Mission Statement

The Alumni and Church Relations team at Fuller Theological Seminary exists to foster and maintain positive lifelong relationships between the seminary, its alumni, and those churches who associate with Fuller's mission.

An Article from the Director of Church Relations

"Running and Waiting"
By Kutter Callaway 

Kutter Callaway

A few years ago I was the lead pastor and director of an "emerging/twenty- and thirty-somethings" ministry at a large Evangelical church. On one particular evening, as our community gathered for worship, we corporately sang a popular song that referenced a passage from the book of Job: "Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go?" (cf. Job 36:32). Before we could voice these lyrics in their entirety, a member of our community bolted for the door, her shoulders heaving in sync with her muffled sobs. Because I had recently assumed this new pastoral role, I was completely unaware that, only days before, her sister had died after a two-year struggle with the debilitating effects of being struck by lightning. Unbeknownst to me, while everyone around her joyfully proclaimed a particular conception of the God we were worshipping, she was wrestling with a deep and abiding incongruity between her experience of God's presence and her experience of God's profound absence.

It was in that odd, disjointed space—a space that was spilling over with both despair and hope, both sadness and joy—that I first stumbled upon a realization that most pastors know deep within their very being: ministry is hard.

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