Please Keep in Your Prayers . . .

all the men who will receive vicarage assignments and calls from congregations to serve as pastors, and all the women who will receive deaconess internships or placements, during the Placement Services being held at our seminaries tonight and tomorrow night.  These men and women have sacrificed a lot to get to this point of hearing the Lord of the Harvest answer their plea, "Send me," by placing them into the congregations (or, mission fields) where He bids them serve.  Having gone through this myself just five years ago, I still remember the feelings of both anxiety and excitement waging war within me and tying my stomach all up in knots.  I'm betting there's a lot of that going on inside many of the candidates to be placed this year as well - and, not just inside the candidates themselves, but, in many cases, their spouses and children, too.  It is a scary, most humbling experience to give yourself over to the will of the Lord in this manner, not knowing where you'll be called to serve or what the conditions will be when you get there.  And yet, that's just what these men and women have done, solely by God's grace, of course.  Anyway, keep them in your prayers.

Also, be even more diligent in your prayers for the many men who will not be receiving calls these next two evenings, simply because there is a shortage of calling congregations.  These men are trained, able, and willing to serve, but will have to wait until something opens up somewhere before they can be placed.  I know a little bit about this, too, since I was contacted a week before Call Night and told that there was a shortage of calls that year and that, since I was on a delayed vicarage, they were asking those of us in that situation to not report for Call Night, but to stay put until they could place us.  Long story short, I was, thankfully, called on the Saturday before Call Night and told that they did have a call for me after all, and to come on down.  But, that week was very trying on me and on my family, as we did not know what the future held for us.  I can only imagine how trying it would have been on us had we had to suffer for longer than that week, as many of these dear brothers and their families will have to do.  My heart goes out to them big time!  Please, please, please keep them in your prayers!

You can tune in and watch the Placement Services streaming online (I'm actually watching the Vicarage Placement and Deaconess Internship Service at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne which started a few minutes ago right now; the Candidate Call Service will be held in Ft. Wayne tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.; Concordia, St. Louis has its Call Service tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST).  Simply go to the seminary websites linked below:

Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN

Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO 

Here is a video explaining the Placement situation at CTS-Ft. Wayne this year: