For Brigham Drevlow ’29 M.Div., freshman year at Concordia College started like this: class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. before a three-hour music rehearsal. Drive home, fix dinner, and sleep a few hours before a 1 a.m. shift at UPS—which ended shortly before the start of class.

Weeks into this routine, Drevlow’s boss at UPS encouraged him to apply for the youth choir director position at his church—Bethlehem Church in Fargo, North Dakota. Drevlow interviewed the next day, and the pastor called within 10 minutes to offer him the job. “I said ‘yes’ but was hesitant,” Drevlow explained. The role forced the Minnesota native to confront complicated feelings about church.

“I grew up in and loved being engaged in church, but my energy was too much for our pastor to handle in confirmation class,” Drevlow recalled. “My senior year of high school, he told me I was going to hell and wasn’t welcome in the community. I felt unworthy of God’s love.”

But Bethlehem was different. Drevlow found purpose in the mission-focused congregation and became the youth, education, and evangelism minister the following year. Pastor Lexy Steinle ’22 M.Div. handed Drevlow a Luther Seminary brochure, but it sat on his office desk for two years. “I never threw it away,” he said. “I wasn’t ready—but it stayed there, calling me.”

Then, Steinle gave him a push. “She told me Luther was offering a three-day discernment retreat for anyone wanting to explore and deepen their faith. Bethlehem would pay for me to go, so I had no excuse.”

Drevlow showed up that January weekend but was uneasy. “The first night I went to bed feeling defeated,” he explained. “All the other people at the retreat could quote Scripture and knew what they wanted to do. They were so much further along in their discernment process, so I felt out of place.”

Before he fell asleep, Drevlow read a few chapters from the retreat’s suggested reading, “Let Your Life Speak” by Parker J. Palmer. “The passage talked about how God can work in all of us, through any vocation. I decided to trust the process and woke up renewed and refreshed,” he said. “The Holy Spirit was working in me.”

The next day, retreat leaders asked participants to map their lives. Taking inspiration from the board game Candy Land, Drevlow designed a path of colorful tiles to deconstruct his journey.

“I was no less than finished when—boom—God spoke loudly for the first time in my life,” Drevlow recalled. “I got chills. I’d never felt so clear and certain about a direction in my life, and in that moment, I knew I had to become a pastor.”

He applied to Luther Seminary a week later and received the ELCA Fund for Leaders tuition scholarship, plus a stipend for living expenses from Luther’s Jubilee Scholarship program. Drevlow will continue to work at Bethlehem, engaging in distance learning until he graduates.

“I can’t wait to become a pastor, to share the Good Word, and to translate it to people in a way that opens them up to living more Christ-like lives,” Drevlow explained. “I love showing the face of God in this world because everyone has a right to and is worthy of experiencing God’s good grace and God’s good love.”

A ‘holy experiment’ to explore God’s call

The discernment retreat Drevlow attended is part of a growing menu of discernment experiences that aim to inspire connection and reflection.

Terri Elton ’98 M.A., ’07 Ph.D., dean of academic affairs and professor of leadership, said the seminary is expanding and adapting to meet people where they are on their lifelong journey. Elton leads the free Faith+Lead course “Discerning: Exploring God’s Call to Ministry,” which launched in 2024. The asynchronous course has served 125 learners eager to slow down and explore “how the Holy Spirit invites us into God’s work in the world,” Elton said.

Through exercises, videos, and readings, the course guides participants through this process of continually investigating God’s presence in their lives. It awakens an alertness to the ways one can share God’s love, Elton added, and it is especially good for people who feel as though they are swimming against the current or walking through a fog.

“Discernment is not a goal or something to achieve or attest to or to pass. There are not right or wrong answers, and it’s not a step-by-step process,” she explained. “It’s never done but is a process with key practices that takes place within particularities of relationships, communities, and contexts. It’s as much about who we are as it is about our actions.”

Luther adapts to the times

Tim Coltvet ’98 M.Div., director of contextual learning, said opportunities for guided discernment are more important than ever as the path to seminary widens.

“Unlike years ago, when students came to seminary with a pretty well-formed sense of their desired degree and vocational pathway, today’s student is engaged in the discernment process while they are in seminary through ‘holy conversations’ with God, classmates, faculty and staff, and communities,” he said. “It may be a bit too simplistic to speak in these terms, though—the Spirit continues to produce faithful servant leaders, regardless of the shape of their discernment process.”

Luther is adjusting to the needs of its learners by offering a range of opportunities for discernment, including retreats, online classes, one-on-one conversations, discussions in class, and events on and off campus.

