Formation Experiences of First-Year Students at a Progressive Christian Seminary: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study

Abstract

This study explored the question, “How are seminary students’ formation experiences shaped over their first year in seminary?” Research questions and goals were formulated through a collaborative practical theology approach with seminary leaders. First-year seminary students (n = 35) from a northeastern U.S. progressive Protestant seminary completed qualitative surveys across three time points during their first year of study. The qualitative questions asked about students’ conceptualizations of God, what influenced their formation, and what effects resulted from those formative experiences. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Three themes emerged revealing formation factors internal and external to the seminary. These formation factors resulted in multifaceted formation effects on the students which also likely reflect the multifaceted formation goals needed at a pluralistic seminary. Inviting student self-reports allowed us to focus on what actually influences student formation and how those influential experiences translate into beliefs and practices.

1. Introduction

Religious leaders play important and complicated roles in communities, and there is growing research on multiple risks and protective factors for religious leaders in relation to burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and other health problems (e.g., Hydinger et al. 2024; Picornell-Gallar and Gonzalez-Fraile 2023; Proeschold-Bell et al. 2015; Wells 2013). Indeed, Aleshire (2021) as president of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS; the main accrediting body of theological education in North America) witnessed increasing levels of stress and rising social mistrust of this vocational group. He therefore argued for a greater emphasis on personal spiritual formation in the training of emerging religious leaders in addition to theological knowledge acquisition and professional skill development. This combination, Aleshire felt, would help make contemporary religious leadership amidst the decline of “traditional” religion and widespread social polarization effective and sustainable.

Aleshire’s call coincided with an increasing body of empirical research on multiple areas of seminary student formation over the past fifteen years. Numerous studies in this area have utilized the relational spirituality model (RSM, Sandage et al. 2020) to conceptualize various relational development and systemic dynamics that can impact spiritual formation (e.g., Porter et al. 2019; Wong 2024). Yet research in this area, with some notable exceptions, has predominantly been (a) in evangelical Christian contexts and (b) quantitative and cross-sectional in methodology. More qualitative and longitudinal designs and greater religious diversity of seminary contexts are needed to better understand the broader range of student formation-related experiences and needs. The present study reports on findings from a qualitative longitudinal study of first-year student perspectives on spiritual formation at a progressive Mainline Protestant seminary in the United States (US) and offers implications for future research and practice in this area. In this context, “progressive” refers to the pluralistic and relatively moderate-to-left leaning theological and social orientation of the seminary. Additionally, students at progressive seminaries tend to be comparatively more diverse in various demographic markers (e.g., gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation) than more conservative seminaries, as is the case at the seminary in this study.

1.1. Background and Emerging Research

Discourse on “spiritual formation” became popular in Roman Catholic circles at the beginning of the twentieth century (Lynch 2024), and Protestants began adopting the terminology in the 1960s (Houston 2011; Setran and Wilhoit 2020) with increased attention to formation in seminary programs in the 1990s (Aleshire 2018). In 2020, the 2020 ATS Standards on Accreditation began requiring their affiliated institutions to “give attention to the intellectual, human, spiritual, and vocational dimensions of student learning and formation” (Association of Theological Schools 2020, p. 3). The standards also enabled each institution to determine its own definition and measures for what learning and formation mean according to “the school’s mission and religious identity” (p. 3). Numerous publications exist on the integration of theological education and spiritual formation (e.g., Gin et al. 2025; Kimber 2025; de Kock 2024; Lu 2021; Van der Knijff 2021; Wang et al. 2023), though most are from predominately from Christian perspectives and propose conceptual approaches or principles related to what spiritual formation is or practical ideas on how it should occur. One exception is Wang and colleagues’ (Wang et al. 2023) study that offered examples from multiple evangelical seminaries, highlighting the important role of diverse theological contexts and traditions on differing seminary approaches to student formation.

The existing seminarian formation empirical research has focused on numerous areas such as student perceived strengths and vulnerabilities (e.g., Hydinger et al. 2025), spiritual practices (e.g., Lowe et al. 2022; Wong 2024), and mental health (e.g., She et al. 2023). Quantitative longitudinal studies related to several of these areas have identified differing patterns of change among seminary students along with certain predictors of risk and protective effects. The context of graduate theological education can involve multiple forms of stress as well the critical study of religious texts and traditions may challenge students intending to become representative leaders of religious traditions. In fact, there is some longitudinal evidence seminary students show dialectical patterns of both the internalization and questioning of faith commitments as part of seminary formation processes (e.g., Manglos-Weber et al. 2024). However, there is a need for more qualitative research on student perspectives related to various aspects of formation in particular school contexts and periods of seminary education.

1.2. Spiritual Formation Assessment and Evaluation

The Association of Theological Schools (2020) standards also state accredited schools’ methods should evaluate student formation outcomes through “systematically and regularly gather[ing] evidence related to each outcome (with a mixture of direct and indirect measures and quantitative and qualitative data)” (p. 2). Assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes make sense from an educational perspective, particularly for mission-driven schools that seek to foster healthy student formation. Yet, assessing and evaluating approaches to student spiritual formation is complex. For example, Herdt (2023) noted that assessment itself can function as an intervention or instrument of formation and necessitates reflection on the benefits that might come through that assessment process. Moreover, there can be dangers in using specific assessment tools without adequate understanding of the formation dynamics in a particular school context, as the reliability and validity of a specific assessment tool’s ability to accurately probe formation experiences in different contexts should not be assumed. A survey of formation assessment approaches among ATS schools concluded most schools focused on “a particular aspect of formation, but very few integrate personal, spiritual, theological, and vocational in ways that are necessary for theological education” (Deasy 2018, p. 3). Mainline Protestant schools, that typically have religiously diverse student bodies, also reported being the least resourced for spiritual formation assessment (in comparison to Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox schools). The present study sought to address these considerations with an inductive approach to assessing student formation perspectives prior to selecting more formal assessment and evaluation processes.

In their review of seminary formation research, Porter et al. (2019) put forward a Christian meta-theory of spiritual change while highlighting the need to bring theology into deeper conversation with empirical research on student formation (on this latter point, also see Herdt 2023; Reisz 2003; Van der Knijff 2021). They advance several theological assumptions about formation, including the ideas that there are likely multiple obstacles to formation and a variety of practices that facilitate positive change. Additionally, Porter et al. (2019) noted that struggle is often considered a necessary contributing element to positive change, but not all barriers to formation are productive. For example, experiences of social-economic struggle and/or systemic oppression can hinder formation, and theological institutions must demonstrate sensitivity to these effects.

A subsequent article led by Porter et al. (2021) engaged the role of theological diversity in understandings and psychometric assessments of spiritual formation with contributions from an interdisciplinary set of scholars representing five distinct Christian traditions (African American, Anglican, Benedictine, Pentecostal, Reformed). This highlighted the importance of traditions in shaping understanding and assessments of spiritual formation while also pointing to the need for interdisciplinary research engaging an even wider diversity of religious traditions and contexts.

