The People Are Still Searching

In February of 2022, I received a LinkedIn message from LSTC’s HR manager inviting me to apply for a communications role at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Four days later, on Valentine’s Day, I opened the message and read it again. Something about it settled differently than a typical job opportunity. It felt strangely personal, almost spiritual. Less like recruitment and more like invitation.

What the HR Director could not have known was that LSTC was already part of my story.

In the early 2000s, I attended Bible study gatherings connected to Shekinah Chapel, some of which took place in classrooms at LSTC’s Hyde Park campus on 55th Street. At the time, I was not thinking about seminaries or theological education. I was simply trying to make sense of faith.

What I encountered there changed me. Until then, much of my understanding of Christianity had been shaped by fear, moral judgment, and condemnation. But in those spaces, I encountered something else entirely: grace. 

A lived message that suggested faith could be expansive instead of restrictive, liberating instead of shaming. I did not yet know enough to recognize that I was encountering a deeply Lutheran theological framework. I only knew that it felt like something my soul needed.

And yet, over time, I left the institutional church.

Not because I stopped believing or seeking, but because my relationship to religious institutions changed. In the years that followed, I became part of a rapidly growing population that researchers now refer to as the “nones”: people who claim no formal religious affiliation. Today, nearly 30 percent of American adults fall into that category.

The name itself is misleading because many of us are not “nothing.” We are still spiritual, searching, and asking deep theological questions; still wrestling with meaning, purpose, justice, grief, vocation, and belonging.

What many people have left behind is not faith itself, but institutional participation. That distinction matters more than many religious institutions realize.

When I eventually arrived at LSTC in 2022, the seminary was navigating its own institutional transition, moving from its historic building into a new space on Cornell Avenue. In many ways, it was a moment of organizational redefinition. Conversations centered on reducing or physical footprint while increasing our digital footprint, sustainability, enrollment realities, and the changing landscape of theological education.

But underneath those conversations was a deeper question, one that increasingly shaped my own work: What happens to theological education when the people seeking formation are no longer walking through the doors?

For generations, seminaries largely organized themselves around a shared assumption: learners would come to the institution. They would relocate, enroll in degree programs, and participate in formation within the rhythms of seminary life.

That model still matters deeply. There will always be learners called into residential theological education, and institutions like Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago remain committed to that work.

But there is now another population emerging alongside it. People already embedded in communities, workplaces, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, activist movements, and congregations. People leading without formal titles. People carrying spiritual questions while navigating ordinary life. People who may never relocate for seminary, but who still hunger for theological formation.

And increasingly, theological education must decide what to do with that reality. At LSTC, those questions helped give rise to Project Starling, an asynchronous learning initiative designed to expand access to theological education beyond traditional pathways.

The project emerged from a deceptively simple shift in thinking. The question was no longer, “How do we grow enrollment?” The question became, “Who are we not reaching?”

And once the question changed, everything else began to change too.

What emerged from that shift in questioning was not simply a new program, but an entirely different way of thinking about theological formation.

In the summer of 2023, a group of faculty, staff, and institutional leaders gathered to wrestle with what this changing reality might require of LSTC. If people were still spiritually searching but no longer engaging institutions in traditional ways, what would it look like to build something designed for them? 

The result was Project Starling.

At its core, Project Starling is an asynchronous theological learning platform designed to expand access to theological education beyond the limitations of geography, time, cost, and traditional degree structures. But describing it merely as an “online learning platform” misses the larger point.

The project was designed around a different assumption about learners themselves. Traditional theological education often assumes that formation happens when people leave their contexts and come to seminary. Project Starling begins with the recognition that many people are already living their callings in real time — leading congregations, serving communities, organizing for justice, caring for others, navigating spiritual questions — while remaining deeply embedded in ordinary life.

Instead of asking those learners to step away from their lives in order to access formation, Project Starling attempts to bring formation into the lives they are already living.

That shift matters, because for many people, the barriers to theological education are not intellectual. They are structural. They involve work schedules, family responsibilities, financial realities, caregiving, transportation, geography, or the inability to relocate for years at a time.

Project Starling was designed with those realities in mind. The platform offers asynchronous learning experiences that allow participants to engage theological education anytime and anywhere. Courses are built modularly, allowing learners to move at flexible paces and enter formation in multiple ways — whether through certificate programs, standalone modules, or continuing education opportunities.

Importantly, the initiative was never intended to replace traditional seminary education. LSTC continues to believe deeply in residential, degree-based formation. But Project Starling reflects a growing recognition that theological education must now operate within a both/and framework: supporting traditional pathways while also expanding access for those who cannot participate in them.

The name “Starling” itself reflects that adaptive vision. Starlings are known for moving together in large synchronized formations called murmuration — fluid, coordinated movements that appear almost alive in the sky. They shift direction rapidly, responding collectively to changing conditions while remaining deeply connected to one another.

For LSTC, the image became metaphor. In a rapidly changing world, theological education can no longer afford to move slowly, rigidly, or in isolation from the realities shaping people’s lives. Like starlings in flight, institutions must become more responsive, adaptive, and connected if they hope to remain meaningful.

Project Starling’s earliest offerings focused on leaders already serving the church. The first major products developed through the platform were the TEEM and SAM Certificate programs, designed to support learners engaged in ministry formation and leadership within their communities. Since launching through a live user-testing phase in July 2025 in partnership with the ELCA Innovation lab, the platform has enrolled learners across both pathways while also helping LSTC reach entirely new audiences, particularly through the SAM program.

At the same time, additional programs are now in development, including certificates in Spiritual Direction, Race & Faith, Muslim Chaplaincy, and a partnership with the Lutheran Deaconess Association.

Collectively, these offerings reflect a broader vision for who theological education can serve church leaders, spiritual seekers, caregivers, chaplains, activists, lifelong learners, and people like me exploring questions of faith, justice, vocation, and meaning. 

In many ways, Project Starling is less about technology than it is about proximity. It asks whether theological education can move closer to the realities people are already living.

Whether formation can happen not only inside classrooms, but also inside communities, workplaces, hospitals, homes, and moments of personal searching.

Whether access itself might now be understood as part of the seminary’s theological responsibility. Project Starling can be accessed online at Project Starling, where learners can explore courses, certificate programs, and emerging offerings designed to support theological formation in a changing world.