The Discerners Academy is a way of recruiting persons for ordained ministry and sustaining them through the process of Call and Candidacy in the United Methodist Church . Our driving passion is to identify persons who are pondering a call to ministry, and then to stay connected with them through college and their seminary education. We invite faculty from a United Methodist School of Theology to provide a glimpse into what it might be like to attend a seminary class. In addition, there is a staff from the Annual Conference consisting of Deacons, Elders, the Bishop of the Area, the Provost, two District Superintendents, Board of Ordained Ministry representatives, and persons currently in seminary. Throughout the weekend, the staff gives witness to their own call to ministry; identify which seminary they attended, and what they received there. It has become a powerful piece of “the culture of call” we create for each retreat. In addition, we invite the seminaries to send persons from their Office of Admissions.

The golden thread throughout the Discerners Retreat is the small peer groups or covenant groups that meet four times throughout the weekend. Discerners are placed in peer groups by their place in the life cycle of age and experience. We create a place of sharing and listening with simple rituals to open and close the groups.