Trenton Ormsbee-Hale
he/him
Master of Divinity
What is your favorite memory of your time at LSTC?
My first in-person visit to the campus. As a distance learner, I’ve enjoyed spending several weeks in Chicago over the course of my studies with LSTC. It has been an opportunity to strengthen my connection to this wonderful community. My first trip to Chicago, however, was especially memorable because of how quickly and excitedly everyone welcomed me to the campus. I felt at home right away. It goes to show how, even in our distance programs, LSTC is able to build a sense of community.
What was the most meaningful class you took?
“Preaching the Gospel of John” taught by Dr. Barbara Rossing and Dr. Bejamin Stewart. It transformed the way I approach preaching. It taught me to appreciate the uniqueness of the Gospel of John’s Christology, theology, and missiology, and, by extension, to treat each Gospel account as unique. It also helped me to connect the practice of deep exegetical study with my preaching. After that class, my own parishioners noted a positive change in the way I preach. It helped me to fall in love with the biblical texts each Sunday and to allow my love for the text to pour out of my preaching and to lead my preaching. So much so that parishioners asked me to begin a weekly sermon-text-study with them, and I am teaching them many of the same exegetical and homiletical techniques I learned in that class.
How did you feel supported during your seminary journey? Were you the recipient of any major scholarships? What communities or people uplifted you during your studies?
There is no way I could have afforded or justified leaving my career to go back to school full-time if it weren’t for the financial support I received from both LSTC donors and the ELCA’s Fund for Leaders donors. I was honored to have received the President’s Visionary Scholarship from LSTC and, later, to receive the Mission Re/Developer Scholarship from ELCA’s Fund for Leaders. As a distance learner, I never once felt neglected. I had faculty and staff members as well as my classmates who always made an effort to connect with me and offer support and guidance.
What are your post-graduation plans?
I plan to remain in the Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod and seek a call to congregational ministry as a pastor. I think places like Texas need the courageous and vital witness of ELCA leaders and congregations more than ever, and I’m fired up to take on that challenge!
How did LSTC shape you as a future leader of the public church?
Throughout my time at LSTC, faculty members took an interest in my own theological interests and the pastoral concerns I had for my local context. They encouraged me and gave me the theological tools not to just float through seminary collecting knowledge, but to pursue the questions that were nagging my own heart and the hearts of the people I served. If I went to any other seminary, I think I would have had the tools to be a theologian in the generic sense—reciting the theological insights and confessions of past generations. That’s an important part of theology, sure, but LSTC has challenged me to go a step further: to be a theologian for a particular time, people, and place. I find myself doing theological reflection much more with the people I serve and with their own stories as my textbook. Sure, I still bring timeless theologians and theological issues into conversation, but I have the tools now to present them to my community in a way that feels like setting off fireworks as they connect it to their own lives and experiences of God. I feel much more rooted in my own community and my idea of ministry has shifted into trying to be a theologian in residence for the very particular community I serve.
