DEACON - CANDIDATE INFORMATION PACKET - Ryan Fields

EDUCATION

 Bachelors , Religion (Minors: History, Philosophy) University of Florida - 2006  MDiv – (Pastor/Teacher & Pastoral Care) Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) – 2011  THM – (Systematic Theology) Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) – 2011  PhD – (Systematic Theology) Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) – (Pending graduation 2021)

CREDENTIALS

 Licensed by the EFCA on February 14, 2012  Ordained by the EFCA (Creekside Community Church, Gainsville, FL) as a representative EFCA Church on April 12, 2015.

TESTIMONY AND CALL TO MINISTRY

Please describe your conversion and call to ministry. By God’s grace I was born into a Christian home with parents who prayed with me and a church which taught me the stories of the Bible from a very early age. However, much of this was a “cultural Christianity” which did not mean anything to me personally; I grew up not having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In middle school my lost state began to manifest in a lifestyle of rebellion and utter selfishness; it was clear that I was living for myself rather than God. But in ninth grade God intervened in a miraculous way, using the ministry of a new youth pastor to introduce me to Jesus and teach me what the Christian faith was really all about. Under his teaching and through my own reading of the New Testament God revealed himself to me and enabled me to understand and believe that I was a sinner in need of a savior, and that Christ had died for me so that I might be saved from sin and death; this was my conversion to Christ. My call to ministry is integrally related to my conversion, for almost as long as I have been a Christian, I have wanted to be a pastor. I have always loved the church, and ever since I began to work with my youth pastor in high school, I have found it very hard to imagine working anywhere else. God has since given me abundant opportunities to explore pastoral ministry (getting exposure to its many joys and struggles) and to be in pastoral ministry as an ordained minister with the EFCA. And perhaps most importantly, I have sensed a calling into pastoral ministry within the local church that has been confirmed both subjectively (within my own heart under the Spirit’s guidance) and objectively (through the confirmations and recommendations of others). It has not been a “moment of calling” but rather a gradual “confirmation of calling” as I have tried my hand at pastoral ministry and found that I enjoyed it and even thrived in it while others confirmed that I did indeed have the gifts and graces appropriate for a pastoral role. My formal theological education and pastoral preparation, including my MDiv, ThM, and PhD studies at TEDS, have all provided further confirmation that I have been both called to and gifted for serving the church as a pastor-theologian.

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