1.3. Student Formation in Specific School Contexts

The need for each theological education institution to determine its own goals and measures of spiritual formation assessment has yielded several published articles related to the processes developed at single schools. For example, Hardy and Davis (2018) identified five methods their Nazarene seminary used to implement spiritual formation: academic courses and programs, faculty relationships, chapel, devotional guides (created primarily for online and asynchronous students), and extracurricular events. Hoeft (2020) wrote from a United Methodist context and explained that entering the process of setting goals and analysis for spiritual formation benefitted faculty, causing them to engage self-reflexively about their own biases and “culturally bound assumptions about what is healthy, faithful, or spiritually mature” (p. 76). This resulted in the school emphasizing the measurement of observable behaviors related to spiritual formation.

Recent qualitative studies have also explored the formative experiences of seminary students. Stein et al. (2024) conducted a qualitative study at a pluralistic Jewish seminary in the U.S. by surveying students’ experiences of spiritual formation through on-campus seminary activities, off-campus seminary activities, and non-seminary sponsored sources. Beyond traditional academic curriculum and the seminary’s t’filah (prayer) program, students reported spiritual direction, clinical pastoral education (CPE), weekly formation groups, fieldwork, local community engagement (both spiritual and secular), and psychotherapy as influential sources of formation. Another qualitative study of formation experiences of seminary students from schools across a variety of Christian traditions emphasized the uniqueness of traditions’ and schools’ contexts in deconstructive processes of formative change (Manglos-Weber et al. 2024). The authors found that spiritual deconstruction, or the process of responding “to pressures for conformity by establishing competitive” (Manglos-Weber et al. 2024, p. 4) or alternate spiritual practices or beliefs, was most common among students at Evangelical and Mainline Protestant seminaries. Instead of academic factors, students named life experience (e.g., witnessing sexual abuse scandals in their churches or coming from a minoritized background) as a common “problematizing source” of deconstruction (p. 7). The authors found four patterns correlated with deconstruction: (a) expanded spiritual practices beyond traditional activities (i.e., Bible study, prayer), (b) an increased emphasis on embodied practices especially among nature, (c) increased social activism, and (d) increased syncretism.

This study helped surface several spiritual formation dynamics that had not been previously identified in research in this area and supported advantages of qualitative methodologies. Calls for more qualitative assessment of spirituality and formation (e.g., Hindmarsh 2021) align with advocacy among practical theologians for interdisciplinary work with the social sciences to offer descriptions of contexts that are thick enough to be analyzed meaningfully (Browning 1991; Lareau 2021). Miller-McLemore (1993, 2018) used the metaphor of the “living web” (Miller-McLemore 2018, p. 311) to urge pastoral theologians to consider the larger community and systems that humans inhabit drawing on a variety of interdisciplinary methodologies. The present study offers a qualitative approach and seeks to understand the living web of formation for seminarians during their first year of study.

1.4. The Current Study

The current study uses thematic analyses of longitudinal qualitative survey data from seminarians at a Mainline Protestant seminary in the U.S. to explore the myriads of formation-influencing factors over three times points during the first year of study. This addressed the needs referenced above for further research on seminary student spiritual formation by using qualitative and longitudinal methodologies and in pluralistic, religiously diverse contexts. We used a collaborative practical theology approach (de Roest 2019) by working with seminary administrators, faculty, and staff at this school to identify key research questions that could be useful for spiritual formation programming and resource allocation. This approach creates a research-informed feedback loop between students and school leadership that has been used in recent research with seminary students (e.g., Captari et al. 2021; Hydinger et al. 2025; Stein et al. 2024). Leaders at this school were particularly interested in formation processes related to the first-year adjustment of students. For this study and considering these collaborative goals, we framed spiritual formation broadly to include spiritual, theological, psychological, emotional, relational, physical and other aspects pertaining to their growth and development in graduate school. This operationalization aligns with other empirical studies of seminary student formation (e.g., Hydinger et al. 2025; Stein et al. 2024). We used inductive analytical methods as opposed to testing specific theoretical frameworks to understand how students reported their own spiritual formation experiences and changes—whether positive, negative, mixed, or ambiguous—and what factors they identified as contributing to their perceived changes.

2. Methods

2.1. Study Participants

In Time 1 (T1), 39 of the 47 first-year students (83.0%) consented to research participation. For this study, we analyzed responses from participants that completed at least one qualitative question, meaning n₁ = 35, n₂ = 27, and n₃ = 24. Demographics were taken at T1 and are displayed for each survey in

Table 1. Demographics of Study Participants by Timepoint (n₁ = 39, n₂ = 30, n₃ = 27).

	T1		T2		T3
	n	%	n	%	n	%
Gender
Female	21	53.8%	17	56.7%	16	59.3%
Male	15	38.5%	12	40.0%	11	40.7%
Genderqueer or Transgender, Nonbinary	3	7.7%	1	3.3%	0	0.0%
Sexual Orientation
Heterosexual	23	59.0%	17	56.7%	17	63.0%
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Questioning	10	25.6%	7	23.3%	4	14.8%
Asexual	2	5.1%	2	6.7%	2	7.4%
Prefer not to say	4	10.3%	4	13.3%	4	14.8%
Race
American Indian or Alaska Native, White	1	2.6%	1	3.3%	0	0.0%
Asian	8	20.5%	7	23.3%	7	25.9%
Black or African American	7	17.9%	7	23.3%	7	25.9%
Hispanic/Latinx	3	7.7%	2	6.7%	2	7.4%
White	20	51.3%	13	43.3%	11	40.7%
Religion
Christian	31	79.5%	23	76.7%	21	77.8%
Christian + other tradition(s) or SBNR	4	10.3%	3	10.0%	3	11.1%
Jewish—Reform + Other (Unitarian Universalist)	1	2.6%	1	3.3%	1	3.7%
Agnostic, Spiritual but not religious (SBNR), or Pagan	3	7.7%	3	10.0%	2	7.4%
Being a spiritual or religious person is very important to me
Strongly disagree	5	12.8%	4	13.3%	4	14.8%
Slightly disagree	0	0.0%	0	0.0%	0	0.0%
Agree	14	35.9%	12	40.0%	11	40.7%
Slightly agree	3	7.7%	2	6.7%	2	7.4%
Strongly agree	17	43.6%	12	40.0%	10	37.0%
Age
22–29	27	69.2%	19	63.3%	16	59.3%
30–39	6	15.4%	6	20.0%	6	22.2%
40–49	3	7.7%	2	6.7%	2	7.4%
50–59	2	5.1%	2	6.7%	2	7.4%
60–69	0	0.0%	0	0.0%	0	0.0%
70+	1	2.6%	1	3.3%	1	3.7%
Marital Status
Married or partnered	16	41.0%	13	43.3%	12	44.4%
Single	23	59.0%	17	56.7%	15	55.6%
Living Arrangement
Living alone	10	25.6%	9	30.0%	8	29.6%
Living with children	1	2.6%	1	3.3%	1	3.7%
Living with roommates	17	43.6%	12	40.0%	10	37.0%
Living with spouse/significant other	11	28.2%	8	26.7%	8	29.6%
Employment Status
Not working or retired	11	28.2%	8	26.7%	8	29.6%
Working in a full-time job	3	7.7%	2	6.7%	0	0.0%
Working in a part-time job	21	53.8%	19	63.3%	18	66.7%
Working multiple jobs	4	10.3%	1	3.3%	1	3.7%

Note: R/S = religious/spiritual.