“The seminary’s devotion to the discernment process and willingness to adapt its modalities is characteristic of the enduring legacy of the Lutheran theological formation process,” Coltvet added. “This commitment to a deeply shaped mission in both personal and communal ways is a gift to each person who participates in these discernment experiences.”

Campus collaborations strengthen discernment offerings

Jen Gruendler, associate director of enrollment services, is among those working across campus and with external partners to spur discernment conversations and events that help people deepen connections with themselves, their neighbors, and God.

“I always tell people that if they are going to seminary to answer all their questions, they are going to be disappointed because it often creates more questions for people about where God is calling them, who God created them to be, and what church is,” she said. “We are all unfinished, and our role is to help people with those loose ends and unanswered questions.”

This work isn’t quick or easy, Gruendler added. Planning retreats, facilitating events, and engaging in one-on-one conversations is a “huge but necessary investment” of time and resources.

“During the application process, we meet with students one-on-one for about an hour. Over and over again, we hear from students that it’s one of the most important conversations they have during their seminary experience,” she said. “We keep up with them and offer additional ways to carve out space and time to process and reflect.”

Drevlow is living that journey, with Luther staff walking alongside him. He has woven practices from the retreat into his daily life, including his time “dwelling in the Word” each morning. He continues to read recommended books and seek out meaningful conversations with peers and faculty.

“Nobody finds their path alone,” he added, “and once you’re on that path, you cannot—or should not—walk it alone.”

Open to change and learning

Ashley Wheeler, associate director of candidacy and vocational formation, supports those who want to become rostered ministers. She collaborates with Gruendler and others to develop discernment opportunities that inspire clarity and understanding.

“Although discernment experiences often recruit students, that is not the goal. We truly see this as a gift the seminary can offer students, potential students, and lay people,” she said. “It’s for everyone, whether they decide to come to Luther now, in the future, or never. It’s about taking people outside the chaos of their world and into intentional space with the internal, external, and God.”

Coltvet reiterates the importance of being open to where the Spirit guides you. Unexpected zigs and zags during students’ internships are not failures, he said. They are opportunities for growth and learning that often transform the lives of candidates and those they serve.

“Each of us has a responsibility to journey with an open hand and remember Jesus’ words: ‘The Spirit blows where it will,’” Coltvet said.

The seminary’s strategy related to discernment offerings has also remained open to where the Spirit blows. Initially, the Office of Contextual Learning approached faculty about creating a discernment course. Steve Thomason ’15 Ph.D., dean of the chapel and associate professor of spiritual formation and discipleship, was tapped to teach the course in Winter 2024. After offering it as an independent study and a traditional course, the team decided to pivot.

“Discernment is the heart and soul of spiritual formation, and that is the focus of my passion and work. I welcomed the opportunity to create a space and curriculum to counter our overly distracted, hyper- stimulated world,” Thomason said. “But, ultimately, we realized that students wanted to experience discernment through a retreat or other touchpoints rather than a class. We no longer offer the class, but I continue to be involved with theological content for the various experiences.”

At the January retreat, Thomason led the life mapping exercise that Drevlow found so meaningful. Thomason also walked retreat participants through an exercise called “SWIRLS” to “assess the unique swirl of gifts the Holy Spirit is swirling in, around, and through you.” SWIRLS refers to one’s style (or personality type), work, interests, resources, lenses, and season.

“We ask people to consider what season of life they are in right now and how their wellness, financial stability, responsibilities, and more might impact their call,” he explained. “All of these areas influence us on the dynamic journey of becoming who God wants us and created us to be for our neighbors and the world around us.”

Drevlow is driven to apply this framework to his growing understanding of his life’s work. It’s comforting, he said, to have meaningful tools and a community of people eager to walk alongside you in whatever way works for you at that time in your life.

“The people I met at the retreat, and the shared work we did together to deepen our understanding of our journeys and our work, remind me of the communal nature of God,” Drevlow said. “I believe we are a mirror image of him, but not in a literal or individual sense. All of us, together, make up that mirror image. We are like broken pieces of his image—you’re a shard, I am a shard, they are shards—and when we come together in community, we truly are that mirror, reflecting the value and love of God. Because at the end of the day, God is love. And whether someone
is Christian or not, they deserve to receive that love.”

Learn more about discernment retreats and other admissions events at luthersem.edu/admissions/events, or sign up for the free Faith+Lead course, “Discerning: Exploring God’s Call to Ministry,” at faithlead.org.