Family Farms - Moravian College

If God called,
would you answer?
For 200 years, Moravian Theological Seminary has been a haven for those who do.
For 200 years, Moravian Theological Seminary
has been a haven for those who do.
The students pursing graduate degrees at Moravian Theological
Seminary are, almost by definition, not your typical scholars.
“In a society that measures so many things by how much money
you make or how much money you have,” says Frank Crouch, dean of
Moravian Theological Seminary, “it really is a counter-cultural move
just to show up at seminary at all.” In fact, some who feel the call
to ministry try to put it off for years, or decades, only to find that it
doesn’t fade away. So they come after sending their kids to college,
after establishing themselves in business or a trade, after retiring
from a twenty-year career. As a result, about two thirds of the MTS
student body are age 35 or older; with nearly half of that group over
age 50. “There are a significant number who say they felt called when
they were younger,” Dean Crouch says, “And they’ve resisted it for
this long, and now they’re finally at the point where they feel they
have to do it.”
Which makes for an interesting mix in the classroom. “When I
first started here, it seemed a little odd,” says Adam Spaugh ’05, who
enrolled at MTS after graduating from Moravian College. “It seemed
like I had nothing in common with 70% of my classmates. But over
time, I realized that the second career folks bring an extraordinary
amount of experience and life wisdom.” The student body varies by
religious denomination as well as age group; a consequence, says
Dean Crouch, of the Moravian Church’s ecumenical nature. “For most
of its history, the Moravian Church has seen itself as a place where
people with multiple viewpoints can assemble,” he says. From Adam
Spaugh’s perspective, that's an important plus. “It’s great to go to
class with some Methodists, some Lutherans . . . it forces you to sit
down with the fact that we’re all pretty much the same, we’re all
10 MORAVIAN COLLEGE MAGAZINE FALL 2007