Let us pray for...

We hear this phrase often when someone in our church is ill or struggling. But how often do you hear it completed with “our seminary students”?

My home synod’s newsletter contains a prayer list with similar requests but new names each time. The litany of prayers normally reads like this: Please pray for Pastor So and So as she undergoes surgery. And please keep in your prayers the family of Pastor So and So as they grieve the death of her mother. This is good. But we tend to minister to those at the middle or end of their careers in public ministry. What about those in the beginning of their public ministry? Do we as a church care for them too?

I asked my classmates at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., two questions: “How are congregations ministering to you now?” and “How could they do this better?”