From Seminarian to Minister

Students looking toward graduation, no matter the field of study, are also looking beyond to get a sense of what professional and vocational opportunities will be open to them once they finish their formal education. In this section, we will present some statistics regarding current trends relating to the transition from "candidate" to "ordination to a first call."

Before getting into the details, however, we need to say something about the data on which this discussion of trends is based. All the statistics here are based on the reporting of each presbytery regarding their respective inquirers and candidates. With 169 presbyteries differing in how they handle their reporting, there are bound to be some inconsistencies in the timeliness and completeness of the reported data. As just one example, consider this table regarding the differences between the reporting of presbyteries of care regarding their candidates who have been ordained and the annual statistical reporting by presbyteries regarding their minister members.

Though the trends in this table suggest that presbytery reporting does catch up over time, the information available at any particular point in time is not comprehensive. Nevertheless, the variations in reporting are random enough in terms of presbytery size, region, etc., that the trends are likely to be generally accurate even if the specific numbers are incomplete.