. At T1, most participants were White, Christian, single, heterosexual, female-identified, without any children, and strongly agreed with the sentiment, “being a spiritual or religious person is very important to me.” To glean insight into potential non-curricular influences on formation, we also asked participants about their living arrangements and employment status.

Of the participants who did not participate in all three rounds, we examined attrition by demographic category to look for possible trends in the demographics of students that didn’t complete all three surveys. Three categories had 100% attrition: genderqueer or transgender, nonbinary; American Indian or Alaska Native and White; and working a full-time job. Seventy-five percent of students working multiple jobs did not complete all three surveys as is true of 60% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning participants. Attrition for all other categories was under 50%.

2.2. Procedure

This study was approved by the host university’s institutional review board. Participants were first-year master’s-level students at a mainline Christian seminary in the northeastern U.S. All surveys were conducted in Qualtrics. Students completed the first survey, which was a required assignment for a first-year formation course that was distributed by the course instructor to all enrolled students (n = 47), in late September or early October of 2023. Students indicated in the first survey whether they consented to research participation. The second (January 2024) and third (April 2024) surveys were distributed by the first author to students who consented to research in Time 1. To protect student privacy and facilitate honest engagement with the survey questions, the course instructor was not told which students opted into the research. Consenting students were compensated with a $25 gift card for each survey they completed.

2.3. Instrument

With the intention to understand what factors seminary students identify as influential in their spiritual formation and its development over time, we asked quantitative and qualitative questions at each time point. This study only reports qualitative survey findings. At Times 1 and 2, we asked students three open-ended questions: (1) “Please describe your definition of the Sacred, the Divine, God, what is ultimate, or however you conceive of what is most important in life,” (2) “During the past three months, what spiritual changes (positive, negative, mixed) have you experienced and which factors (e.g., religious or secular experiences, personal or professional relationships, personal development) were most influential in contributing to these changes?” and (3) “Consider the practices and/or activities, especially, but not limited to, those within your experience in seminary that have been contributing to your spiritual formation this fall/spring. Please describe the practice(s) and your sense of why and how these practices/activities have been significant.” While we made room in the survey questions for students to use whatever word(s) they felt best described their conceptions of God, the divine, or whatever is sacred or ultimate, for consistency in this manuscript and because it was the most-used term by the participants, we use “God” as a conventional umbrella term. At Time 3, we only asked the second and third questions for efficiency and to help focus student responses on those areas.

2.4. Analysis

We used a codebook approach to thematic analysis (TA; Roberts et al. 2019) to analyze the data because its structured and pragmatic approach to theme development best fit the aims of this study. The analytic duo consisted of one social science researcher (first author) and one theology doctoral student (second author); both are also (a) ordained ministers of different Christian traditions, (b) trained in qualitative methods, and (c) have prior publications in this area of research. Both are seminary graduates who graduated within the past ten years. Their proximity to being seminarians provided additional understanding and depth in the analytical and interpretive process that could have otherwise been missed. However, neither author had a course geared specifically around spiritual formation in their own seminary experience. At each round of joint review, we checked each other on potential bias to ensure as best as possible we were drawing out themes from students’ actual words and not assumptions based on our own personal seminary experiences or prior research.

Analysis occurred across multiple steps, and each round of analysis further refined and clarified the themes in the data. We first independently reviewed each response at a fine-grain level and inductively categorized responses through repeated review and open coding (e.g., identifying formation factors students said occurred in class versus not in class). Next, we jointly met and reconciled our individually generated codes to discuss discrepancies. We then created a codebook that captured primary codes derived from the participants’ responses (e.g., some formation factors recurred across timepoints while others were primarily mentioned in the first timepoint). Lastly, we independently reviewed the responses a second time to deductively check them against this codebook, and then jointly met again for a third round of review to reach a final consensus, combine themes, or revise thematic titles as needed to best reflect the data. Throughout our analysis, our intention was to create a taxonomy of formation factors and experiences at each time point and then to develop themes that interpret them in light of the developmental arc of the first year of seminary.

3. Results

Three primary themes emerged from students’ responses: (a) students articulate specific and diverse conceptualizations of God, (b) factors influencing student formation shift over time and extend beyond classroom learning, and (c) formation experiences affect seminary students intellectually, emotionally, and relationally.

3.1. Theme 1: Students Articulate Specific and Diverse Conceptualizations of God

This theme was divided into two domains: descriptions of how students conceive of God, and what students understand to be of ultimate importance. Frequencies, percentages, and quotations from the data are listed in

Table 2. Theme 1: Students Articulate Specific and Diverse Conceptualizations of God (n₁ = 35, n₂ = 27).

Subdomain	Time Point	n	%	Example from Data
Domain 1: Descriptions of God
God’s actions	T1:	18	50%	I believe God … holds all things together and intervenes in the world.
	T2:	9	33%	God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the creator and sustainer of all things.
God’s attributes	T1:	26	74%
	T2:	19	70%
God’s transcendence	T1:	15	43%	I think God is an ultimate being, who made the heaven and earth and is in control of all things. There may be others, but I think something has to be in control of all of this.
	T2:	21	78%	He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.
Personal God & relationality	T1:	12	34%	I would like to portray the Divine as a Friend, a faithful friend who listens without interupting [sic] and finds his ways to answers [sic] my questions.
	T2:	12	44%	As a Christian, the most essential thing in my life is my relationship with God
God’s virtues or character traits	T1:	7	20%	He loves what He has created.
	T2:	7	26%	To me, God is good, and God’s kindness is great.
God’s purpose	T1:	4	11%	I believe that God can heal and perfect the world, but I also believe that God wants us to grow and learn, and therefore They sometimes let us struggle, or wait for us to learn how to look outside ourselves and help each other.
	T2:	2	7%	“The Divine is … constantly luring us towards love and justice and righteousness.”
Names for God	T1:	26	74%	The Ultimate is God.
	T2:	22	81%	God is a Supreme Being.
Doctrine/tradition	T1:	8	23%	I’m drawn to Hinduism … and yet I grew up Christian, so I see many Christian views of God as well.
	T2:	9	33%	I love God and my basis on Catholicism makes me love the institution that can provide me with this base [sic] on Love, Faith and Hope.
Domain 2: Student Understandings of Ultimate Importance
Personal purpose	T1:	7	20%	To be kind [sic] person for others regardless of my ability.
	T2:	7	26%	My truth is to accept others truth and dialogue how that notion of God is not God, far away from our words and notions. Based on love that trascends [sic] our knowledge and lies hidden in our hearts.
Collective purpose	T1:	6	17%	The personal ground of being in which we are inextricably connected with. Constantly calling us toward love, justice, grace, mercy, joy, and healing.
	T2:	7	26%	I believe that we as humans are meant to become more like God through active care for our fellow beings.
Spiritual seeking	T1:	2	6%	I’m currently in a state of wrestling with and rationalizing my conceptions of the divine. I cannot say with any certainty that there is or is not a God (in the sense of an immutable, creator being).
	T2:	1	4%	I don’t really know—I’m working on this. But God is not an old, white guy sitting on a heavenly cloud.

