MTSO’s students, in their own words

Leading a church amidst difference

Growing up, Patrick Dailey envisioned a career in business and marketing. He stuck to the script while earning a business degree and working for a startup company. And yet, he said, “I felt a
tension between the marketplace and ministry.”

From high school on, Dailey was deeply involved in his church, where those he worked with sensed a calling for him. “But this calling was something I wasn’t yet ready to accept,” he said. “It took a series of events for me to not only recognize God’s call but to finally want to follow it.”

Dailey now serves as pastor of Ontario Community Church, a historically Japanese-American congregation on the Oregon-Idaho border that straddles “different cultures, political ideologies, denominations, demographics and faith traditions.”

Attending MTSO remotely via HyFlex allows Dailey to pursue a Master of Divinity degree while continuing to pastor a diverse congregation: “I have no regrets about being a pastor who builds bridges between faith traditions, denominations, opposing political sides and demographics. I know that this is my calling, and I lean into it.”

Exploring the balance between justice and mercy

Applying to MTSO prompted Ashley D. Flores to review her successful law school application from a dozen years earlier.

“I was so excited and filled with fire to go out and somehow single-handedly prosecute each monster who worked in sex and human trafficking,” she recalled.

During her second year of law school, she worked in the federal public defender’s office in Dayton. “I found myself working directly on cases involving human trafficking – only I was on the defense team for the traffickers!” Her job was to make the case for lenient sentencing.

That work inspired Flores to reflect on the story of Jonah and his anger over God’s command to assist the evil people of Nineveh. “The lord told Jonah that the people of Nineveh did not know their left hand from their right, and I learned throughout my interviews with clients that many were in the same situation.”

Flores entered full-time United Methodist ministry in Indiana several years ago. Now, as she seeks a Master of Divinity degree, she’ll explore the balance between seeking justice and loving mercy: “This is the essential skill that I wish to hone at MTSO.”

Moving the church beyond a consumer mentality

A pastor’s kid, Beata Ferris opted not to pursue professional ministry herself, though she has brushed up against it throughout her adult life.

“I tried to live out my calling in various ways,” she said, “being a public-school teacher and coach, and serving as an active lay person in a local church; stepping into local church and conference church leadership roles; becoming a certified lay minister in the United Methodist Church.”

And yet, “None of these activities of serving seemed to fully address the call I felt.”

Now Ferris will pursue a Master of Divinity degree and ordination as a United Methodist deacon, attending MTSO primarily remotely from her home in South Dakota, while drawing on her many life experiences and observations.

She believes the church could use a course correction when it comes to congregants’ engagement.

“One significant challenge I see in the church today is a consumer mentality, where people passively receive rather than actively participate in their faith,” she said. “I am passionate about helping people move beyond this mindset.”

Parenting, pastoring and studying, thanks to HyFlex

“I was already 50 when I gave my life to Jesus,” Todd Vosper said. A Marine Corps veteran “valuing the pursuit of excellence,” he set about learning all he could about his faith and planning a path to ministry. But life intervened.

“My wife was battling cancer,” Vosper said. “I felt drawn to seminary but also knew, as my wife’s health declined, that it would not be possible. After she passed away, I didn’t want to get ahead of myself with twin 10-year-olds who needed my attention.”

Now, six years later, “I am seeing where God wants me, and that the timing is also right.” A lifelong learner who earned an MBA while an active-duty Marine, Vosper has enrolled in MTSO’s Master of Divinity program while serving as executive pastor in a United Methodist church near his home in San Diego. MTSO’s HyFlex option allows him to attend classes primarily online with occasional visits to campus.

With these options in place, he said, “I am confident I can find the time to be a good dad, pastor and student.”

Bridging gaps between academia and the church

Sophia A. Evans, who holds an MBA with an emphasis on leadership and organizational development, has most recently served as an adjunct professor and leadership trainer, designing and teaching courses that integrate biblical principles with leadership theory. This background has shaped her vision for putting an MTSO Master of Divinity degree to work.

“As a woman of color, spiritual leader and educator, I am burdened by the gaps in biblical literacy, leadership development and holistic discipleship, particularly among women and emerging leaders in underserved communities,” she said. “My long-term goal is to help bridge the gap between the academy and the church by making theological education accessible, relevant and transformational.”

Evans envisions serving as a theological educator, leader and spiritual director. “This includes developing curricula, facilitating workshops and retreats, and writing devotionals and spiritualformation resources that speak to reallife issues with theological depth and pastoral care.”

“Seminary, for me, is not simply an academic pursuit but an act of obedience,” she said. “It is a sacred space where calling, character and competence converge.”

Confronting biases and drawing a new map

Three decades ago, when Eleanor Brown was a teenager, her mother attended an Episcopal seminary but chose not to seek ordination because she was a woman. “This personal stand for her beliefs seemed admirable to me then,” Brown said, “but after decades spent similarly ceding my personal agency, I faced a reality that my ‘choices’ within an internalized patriarchy were merely outgrown adaptive preferences.”

Recently, as a middle-school special-education teacher who has raised seven children, Brown reached a conclusion: “I needed to unlearn my assumptions, excavate my biases and live out new theologies. Find – or maybe draw – a new map.”

She drove to an MTSO discernment event unsure of what she would find, thinking, “What if it’s all about one way to read the synoptic gospels? What if everybody else has a developed five-step ministry plan? What if I just … get itchy and run?”

Brown’s fears were unfounded. Her interactions with students, faculty and staff left her inspired and ready to begin pursuing a Master of Theological Studies degree.