MTSO’s students, in their own words

From pre-med to ministry

Madison Cartnal was 9 years old when she first considered a vocation in ministry.

“I was visiting my grandmother’s house, and she was telling me about how her church was to get a new pastor and that she was a woman,” Cartnal recalled. “She said, ‘You could be a pastor someday.’ While at that moment I wasn’t thinking that I necessarily wanted to be a pastor, that was the first time that I ever thought that maybe I could.”

Church life “shaped me during my most formative years,” but an upsetting event at the church when she was in eighth grade pushed her away from her faith. It took years for that faith to be rekindled, culminating in her recent time at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she majored in pre-medicine and Spanish.

At MTSO, Cartnal is pursuing a Master of Divinity degree and United Methodist ordination. “My interests have broadened greatly since the start of my time at Ohio Wesleyan,” she said. “I found a deeper passion for caring for people’s souls rather than just their physical bodies.”

A pastor digs deeper into the Bible

It’s been mere months since Christian Taylor received his Master of Divinity degree from Drew Theological School. Already, he has begun extending his graduate theological education by pursuing a Master of Theological Studies at MTSO.

“The Bible is a polyvocal text written for a specific people within a particular era,” said Taylor, who serves as pastor of Van Wert First UMC in the West Ohio Conference. “Understanding the relationship the authors and texts have with their original readers is crucial before attempting to extrapolate meaning for our current time. This is the reason for my desire to continue my educational journey.”

A member of a musical family, Taylor progressed “from a choir boy to an opera singer,” studying classical voice for his undergraduate degree. Now he looks to the ways his MTSO education will inform the vocational skills he already possesses: “This is an opportunity for me to take the work that generations of people have done with Biblical interpretation and add my life experiences to develop a new voice for a new generation.”

Elevating a gift for teaching

A retired public-school principal and adjunct instructor at Ashland University, Deborah Copeland has discerned a need to learn more. “As a Black Christian woman, growing up in a country dominated by a culture of white supremacy, discernment is in my DNA,” she said.

“I worked with people who did not grow up with the belief or knowledge that they would ever have a ‘boss’ with my skin color. My discernment process guided me as I treated teachers as individuals so that I could lead them to become better instructors and exhibit cultural sensitivity toward children who did not look like them.”

Now Copeland wants to pursue an MA in Social Justice as she prepares to embark on a new project: “Ultimately, I want to develop a course or series of courses that marry theology, social justice and education.”

“I have a desire to learn so that I can teach others,” she said. “I am not one who participates in protests or runs for political office to fight for social justice. My gift is teaching.”

Embracing complicated answers

David Pate grew up in a nondenominational church in Lancaster, Ohio. “I was born into a set of answers, steeped in certainty about the way the world worked,” he said. “No matter how nonsensical those answers seemed in application, they were expected to be repeated and defended under any circumstance.”

Even as a child, Pate chafed at pat answers: “I had a talent for asking questions that were apparently off limits. Despite the number of corrections I received throughout the years, I was never able to tune out that curiosity that constantly nagged me, saying, ‘There has to be more to it. This doesn’t make any sense.’”

Pate, a loan portfolio assistant with the United Church of Christ Cornerstone Fund in Cleveland, is pursuing a Master of Theological Studies degree. With his MTSO education and his skills in videography, film production and music, he hopes to “reach across denominations, faith traditions, and political barriers in order to help better communicate theology, history and the need for active social justice initiatives throughout the church.”

Committed to lay leadership

A lifelong United Methodist, Rachel Hagewood is the child and grandchild of preachers, yet she has never felt a call to ordained ministry herself. Instead, she is pursuing a Master of Theological Studies degree as part of her deep calling to serve as the most effective layperson she can be.

“In too many situations, I see us laypeople sitting back and watching as the clergy do the work of the church. I have engaged in a number of roles with my local church and at the conference level, and at many points I see clergy leading and laypersons waiting to follow,” said Hagewood, who is a senior developmental editor at The Upper Room in Nashville.

She was drawn to MTSO as “a seminary integrated into the United Methodist system but located in a very different context than my home in Tennessee.” MTSO’s HyFlex education model made attending a school two states away possible.

“Through hybrid courses, I am able to continue to work and care for my family,” she said, “and yet have the structure I need to stay engaged with my classmates and professors.”

Called to ministry in Kenya

Joseph Kariuki is an ordained Anglican priest from Kenya, where he studied at the Limuru campus of St. Paul’s University, earning a Bachelor of Divinity degree. He begins his MTSO studies a year after his wife, Rosemary Maina, enrolled. Both are pursuing Master of Divinity degrees.

“I follow this ministry because I believe I was called by God to serve him in his vineyard at a very tender age,” Kariuki said. “Over the years of attending Sunday school sessions, I would find myself preaching to my fellow children, and this has inspired me to take my practices further.”

Among his roles in ministry, Kariuki led the Baraka Parish Sunday school, through which “many parents who never had a relationship with Jesus, upon seeing how these teachings have impacted their children, decided to also give their lives to Jesus.”

Now he looks to enhance the theological foundation of his faith at MTSO: “I strongly believe a calling by itself is not enough without a good and strong foundation. A good theology eradicates ignorance in the lives of the preachers as well as creates a sure and unmovable foundation in the lives of the parishioners.”

A psychologist seeks a new vocation

Maria Evans is a licensed psychologist in the state of Michigan. “My specialty within my work as a psychotherapist is helping people through deep depression and suicidality,” she said. Some of those she helps suffer from a damaging misapplication of Christian faith.

“I think about the young people I’ve worked with who were physically and sexually abused and told by church leaders that they did something to ‘deserve’ it,” she said. “I think about my young patients living in fear of being kicked out of their homes or abused because they are beginning to question their sexuality.”

“I’ve often wanted to begin to teach these patients more about God’s grace and love, but in my current role as their therapist, there is only so much that I’m allowed to do.”

Now Evans is responding to “a greater and greater ‘nudge’ to go into ministry” by pursuing a Master of Divinity degree and United Methodist ordination.

“By being a pastor,” she said, “I will be able to lead by example of how a faith-filled life connects people – not separates them.”