.

3.1.1. Descriptions of God

Students’ conceptualizations of God were diverse from the first timepoint and fell into five primary categories: (a) God’s attributes; (b) God’s actions; (c) God’s purpose; (d) names for God; and (e) a doctrine or tradition that informs their understanding. God’s attributes were further broken down into (a) ways God is transcendent; (b) dyadic relationships between God and the student; and (c) God’s virtues or character traits. Students’ use of exclusively masculine pronouns dropped noticeably between T1 and T2, and in T2, one student said they change the pronoun they use depending on the kind of support (maternal or paternal) they feel they need from God in the moment. Of the students who used a name to describe their understanding of God, most used the name “God.” The gap between “God” and any other way to name God was noticeably wide. It was especially notable that among a sample primarily identifying as Christian where being a spiritual or religious person was highly meaningful, few students used other common Christian terms such as “Jesus”, “the Trinity”, or “Holy Spirit”. Regardless, descriptions of God shifted minimally from T1 to T2.

While some students’ descriptions of God seemed to become more expansive over time, only three students’ responses seemed to reflect a substantive theological shift. Regarding the expansive nature of the descriptions, more students in T2 than in T1 used language to describe God as transcendent and ubiquitously revealed (e.g., “omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and benevolence, which transcends the material and human realm”) while more students in T1 than in T2 concretely described God’s actions (e.g., “God is the creator of everything.”) or equated God with “love”. While T2 responses carried more descriptive or verbose answers for some students, the theological undertones did not shift for most students. For example, one student wrote in T1, “I believe God is the personal trinitarian entity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who created all things, holds all things together, and intervenes in the world for the purpose of reconciling all things to himself,” then wrote in T2, “God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the creator and sustainer of all things.”

At both time points, a similar number of students described God in terms of relational dynamics (e.g., “a faithful friend”) or through the lens of a particular doctrine or tradition as evidenced by one student who answered, “I am a confessional Lutheran.” Other descriptions and understandings of God were minimal at both time points including God’s mysteriousness (e.g., “The unknown that we try to guess filling the gaps with imagination and creativity”), God as understood through relationship with humanity (e.g., “God exists in community.”), God as revealed within various forms (e.g., “I’m grateful to have a love of other cultures and insight from different religions to ‘see’ my God in many lights.”), God as expressed through certain character traits (e.g., “full of grace”), and God as having a certain purpose (e.g., “His purpose is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of His children.”). In short, while students seemed to individually stay consistent in their descriptions of God from T1 to T2, these results indicated a plurality of perspectives and understandings of God present in the student body before beginning coursework.

Most students used God or traditional Christian and/or trinitarian language to answer this question, but a few students’ responses stood out as particularly unique. For instance, one student in T2 wrote, “The Divine is a weaver who made the world as an artwork, and each person is a thread in His/Her tapestry.” Another student said, “Often God often appears as a divine black woman in purple robes, some days She is Lakshmi and other days He is an older white man.” Other students expressed uncertainty and ambiguity in their responses, such as one student reporting, “I’m currently in a state of wrestling with and rationalizing my conceptions of the divine. I cannot say with any certainty that there is or is not a God (in the sense of an immutable, creator being), but I do believe the most important thing in life is compassion.”

3.1.2. Student Conceptions of What Is Ultimately Important in Life

Some students elaborated on their conceptions of God to describe their understanding of what is most important in life. Their responses fell into three subdomains: (a) a sense of individual personal purpose (e.g., “I have a duty to honor the sacred inherent within each person, as well as in creation”); (b) a sense of collective or communal purpose (e.g., “As God’s people on this Earth it is our job to show this grace and love through our own actions with one another.”); or (c) a state of spiritual seeking and uncertainty (e.g., “I wrestle with what the Trinity means.”). Understandings of ultimate importance stayed consistent from T1 to T2 with seven students feeling a sense of personal purpose as the ultimate focus for their spiritual understanding, such as one who answered, “I seek to follow Jesus’ teachings.” A similar number of students at T1 and T2 described a sense of communal purpose as most important (e.g., “I believe that love and caring for others is what is most important in life.”). Few students in either survey expressed uncertainty about what is most important to them in life.

3.2. Theme 2: Factors Influencing Student Formation Shift over Time and Extend Beyond Classroom Learning

Students identified nine factors that influenced shifts in their formation which fell into three domains based on how consistently they were mentioned: (a) factors consistently influential across all three surveys, (b) factors with a consistently high prevalence for only two consecutive surveys, and (c) factors that were referenced only in the first survey. The frequencies, percentages, and quotes from the data for each domain are listed in

Table 3. Theme 2: Factors Influencing Student Formation Shift Over Time and Extend Beyond Classroom Learning (n₁ = 35, n₂ = 27, and n₃ = 24).

Subdomain	Time Point	n	%	Example from Data
Domain 1: Formation Factors Influential at a Consistent Level
Experiences (outside the seminary)	T1:	13	37%	I have experienced family [sic] member’s surgery.
	T2:	11	41%	Religious experience that I experienced happened in my daily lives. [sic]
	T3:	10	42%	I have been engaging in a great deal of deconstruction, not so much around my religious identity, but around political identity. This has been caused by the war/genocide in Gaza and engaging deeply in my academic study regarding Israel/Palestine and community organizing.
R/S practices (may or may not be connected to faith community)	T1:	13	37%	Regular prayer is beneficial for me…centering prayer, lectio Divina.
	T2:	11	41%	Outside of seminary, prayer and worship, and meditation on my life in God’s presence, have helped orient me and open me to new paths of spiritual formation.
	T3:	8	33%	My personal practice of worshipping in a tradition that is different from my Christian tradition.
School-sponsored community, activities, and events	T1:	9	26%	Attending all the events that I could in the first few weeks and then following up with those I genuinely connected with.
	T2:	10	37%	Joining the seminary choir during the fall.
	T3:	8	33%	Spiritual retreat by Spiritual life office … Community lunch.
Involvement in traditional religious communities	T1:	5	14%	I have a very active church life week to week.
	T2:	6	22%	Attending church with my son is something that we try to do every week.
	T3:	6	25%	Engaging in regular worship services and participating in a supportive faith community has also strengthened my spiritual growth.
Busyness	T1:	2	6%	I’ve felt a little disconnected from the divine, but I have a feeling that is more due to the fact that I haven’t had much time to actually attempt to connect.
	T2:	1	4%	Loss of time and energy to academic demands.
	T3:	2	8%	I think being unable to spend time with my church community this semester (due to school busy-ness [sic] …) has been pretty detrimental.
Domain 2: Formation Factors that Consistently Shifted in Influence
Intellectual/cognitive engagement	T1:	18	51%	I think that my education in comparative religious studies/ethics as well as anthropology have contributed to my current beliefs.
	T2:	15	56%	I have grown in terms of understanding the Bible, conflict transformation practices/theory, and religious ethics but my beliefs have remained the same.
	T3:	10	42%	Through engagement with Eastern Orthodox and Neoplatonist thought.
Relational influences (not inherently connected to the seminary)	T1:	10	29%	Discussing hard topics with others [sic] being around other people who provide me with new perspectives.
	T2:	15	56%	I live entirely alone here, apart from my spouse and family.
	T3:	13	54%	My interactions with a remarkable individual who has acted as both a mirror and a mentor. This person came into my life at a time when I was seeking deeper spiritual understanding … They embody qualities I aspire to--compassion, patience, and wisdom.
Domain 3: Time-1-Only Influential Formation Factors
Relocating and/or transitioning to seminary	T1:	8	23%	Moving was a challenge.
	T2:	1	4%	Having time to feel more anchored in a new place.
	T3:	2	8%	I moved here from across the country.
Sense of calling or self-awareness	T1:	5	14%	I think it’s important to know myself.
	T2:	0	0%
	T3:	1	4%	Being “set apart” by God.

