For us to get our financial house in order before seminary probably would mean I would never go to seminary.

It’s pretty humbling to go from being self-sufficient and making a decent wage to needing to go on some kind of state aid and seek help from family members.

I came to seminary facing a fair amount of personal debt, probably upwards of $40,000. But then we added about $18,000 a year in student loan debt, so I expect when we walk out of here, we’ll be looking at close to $100,000 of total indebtedness.

The Episcopal Church is the only major denomination that doesn’t directly fund its seminarians as the Roman Catholics, Lutherans or Presbyterians. Only a couple of Episcopal seminaries are financially well off enough to offer a lot of aid. Episcopal seminaries and the Episcopal Church itself does not do an adequate job of funding people for the ministry, so that’s something that needs to be addressed at the national church level.

I originally entered Roman Catholic seminary but felt the call to marriage and family as well. (The Scheids have four children.) I was received in the Episcopal Church in the spring of 2000 and entered the ordination process about a year and a half later.