Contact Info for Matthew James:
Email: mlj184@gmail.com

IF, THREE YEARS AGO, someone had told me I would be going to seminary, I would have told him or her they were crazy. But it is certainly interesting (and often exciting) to see how God works in our lives. I was not active in my faith through much of my life until I took a year off after college and volunteered with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps. My experience with LVC opened my eyes to people who were doing what they believed God was calling them to do, and it was much different than my previous impressions of what it meant to be Christian. I quickly became very involved in my church, and my faith truly experienced a rebirth. I was so surprised at how quickly my attitude toward church changed. I once dreaded going to church; now I looked forward to it every Sunday.

As I entered graduate school, I became involved in Campus Ministry, which is where I would begin to hear God calling me. One day, our campus minister asked if I had ever considered ministry, and at that moment all of my passions in life seemed to come together and fit quite well in one vocation: ordained ministry.

I came to visit LTSP just a few months after I began to discern this call to ministry and immediately I found the community to be warm and welcoming.