.

3.2.1. Formation Factors Influential at a Consistent Level

Students mentioned five factors consistently across all three surveys: (a) events or activities independent of their seminary experience, (b) specific religious or spiritual (R/S) practices not necessarily done in community, (c) seminary-sponsored community, activities, and events, (d) traditional religious community involvement, and (e) busyness. A high number of students mentioned events or activities independent of seminary experiences that influenced their formation (e.g., “I recently received a second bone marrow transplant after chemo, and radiation for T-cell and B-cell lymphomas.”). A similar proportion of students felt specific R/S practices not necessarily done in community were influential (e.g., “Regular prayer is beneficial for me.”). There was a moderate number of students who commented on how seminary-sponsored community, activities, and events influenced their formation as evidenced by responses such as, “The relationships I’ve formed here in less than a month have been enlivening and inspiring.” Additionally, a handful of students consistently reported involvement in traditional religious community was meaningful for their formation (e.g., “I have a very active church life week to week.”). Lastly, busyness was mentioned at each time point but only by one or two students. These findings suggest that some factors might be perpetually relevant and less dependent on a student’s progression through seminary.

3.2.2. Formation Factors with High Prevalence in Two Surveys

Two factors were mentioned frequently in the first two surveys but noticeably less in the last survey: (a) intellectual or cognitive engagement and (b) the influence of interpersonal relationships not inherently linked to the seminary. Intellectual or cognitive engagement (e.g., “I have been reading more about human connection with nature and with others.”) was present in more than half of all responses in T1 and T2. However, by T3, there had been a drop in both the number of responses and proportion of students finding intellectual engagement as highly formative. This may reflect an expected formation factor from exposure to new scholarship that drops in influence once said “newness” wears off.

There seemed to be a different pattern for the influence of interpersonal relationships not explicitly linked to the seminary (e.g., “the changing relationship I have with my mother”). The percentage of students naming this factor almost doubled from T1 to T2 and stayed consistent from T2 to T3. Also, this relational factor had the highest increase in influence over time compared to any of the other eight factors, surpassing even intellectual engagement. Seeing a non-seminary formation influence increase so drastically then continue to be mentioned by a large proportion of participants reinforces the notion that formation does not only occur inside seminary-sponsored spaces.

3.2.3. Time-1-Only Influential Formation Factors

Two factors were most relevant for this sample of students early in the study: (a) relocation and (b) a sense of calling or identity. The effects of relocation (e.g., “It’s been trying to settle into a new culture and I am still trying to settle in.”) influenced student formation for almost one quarter of students in T1. However, relocation was never mentioned in subsequent surveys, perhaps signaling a less active need for geographic adjustment by later time points. Additionally, while several students in T1 voiced a sense of calling or self-awareness as influential for their formation, no students in T2 and only one student in T3 mentioned the sense of calling or identity as relevant for their formation. This may imply that the sense of calling was prominent as a motivating influence to begin seminary but was a less salient influence once matriculated.

3.3. Theme 3: Formation Experiences Affect Seminary Students Intellectually, Emotionally, and Relationally

In addition to what influenced formation processes, students described how they had changed or were changing, including how they appraised these changes. These change effects fell into three domains: (a) internal intellectual shifts; (b) internal changes not linked to intellectual engagement; and (c) relational effects with others or God. The frequencies, percentages, and quotes from the data for each domain are listed in

Table 4. Theme 3: Formation Experiences Affect Seminary Students Intellectually, Emotionally, and Relationally (n₁ = 35, n₂ = 27, and n₃ = 24).

Theme	Time Point	n	%	Example from Data
Domain 1: Internal—Intellectual
Increased knowledge or theological shifts	T1:	15	43%	I have let go of my mental models of God and expectations.
	T2:	13	48%	I have begun to think of God more as a mother, because while I see the fatherly aspect of a progenitor who is unseen to particularly fit the role of father, a woman is equally able to be an author as a man.
	T3:	7	29%	The connection I build with nature shapes my spiritual sensibility.
Domain 2: Internal—Non-intellectual
Affective or emotional shifts	T1:	15	43%	So being able to attend a church service where I am affirmed and welcomed has been very healing.
	T2:	9	33%	By immersing myself in the reading of the Bible, practicing yoga, and participating in worship, I was able to experience a profound sense of peace within my mind.
	T3:	10	42%	At the moment, I’m more confused than when I entered seminary. However, I know this helps me shift to where I need to be.
Changes in R/S practices	T1:	7	20%	I have not prayed much these past three months, although I have a very active church life week to week. I believe being very busy with school, work, and church has diminished my eagerness to pray.
	T2:	8	30%	With an interest in interfaith practices, I have been doing a lot of seeking this past semester.
	T3:	2	8%	(A conflict with a relative) challenges me spiritually because forgiveness is something I value.
Feelings and behaviors connected to engaging the world	T1:	1	3%	As an academic, often my spiritual growth has been a deeply personal and intellectual endeavor. I really enjoyed expanding that into a social and service-oriented role.
	T2:	9	33%	Talking to others makes me feel connected with my surroundings and helps me to be more sensitive.
	T3:	9	38%	Outside of seminary the organizing and direct actions I have been engaging with have been the most spiritually significant, as they are connecting me to something larger than myself in a fight for peace and liberation.
Domain 3: Relational
Relationships with others	T1:	13	37%	I’ve been so deeply rooted in my previous community for almost 8 years and moving 3000 miles away has been a great test of my faith and my ability to co-create new community.
	T2:	7	26%	Falling in love has been helpful, reinforcing of human dignity and possibility of intimacy, connection, meaning, understanding, shared work and mission, awe and joy.
	T3:	10	42%	I have experienced the need to be ecumenically driven in my relationship to those of other religious traditions.
Relationship with God	T1:	10	29%	But for the past 2–3 months … engaged in such diverse community, I begin to see God from a broader perspective. God is still personal to me, but I begin to see Him in a different spectrum from the people I meet everyday, the books I read, and the classes I take.
	T2:	10	37%	Seminary and academia and felt emphatically not spiritual. It has depleted my connection to spirituality rather than strengthened it.
	T3:	8	33%	Moreover, it has helped me to develop a greater sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and a deeper awareness of God’s presence in every aspect of my life.

