Baby Boomers Increasingly Choose to Become Seminarians
The fastest-growing group of seminarians are people who are 50-years-old and above, according to a decade-long study of enrollment by Association of Theological Schools.
People over the age of 50 are commonly referred to as “baby boomers.”
Vincent Guest, 51, once was working for the government, eventually becoming a lawyer. He lived near the Jersey Shore in a three-bedroom house, but to Guest it was not fulfilling.
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Guest wanted to make a difference.
“Helping people with domestic violence, you know suffering from domestic violence or immigrants who were being deported ... I just saw their brokenness. In so many different ways, they were broken. And I know they needed to be touched by the love of God,” said Guest.
This led Guest to the Theological College to study and become a parish priest in New Jersey, according to CNN.
Guest, never married, joined for a few years before becoming a priest when he was a young man, but left to “experience life.” Coincidentally a similar scenario that has played out for many baby boomers.
Rev. Chip Aldridge, admissions director at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, said: “Many of them felt a call early in life, maybe in their teenage years or college, and set that aside to be the bread winner for the family or do what the family expected them to do.”
In 1995, 12 percent of seminarians were baby boomers. Now baby boomers make up 20 percent of seminarians.
For the baby boomers that have returned, times have changed. When they were young, computers were something foreign and the Internet was not even invented yet.
According to Aldridge, “everyone has to be able to use online academic tools. ... They've got to be very comfortable with technology.”
Instead of a retirement in the Bahamas, these baby boomer seminarians are choosing to do something meaningful and fulfilling.
