his experience in Johnson Service Corps.

“I applied to the program because it had a nonprofit that worked in the court system with youth, and that was specifically what I wanted to do, and gain that experience,” he said. “It’s been almost 10 years since I was in the program. It was definitely a different experience, especially coming from college. It was more structured than I’d grown accustomed to. It matured me in areas of my life where I didn’t think I needed it. It made me more intentional in my choices and present in the moment. I would say I was a bit selfish with the things I did before. But that kind of shifted. I learned to be okay with conflict, not looking for it, but being okay with addressing it healthily without running away from it.”

St. Paul’s Ministry Apprenticeship Program, Toronto, Ontario

St. Paul’s Bloor Street in Toronto, Canada, has a more direct aim. It wants to attract more young people to serve as clergy in the Anglican Church of Canada. It is also the newest of these programs, having launched its inaugural term in September 2023 and graduated its first apprentice this summer.

“It emerged as a response to the crisis in vocation we’re experiencing in the Anglican Church of Canada, with far more clergy retiring than are taking their place,” said program director Tyler Wigg-Stevenson. “At St. Paul’s, we felt young people were not being actively encouraged to enter into vocation. Anecdotally, there’s a trend toward getting second-career people to consider ordination. … They make good ministers, but we’re missing out on the potential of young adults to seek long and rewarding careers within the church. We wanted to create a discernment opportunity for young adults, so we provide them a program that shows them what the life of a cleric is like, to see if it will feel rewarding to them.”

Miranda Peters was the program’s first apprentice. Having spent several years working as a teacher and a community member of the monastic Community of Saint Anselm in London, she felt a calling to pursue ministry and was encouraged by her parish priest to look into an apprenticeship. Her experience was positive enough that she is now set to attend Virginia Theological Seminary in August.

“It’s funny and exciting to be the first person in the program,” Peters said. “It’s a busy program. We’re in a downtown urban parish, so there’s a lot to get done, but there’s also dedicated time for study and spiritual formation. It’s been energizing and affirming. There have been challenges just because ministry is challenging. You see the reality instead of the ideal. It’s also strange being the only intern.”

St. Paul’s program is structured like Johnson Service Corps and Nashville Fellows. Peters has spent the past year in a weekly regime, with half her time dedicated to serving the church, one quarter in study, and one quarter in spiritual formation. The program is expecting two to five apprentices in its next class.

“A week in the life tends to be pretty diverse from season to season as the apprentice’s duties change,” Wigg-Stevenson said. “On Sunday morning, you’re on from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The duties are anything that is required. Miranda has preached and served in the music program, kids ministry, baptismal prep, etc. In the week, it’s a mix of ministry and outreach programming. You’re integrated into staff life to see what life is like inside the church. Miranda has also been active for our church plant, St. George, which is open in September.”

He added: “Mentoring is the flip side of being an apprentice. You’re learning from someone doing the thing you’d like to do. In our case, when I speak to our apprentice, I’ve walked down that road. I haven’t shared all their experiences, but I’ve asked similar questions to the ones they’re asking, and I can help them come to an understanding of what’s in front of them. It’s a direct kind of teaching that’s empathetic guidance and training that leads down a specific path.”

Tyler Hummel
Tyler Hummel
Tyler Hummel is a freelance writer based in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

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