.

Most students in T1 and T2 described the effects of their formative experiences positively (e.g., “My relationship with God has been Awesome [sic].”), especially in reference to internal affective and emotional shifts (T1), relationships with God (T2), and newly acquired knowledge or theological shifts (T2). However, most responses in T3, seemed to depict mixed, ambivalent, or ambiguous appraisals of the ways they were changing, such as one student who said, “I feel so burned out … On the other hand, I’ve been able to build stronger ties with my community.” Exclusively negatively valanced responses were neither absent nor common in any survey (e.g., “I think being unable to spend time with my church community this semester … has been pretty detrimental.”). The frequencies, percentages, and quotes from the data for each domain are listed in Table 4.

3.3.1. Internal Intellectual Shifts

Not surprisingly, seminary students often reported an increase in knowledge or shifts in their theological beliefs. Especially in T1 and T2, over 40% of the students articulated that their perspectives of God had expanded or they had become more interested in other religious traditions like the student who shared, “I have been driven more towards Hinduism.” By T3, over one quarter of students still mentioned being intellectually influenced, but they also began naming other ways formation experiences influenced them.

In T1, six responses for this domain were positive in tone, and six were delivered in a way that did not clearly convey how the students interpreted the changes. For example, one student stated, “I am SO happy to finally be here studying! I feel like the academic environment allows me to go deeper in examining and deepening my faith,” while another wrote, “I have been experiencing some changes in my [sic] concerning formal religion and the notions of God,” acknowledging changes but not offering insights into their feelings about these changes. At T2, the same number of students as in T1 (and thus a higher proportion of respondents) felt the intellectual shifts had positive influences. While only four students had positive feelings about their intellectual shifts at T3, the majority of these responses were positive in tone and none of the seven T3 responses for this formation effect were exclusively negative.

3.3.2. Internal Non-Intellectual Shifts

Students also named three kinds of internal changes distinct from intellectual knowledge gained or other cognitive engagement: (a) affective or emotional shifts, (b) changes in R/S practices, and (c) feelings and behaviors connected to engaging with the larger world. For example, in T1, 43% of students reflected on how formation experiences stirred up internal affective or emotional shifts as evidenced by one student that shared, “Leaving the Methodist [Church] is part of that step toward an openness of heart.”

In the first survey, about half of the responses about internal, non-intellectual changes were positive. However, the gap between positive and other tones began closing at T2 and responses were substantially more mixed at T3 (e.g., “Mixed feelings about being ‘set apart’ by God and being emotionally isolated.”). This may reflect how, for some students, new knowledge can be initially invigorating but can also destabilizing over time.

Feelings and behaviors related to engagement with the larger world (e.g., “increased my opportunities to connect, serve”) were only mentioned by one student in T1, but were salient to nine students in both T2 and T3. Not only did many more students in later surveys describe this new motivation for social action, but almost half of the responses for this effect carried a positive tone.

Students also discussed how formation influences prompted changes in their R/S practices. T2 had the greatest number of comments about changes to R/S practices (e.g., “I have begun to read a daily meditation and to more formally pray for people.”), which may be connected to the fact that T2 was collected shortly after most students had completed a required first-year course on various faith practices. While across all surveys changes to R/S practices primarily reflect positive formation effects, several students in T1 and T2 experienced a reduction in or challenges to R/S practices while in seminary. This variability is evidenced by a student in T1 that shared, “I am more disciplined with certain spiritual practices,” and another from T3 that said, “My prayer life has improved,” yet a different student in T2 lamented, “Time/energy demands of school have robbed me of most of my regular spiritual practices.”

3.3.3. Relational Shifts

Students described the effects their experiences were having on both their relationships with others and their relationships with God. In T1, just over one-third of students commented on how formative experiences influenced interpersonal relationships, especially for those who had to relocate for this graduate program. Despite this relocation tension, no responses for this subdomain were exclusively negative in tone. In fact, over half of the responses pertaining to students’ interpersonal relationships were clearly positive. By T3, almost half of students described how formation influences affected their relationships with others (e.g., “Out of this came some of the closest friendships I’ve had in a long while, predicated on a mutual love of Christ’s gospel.”). This relational effect had the same number of mentions as internal affective or emotional shifts, making it tied for the most mentioned effect in T3 and implying a leveling of internal and relational effects by April of the first year. The tone in T3 remained positive when referring to how interpersonal relationships had been affected, even as the tone of the overall data became more mixed. While effects on interpersonal relationships were mentioned by more students in T1, it was not the first- or second-most-mentioned effect in that survey, implying factors were affecting the students internally much more than relationally in T1.

The frequency of responses pertaining to how formation experiences affected the students’ relationships to God (e.g., “I have been able to feel God’s presence more profoundly.”) was consistent for about one-third of participants at each survey. While responses about formation effects on R/S practices varied in tone across all surveys, only two responses about students’ relationships to God were exclusively negative. In T1, one student shared, “I’ve felt a little disconnected from the divine, but I have a feeling that is more due to the fact that I haven’t had much time to actually attempt to connect,” and in T2, another wrote “Seminary and academia … has depleted my connection to spirituality rather than strengthened it.” Rather, comments on the students’ relationships to God were consistently positive throughout the study such as one student that said, “My personal connection with the Divine is getting stronger,” and another that had developed “a deeper awareness of God’s presence in every aspect of my life.” This implies that even though ritual practices may have declined for some students, most did not feel that this negatively influenced their connection with God.

4. Discussion

This study used qualitative longitudinal methodology to elucidate the formation experiences of seminary students at a progressive, predominantly Christian school of theology in the U.S. across an academic year. Utilizing thematic analysis (Roberts et al. 2019), we identified three themes emerging from the data: (a) students articulate specific and diverse conceptualizations of God, (b) factors influencing student formation shift over time and extend beyond classroom learning, and (c) formation experiences affect seminary students intellectually, emotionally, and relationally. Our findings contribute empirical literature on the formation of future religious leaders by gathering self-reported data from seminary students and longitudinally tracking changes in what contributes to their formation, inside and outside of the seminary itself, as well as what effects those formative influences yielded. These results highlight students’ own perspectives on influential formation dynamics to contribute to programmatic efforts of seminary leadership. This study also attends to the need for qualitative research on seminary student formation to complement the larger body of quantitative findings. Hearing from students directly identifies areas of overlap with intended formative programs and curriculum as well as overlooked areas of influence on seminary student formation. Findings from the present study also (a) contribute data on student theological perspectives to previously voiced concerns about some neglect of theology in literature on seminary student formation (e.g., Herdt 2023; Reisz 2003; Van der Knijff 2021) and (b) depict a multidimensional process of spiritual formation involving a diverse array of cognitive, emotional, relational, and systemic influences on student formation experiences.

