It's been a while since I ran the stats from Call Day, but this year I’m feeling nostalgic as this marks the tenth year since I was one of those fourth year students waiting to hear of his fate. And how things have changed in that decade! There were 144 (an even gross) in my first year class. By the time we made it to call day, that had been culled down to 120 or so. This year saw 57 men placed from our Synod’s larger seminary.

Several of us in 2004 were exploring graduate studies. None are listed as doing so this year, but perhaps they just didn’t put them in the bulletin.

Every year I have run stats for CSL a clear majority of men were placed as associate or assistant pastors. This year 54.4% of men were placed as sole pastors (36.8% as associate/assistant and 8.8% in district positions, such as missionary at large or church planter).

There were no SMP candidates listed – 84.2% MDiv, 8.8% Alternate Route, 1.8% Cross-cultural Ministry Center, 5.3% Center for Hispanic Studies.

At this time there remain one MDiv student and one CHS student who were not able to be placed.

UPDATE: And here are the stats for CTS.

AT CTS forty-four men were placed into calls. That itself is worthy of note: the two seminaries are much closer in size these days based on the number of graduates. Fort Wayne continued its trend of sending about 2/3 of their graduates out as sole pastors: 68.2% this year, with 27.3% as assistants/associates, and 4.5% into CUS or CTS faculty positions.

May God grant all these men grace to serve their Lord with faithfulness and zeal.

+HRC

PS:  The only deaconess graduate at CSL was not able to be placed either. At CTS there were no deaconess graduates, but a couple internships were handed out.