Going to Seminary — Online

Hi!

You already know this, I’m a seminary student now. But perhaps you don’t know how it all happened so let me enlighten you — I promise not to take more than 4 1/2 minutes of your time.

A New Journey

Where to start? It was the year 2006. I had recently become a believer of Jesus Christ in my late 20s while living in Bolivia. It was such a life-transformation story that I don’t think it would do justice to try to explain it all and the seminary details in under 5 minutes. So I’ll give you the short version.

Basically, God changed my life.

And that was okay. See, I didn’t grow up knowing Him or understanding his role in my life. Between a God-absent childhood and bad decisions as a young man, I was hitting rock bottom battling depression, lack of love and commitment, a poor career path, and lack of a general purpose in my life.

So He came to the rescue and gave me a clear vision.

After a few months of knowing his affection and rescue-mission in my life, in between a vision and a dream, He showed me how I would later become a leader in His kingdom. In this vision, I was leading other people to grow in their relationship and knowledge of Him. Call it “discipleship” or “spiritual formation” — which is the process in which you grow in character, knowledge and relationship with the triune God. Success in the form of my career was not in this ‘vision’ but it evidently became clearer years after with a good career in digital marketing. More importantly, my wife and three beautiful daughters close the full cycle of what I was lacking and God’s provision in my life.

And so, I kept on following his lead.

I started growing in faith and was transformed by his Spirit. This lead me to participate and lead Bible studies with my wife, Miriam, here in Chicago. I slowly grew in my knowledge of His will in my life and started having many people confirm this new calling of serving Him more formally in leadership.

In other words, I’ll be furthering my studies to be trained to be a more-rounded Christian leader through seminary. I don’t think ‘the call’ is to necessarily become a pastor — or hold the title of a pastor at local church, but rather work as a lay leader walking with others in their faith to enrich His body, the local church.

Taking More Shape

So fast forward to 2019, the pre-pandemic era we all still miss. It was then when things became clearer. I more seriously started a men’s group at church with the goal and hope to grow in community and develop new “spiritual formation” skills for myself and others. This group of loyal 8–10 men helped me discern my call is to serve God. We created a close-knit community of long lasting friendship, prayerful, Spirit-lead, Bible-believing men of God. Through this, it was confirmed in me I have the heart of a “shepherd”, which means I want to care for the people God places in front of me — and for that, I want to live a growing life in discipleship and obtain better training as I help others do the same.

After doing more research, I became interested in one of the seminaries I have great respect for, Gordon Conwell Seminary out in the East coast. Miriam and I visited their campus and had a great experience meeting with staff, faculty and students. So after much prayer, I applied to their online Masters of Arts in Christian Ministries. This is a part-time program that will allow me to keep my job, pay the bills, and slowly morph into one of the program’s minors in Spiritual Formation — which is an excellent fit for that first vision!

I’ll start the program this Summer and hope to complete my studies in 3 to 4 years. God willing, that is. So I will covet your prayers and support, and promise to keep you updated with short monthly emails.

Prayer Requests

To get more specific, please pray for a good balance between my personal life with family, work, and seminary. Pray I can connect with God in meaningful ways and discernment for the men’s group.

Pray I have energy to embark in this new adventure, to learn with the mind and the heart as I seek to be spiritually transformed. Pray for my professors and a good experience with online courses. Pray we have a healthy family time at home. And pray I can meet the Lord in moments of solitude, prayer and reflection.

Meanwhile, may I pray this prayer for you?

I pray the Lord of the universe enriches your life to know what the full depth, width, hight, and length of His love in your live is (Eph 3:18).

~fernando