4.1. Multivalent Understandings of God

Students understood the sacred in a multitude of ways, including by different names, through specific actions, through relational frameworks, through certain virtues or characteristics, and as mysterious or transcendent. The unique images of God reported by some students (e.g., “weaver,” “black woman in purple robes”) highlighted the benefits of qualitative or idiographic data and offers insight for dialogue with students about the relevance of those images in personal formation journeys. Additionally, qualitative methods allow nuanced perspectives such as these examples to surface in the data in ways less likely to be captured in quantitative approaches. Additionally, students expressed understandings of God’s purpose and intent for humanity as part of how they conceptualized God. That students’ God conceptualizations were diverse and varied beginning even at T1, suggesting pre-matriculation diversity, likely reflects the pluralistic student body of this progressive school of theology. The expansions on descriptions of God in T2 were more interstitial and abstract articulations of what students felt God is and does, possibly as a result from new knowledge gained or deconstruction experiences that led to more syncretistic understandings of God (Manglos-Weber et al. 2024). However, with only three exceptions, there was not a substantive shift articulated from T1 to T2. For many students, their conceptualization of God at T1 was included in more robust T2 responses or essentially consistent with their T2 response. Thus, for the participating students, the first few months of seminary may be expanding their horizons but not destabilizing core beliefs. However, it is worth acknowledging our sample isn’t generalizable and may not encompass all students’ perspectives. Students who felt destabilized may have not participated or may have only completed quantitative measures not discussed in this study. It is not possible to say if this is similar or not to the formation studies conducted or formation assessments developed at seminaries where most students were from the same theological tradition. Those publications (e.g., Hardy and Davis 2018; Stein et al. 2024; Wang et al. 2023) acknowledged that learning about God was an expected seminary experience and component of the student’s formation process, but findings from those projects did not report on how, if at all, that knowledge of God shifted from pre-to-post-matriculation. That this sample of seminary students primarily held the same core understanding of God while also broadening their definitions is possibly a reflection of secure relational attachment to God as understood through the RSM (Sandage et al. 2020). However, we only followed students during their first year and future studies of seminary student formation should track how and to what degree student conceptualizations of God shift from entering seminary to later stages of the seminary experience.

We are aware of multiple seminaries where some faculty have lamented perceptions of limited attention to theology within literature on spiritual formation, and these findings lend support to the value of integrating student reflection on their working theologies as part of broader reflection on their formation. The diverse understandings of God and the sacred in this seminary can add complexity to spiritual formation programming and the need for inclusivity. We also see rich potential for students to engage in spiritual and religious diversity if scaffolded through relational and systemic supports.

4.2. Formation Influences Come from Inside and Outside the Seminary

It is expected that seminary courses, events, extracurriculars, and classmate and faculty relationships would appear in students’ lists of formation influences. These are components of the seminary experience constructed by seminary leadership with the intent to shape and grow future religious leaders. These factors appear influential for this study’s participants as coursework and school sponsored events or extracurriculars were the most mentioned formation influences in T1 and T3. Yet, other oft-mentioned formation influences originated from outside of the seminary’s control, including the challenges of relocating or adjusting to the program, personal life experiences, and relationships with people outside of the seminary. For these students, formation occurred not only through practices, behaviors, or acquired knowledge, but also through relational and systemic experiences. This finding aligns both with other studies documenting how students navigate formation and deconstruction processes (Manglos-Weber et al. 2024; Stein et al. 2024). The increased social activism and engagement as well as the shift to more embodied practices especially aligned with deconstruction experiences documented in other studies (Manglos-Weber et al. 2024). Data showing that students felt formed by experiences inside and outside of the seminary’s control also exemplifies the value of qualitative research (Hindmarsh 2021). Seminary faculty and administrators sometimes debate the extent to which the seminary bears responsibility for student formation in comparison to wider community or congregational influences. Of course, the present data cannot resolve those debates about responsibility but suggests a “both/and” perspective on formation influences from the seminary and wider systemic factors, at least within this seminary context. Future mixed methods studies could quantitatively clarify the degree to which non-curricular and non-seminary-controlled factors influence seminary student formation.

Factors such as living arrangements and employment status gathered at T1 added insight into the complexity of balancing school, work, and personal schedules as well as financial challenges of living within a reasonable distance of an urban campus versus longer commutes from more affordable housing. For students that found it necessary to work or share living spaces with non-related roommates, formation sometimes felt undermined. This is supported by a recent study by Hydinger et al. (2025) whose participants said that struggling to meet certain basic needs (i.e., sleep, sufficient finances for basic expenses) can undermine a student’s capacity to experience any degree of positive formation, suggesting that formation may be more engageable once more basic needs were met and secured. Such a takeaway has implications not just for who is able to access seminary programs but who can be fully engaged and complete formation-related goals within these programs. Students who split their attention, time, energy, and resources between school and one or more time-consuming obligations may find the traditional pace of full-time, in-person seminary unsustainable. This fits with She et al. (2023) findings on the connection between the negative impact of financial stress on mental health, relational outcomes, and spiritual health among seminary students. Future studies of hybrid and remote seminary programs alongside traditional on-campus programs would help be beneficial for understanding the extent that program delivery options influence seminary student formation experiences.

The most significant attrition in participants from T1 to T3 occurred among students working either multiple or full-time jobs. Thus, although busyness was not highly reported as an inhibitor to their positive spiritual formation and growth, it may have played a larger role among the students who opted out of T2 and T3 surveys. That said, the six students working full-time or working multiple jobs also were the six students in identifying as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and or questioning. While busyness from juggling school and work may be a logical explanation, we cannot dismiss that there may have been reasons connected to their sexual orientation for not persisting in the study. Minority stress theory (Meyer 2003) emphasizes how people with marginalized identities are at risk for exacerbated distress amid change because of the need to navigate discrimination and internalized stigma, which could be relevant for adjusting to new contexts such as seminary, perhaps especially in how students relate to or understand God. Future quantitative studies would be able to parse out the mediating and moderating effects of demographics.

4.3. The Sources of Formation Increase in Number over Time

In T1, the kinds of formation tended to stem from intellectual endeavors, which aligned with expected formation experiences mentioned in some of the wider literature (Hardy and Davis 2018; Hoeft 2020; Stein et al. 2024). As T1 occurred early in the first semester, this is not unexpected; students were exposed often for the first time to new ways of thinking, had not had much time to get to know peers, and, for many, were removed from pre-existing relationships due to relocation. Data from each subsequent survey revealed a leveling of effects where intellectual influences were still present, but interpersonal and organizational influences also seemed to become more salient. Multiple students in T2 and T3 mentioned ways they began to understand themselves as interconnected to other systems and communities, and this increased communal orientation seemed to temper individual senses of responsibility while motivating some students toward grassroots mobilization around specific causes. This is especially true and is consistent with findings from Stein et al. (2024) study of Jewish seminary students that in later surveys discussed relating to others and embracing a sense of communal purpose at the interconnectedness of all humanity, if not all of creation.

