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Zygon Center for Religion and Science, Chicago, Illinois

by David Glover

I view my current call as a diaconal minister as an extension of a personal call to ministry that has spanned decades and has been expressed in many settings and locations throughout the country. While growing up in Minnesota in the 1970’s and ‘80’s I was active in Sunday school, vacation Bible school, and assisting with the acolytes and altar guild. Later in the 1980’s, while attending Wartburg College in Iowa, I participated in its youth ministry teams working with youth groups throughout the state. I served as a Stephen Minister in the 1990’s, while working as an environmental chemist in both upstate New York and in North Carolina and later served on the board of a Lutheran day school in North Carolina.

While all of this life experience has been a calling that bridged “the world” to “the church” as a lay leader within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and its predecessors churches, it was not until I returned to Minnesota in the late 1990’s and had begun working at a pharmaceutical company helping to manufacture generic drugs — which I saw as a calling that provided lower-cost medications to people — that I had a personal encounter with diaconal ministry and the call to minister in this particular fashion. Dr. Fjeld, then the president of Wartburg Seminary, came to my church and gave a presentation on professional ministry within the ELCA. During this presentation, it hit me that I had to learn more about diaconal ministry. Dr. Fjeld took my name and later that week I received application materials to seminary and the candidacy process. (This was the day after Wartburg Seminary’s admissions office called me.) Sometimes the Holy Spirit moves quickly even as it worked slowly.

Now, however, the Holy Spirit was moving. After looking over the materials that I had been sent and talking with a friend in North Carolina who said, “This sounds like you,” I moved out in faith. I gave my employer seven months notice that I would be leaving their employ and entering seminary, then I began the call process; filling out the applications, participating in the interviews, etc. So as I was helping my employer find my replacement, I was stepping out in the faith that the ELCA would feel that I had a call to be a diaconal minister.

Initially I entered seminary at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC), seeking and expecting to receive a call as a chaplain. However, through various means and mechanisms throughout the candidacy process and my seminary experience, the Holy Spirit directed me to a call other than chaplaincy. Because of my background in science, my roommate provided my name to one of the professors who also was on the staff of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science (ZCRS) as someone who might be interested in helping out with the details in preparing for ZCRS’s annual lecture series on creation. From this start as part-time student help with the ZCRS, my call developed. Near the end of my seminary studies, I was in the elevator with two people, ZCRS’s director and a member of the ELCA’s churchwide staff who deals with science and religion issues. During this conversation the ELCA staff member asked me where my diaconal call would be and when I said that (at that time) I didn’t know, he said, “Isn’t what you are doing diaconal?” ZCRS’s director then replied, “I may have more work for David.” From this conversation my call crystallized. Due to reorganizations caused by multiple people retiring from ZCRS, which is affiliated with LSTC, and from the unaffiliated Zygon®: Journal of Religion and Science, I ended up receiving a call from the ELCA to work at ZCRS part time as Projects Administrator. I am also an assistant on Zygon’s editorial staff.

Working at LSTC, I am available to help answer questions from the master’s and doctoral students enrolled in the seminary’s science-and-religion program as well as any of the diaconal ministry candidates on campus. However, the largest portion of my call is to provide technical, logistics, and organizational support for ZCRS’s Epic of Creation lecture series each fall semester and, to a lesser extent, for the Advanced Seminar — a seminar whose topics change annually; some recent topics have included “Ideas of Nature,” “The Cognitive Sciences and Religion,” and “The Created Co-Creator: Interpreting Science, Technology, and Theology” — each spring. In addition, I help with ZCRS’s more periodic events; most recently the HIV/AIDS Workshop for Medical and Religious Professionals, which it hosted for the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Past events have included two academic symposia on HIV/AIDS held at LSTC; a symposium held at LSTC and Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, “Religion and Science: The Questions That Shape Our Future;” and three symposia held at the 2004 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona, “Science and Spirituality: A Case Study in the Wisdom of Listening,” “Food Safety and Food Justice,” and “HIV/AIDS: Listening to Understand and Committing to Act Together,” events which cover a wide variety of topics where religion meets science and technology.

Joy for me comes with working to address some of these “big issues.” (One of the ways that the Holy Spirit worked through the candidacy process was that my committee named for me my proclivity to the meta-issues.) My energy and passions lie in raising awareness of global community and stewardship issues, broadly defined. I suspect that this is why my friend said diaconal ministry “sounds like you.” The church is in the world; called to minister to the world when it finds the world in need. My call is to be that bridge when dealing with science and technology issues and their impact on the global community.

When the Holy Spirit moves and one’s gifts are acted on with faith, one may find oneself with a call to serve the church as well as the rest of God’s creation.