So what do you want to be?

Lutheran, The, Nov 2004 by Main, Elaine

ELCA campus ministries help Iowa students figure it out

If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, many college students feel squished. It's decision time, and deciding is difficult.

To ease the process, many Lutheran campus ministries at ELCA and nonELCA schools offer students support as they work through, or discern, vocation decisions.

"I felt spiritually squished," says Kristin Jorgensen, who wondered if her vocational plans did indeed use her spiritual gifts.

So Jorgensen, a member of All : Saints Lutheran Church, Davenport, Iowa, talked to Diane Dardon, the Lutheran campus pastor at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls.

"She gave me a spiritual gifts assessment and a career aptitude test, and we compared the scores," Jorgensen says. They found that the sophomore's strong spiritual gifts are faith, hospitality, knowledge, leadership and teaching. She has an aptitude for being investigative, artistic and realistic.

"All good traits for science and education fields," she says. "Add my love of working with children, and I feel I'm in the right field-science education."

'Everything clicked'

Heidi Hanel, a junior at Northern Iowa, changed her major several times. "Last year I was depressedstudying to be a high school English teacher, hating it and feeling I wasn't being called there," says the member of Faith Lutheran Church, Marion, Iowa.

When Dardón invited her to a spiritual gifts workshop, Hanel discovered that teaching was at the bottom of her aptitude list, but she had strengths in 11 out of 20 gifts on the assessment.

"It pointed me toward being a pastor," she says. "When Pastor Dardon asked me to serve communion, I remember the weight of the world falling off my shoulders. Everything connected. Pastor Dardón says she saw a calmness come over me.

"When I told my parents, my Mom said, 'In the back of my mind, I've known you'd enter seminary, but you had to figure it out on your own. '

"Everything clicked. Just think, I'll study ancient Greek. That's awesome."

Tools for discernment

"I'm constantly amazed at the strong commitment young adults have to live out their faith in daily life," says Dardón, who uses conversation, a spiritual gifts inventory and a career aptitude test to help students. "We look at how they might use their spiritual gifts to enhance their life, their vocation, their work in God's kingdom.

"For some, this process reinforces their career path and gives them much to think about as they blend faith and career. For others, the process points in new directions, creating temporary confusion."

Eventually clarity comes, often with prayer, which Dardon calls "essential ... as young adults determine a path for life."

Dardon also encourages students to walk the campus ministry's labyrinth as they ponder their life path. "The whole process is amazing, and I'm delighted as I watch young adults search their souls ... grow, blossom, and move forward with confidence and joy," she says.

'Aha' moments

Just 15 miles away in Waverly, Iowa, Wartburg College also focuses on spiritual growth and vocational discernment. The ELCA college has always emphasized the interrelated nature of faith, career and life. Many students discern their callings off campus during internships or volunteer work.

Kaela Bemis traveled a thousand miles over winter break to build a Habitat for Humanity home in Mobile, Ala. Bemis, a senior and member of St. Peter Lutheran Church, Eldorado, Iowa, remembers hearing a Habitat board member say, "It's nice to see young people who get it so early."

"It takes some people yearssometimes their whole lives-to realize how important and humbling it is to serve others. After my week in Mobile, I think I do get it.... Service is an aspect that I want to focus on, which may lead to a lifelong career."

One moment clarified things for Bemis. When the new homeowners' son tearfully admitted it wasn't something he would've done, it "really brought the trip into perspective," she says. "Service is helping others feel good about themselves and know that God loves them and so do a group of college students from Iowa."

Wartburg also is using a grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment to fund a program that creates way s to ' 'discover and claim your calling."

"Exploring new places, being part of a community and reflecting on vocation are formative," says Lake Lambert, project director for the Discovering and Claiming Our Callings initiative. "The experiences create those aha moments.... Students come back saying, This is what I want to do the rest of my life. '

"The college assumes that a large number of students don't know what they want to be [even if] they may verbalize a certain major. At Wartburg, we want to create a mentoring community. If students fail an exam or doubt their declared vocation, a faculty member, coach or staff member will talk things through with them.

"That mentoring relationship is vital, and that's what Lutheran colleges offer. Most of us faculty members are here because that's the kind of support person we want to be."