Not all formation sources yielded positive results, though. A couple of students shared that their degree program was having no influence on their faith or theology but instead was reinforcing stances held prior to seminary. Also, some students talked about decreased engagement over time (e.g., less engagement with faculty mentors, no change in prayer life). It is possible these kinds of self-reported decreases fit with the point raised by Porter et al. (2019) that, in longitudinal studies on formation, increased self-awareness may yield a more accurate (i.e., lower) self-appraisal of engagement. Responses in T1 may have been higher, in part, due to expectations of what would occur during seminary, pre-seminary engagement levels, or social desirability in self-assessment (especially regarding R/S practices and engagement). As the first year of seminary continued, that self-assessment may have become more accurate or it may have reflected unmet expectations. This later-developed self-awareness may look like a decline in engagement or importance when it is more simply a reflection of a more honest and accurate self-report.

Students’ R/S engagement also shifted from primarily individual practices of prayer, meditation, or journaling in T1 to primarily relational practices of communal worship, group Bible studies, and affinity group involvement by T2. This may be explainable by the adjustments to beginning a new graduate program, especially for students who had to relocate. At T1, students may not yet have had time to find or succeed in finding a spiritual community (if desired) nor be familiar enough with the geographic area to feel connected to any community outside of the seminary. If that was the case, it makes sense that in the first couple of months of the program, students felt primarily on their own for their spiritual engagement, especially if feeling grief or loss from being distant from their familiar social settings (e.g., “I’ve been so deeply rooted in my previous community for almost 8 years and moving 3000 miles away has been a great test of my faith and my ability to co-create new community.”). This maps onto existing literature that describes that to successfully engage in formation, students need to effectively acculturate into the rhythms of their school and feel engrained in a safe community (Porter et al. 2019). Part of how well students adjust involves looking at how the system is equipped to attend to students’ various needs.

4.4. The Influence of Formation Experiences Is Multifaceted

The effects of the first year of seminary have effects for students beyond the acquisition of new knowledge or skills. Students are also changed at personal and relational levels. For example, the evolution from T1 to T2 in how students described God and their relationship with God expanded from a primarily dyadic personal God to a larger more ubiquitously revealed God that can even be engaged in communal experiences or in nature, even as the theological core for most students stayed the same. This expanded perspective may reflect the influence of being exposed to diverse perspectives (which would imply a diversity of understandings of God and seems inevitable in a pluralistic student body). A seminary able to make space for conversation and engagement among students with these multiple, sometimes competing, viewpoints may contribute to a more expansive description of God from a student’s secure base for spiritual exploration (Sandage et al. 2020).

Additionally, many students named progress in discernment about future jobs and theological beliefs, as well as new self-awareness of strengths, deeper appreciation for other perspectives, or increased confidence. The ripple effects of seminary on the personal and relational is likely not surprising as most participants in the demographic questions of T1 strongly agreed with the sentiment, “being a spiritual or religious person is very important to me.” It is possible that some students may expect, welcome, or seek personal R/S formation alongside their intellectual knowledge pursuits. At the same time, these students may struggle to feel there is space for personal formation to occur if courses feel detached from personal application. This matches the experiences of students in Hydinger et al. (2025) study where participants lamented feeling too tired and exhausted from schoolwork to engage and maintain spiritual lives and practices that had been previously meaningful to them. Future studies could examine if there is any interaction between formation influences, especially those prompting R/S changes, and the degree of importance students feel being religious is to them.

The multifaceted effects of formation experiences may also be a factor of the sample’s diversity, which makes it distinct from many other studies in the literature where samples represented one religious tradition or even a single denomination (e.g., Hoeft 2020). Students at seminaries primarily funded and staffed by one faith tradition may be more likely to be of that same tradition. This could mean the seminary as an institution has an easier time formulating coherent formation programming consistent with that tradition. However, some of the formation experiences, especially those outside of the classroom, may encourage stronger dwelling in pre-seminary beliefs as opposed to inviting spiritual seeking (Sandage et al. 2020). That is not to claim that deconstruction does not happen in religious training settings primarily of one tradition as evidenced by previously referenced research (e.g., Hardy and Davis 2018; Hoeft 2020). Rather, when seminaries strive to be pluralistic and diverse in their student body, faculty, and course offerings, there is a broader range of student expectations and interests as well as outcomes from those experiences. The formation goals of the school tend to focus less on reinforcing a particular theology or set of spiritual practices and remain more open to or encourage spiritual seeking (Sandage et al. 2020). The questions, expectations, and experiences of each student will vary, and matching formation goals of a seminary staffed by a diverse faculty with the expectations and backgrounds of a diverse student body is a challenge unique to seminaries that do not teach to one specific tradition. It would be valuable for future research to identify influential factors for students who struggle with formation in such pluralistic seminaries in contrast with those who thrive.

4.5. Limitations

Our study has two primary limitations. First, due to the practical theological nature of this project, conducted within a single seminary in collaboration with the school’s faculty and administration, and the qualitative nature of data collection, we cannot make generalizable assertions beyond this sample. While the longitudinal and qualitative nature offered detailed tracking of our small sample size over time, and a high rate of eligible students (51%) completed all three surveys, our findings are limited to this cohort in their first year of study at this specific school. Future studies could replicate these self-report questions in seminaries of various religious traditions, follow up with students in later stages of the degree program, and collect quantitative data to generate a fuller, more representative set of findings. Second, while the student body of this seminary is not entirely Christian nor entirely White, the students who opted to participate in research were primarily White and Christian. Future studies should utilize other sampling techniques (i.e., stratified or purposive sampling) to better reach saturation of students with minoritized identities.

5. Conclusions

This study explored the question, “How are seminary students’ formation experiences shaped while in seminary?” Seminary students from one northeastern U.S. historically Protestant Christian seminary completed qualitative surveys over three time points during their first year of study. The qualitative questions asked about their conceptualizations of God, what influenced their formation, and what effects resulted from their formative experiences. Findings revealed formation factors internal and external to the seminary. These formation factors resulted in multifaceted formation effects on the students which also likely reflect the multifaceted formation goals of a pluralistic seminary. Inviting student self-reports allowed us to focus on what actually influences student formation and how those influential experiences translate into beliefs and practices. This is distinct from studies that have evaluated programs or curricula designed and implemented by the seminary that might miss non-curricular but equally as important formation influences. While only representative of the cohort at the school participating in this study, our findings can encourage seminary faculty and administrators to consider the non-curricular formation influences their students may face (i.e., relocation, national or global events, financial constraints, family obligations). With this contextual information in mind, curriculum development could be adapted or reformulated to better meet the holistic formation needs and lived experiences of seminarians. This can include not only the intellectual and skills-based formation components and school-sponsored resources, but also attention to ways those systemic and social dynamics can bolster or undermine the spiritual formation within the seminary experience. The findings from this study also invite questions about ways particular theological themes and personalized images of God can be embedded within spiritual formation processes for students This set of findings led to conversations about all these issues among administrators, faculty, and staff at this particular school.