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SUMMARY the key guestions related to the vocation of a pastor along nine topics. I regard it as important that the interviews with individual pastors should not serve as justifications or illustrations of pre-conceived schemes but that the topics „enter into a discussion” with scientific models. In the study the chapters of analysis follow the logic of chronology; thus the first half of the analysis mirrors the human life-cycle (family of origin, youth and university years). There are two subchapters that focus on important events that are closely linked to key aspects ofthe life ofthe church (conversion) and to the calling (vocation) for pastoral ministry. The analysis ofthe years in pastoral ministry do not follow a chronological order; these are grouped around questions that get special emphasis in the course of the interviews (work-personal life, spiritual life, authority, and attitude to material possessions). In the interviews questions related to the family of origin usually appear in connection with growing up and the transition to adulthood, not with becoming a pastor. When coming to important crossroads in life, our family of origin functions as the foundation which we define our identity when growing up, whether deciding for, against, or simply differently from the values passed on to us at home. Early childhood is an important factor (also) in the formation of our vocational identity. Ihe events of this phase of life may not destine the child to become a pastor, but if later they do become pastors, there is no doubt that it makes a difference whether someone grew up in a religious or a secular environment, not to speak of being raised in a pastor’s family. Providing a model works not only within the relational network of the child (spatially) but also in the succession of generations (time dimension). During adolescence, knowingly or unknowingly, the young person is looking for mentors who can help him/her in the transition to adulthood. With respect to the formation of religious identity it is important that he/she encounters credible religious people who he may observe and copy if he wants to. Besides teaching and modelling we must not forget the role of the individual in the formation of his religious identity; how he processes external influences is everyone’s personal responsibility. The young person must reflect on and emotionally digest issues connected to faith and religion alone, and must try out and form religious attitudes and conduct that he can make his own. In my interviews with pastors conversion appeared as a concrete event as well as a process. It seems likely that from the experiences of conversion and being called the latter can be linked to a concrete event more often; also, in the narratives of a pastor’s life calling usually figures more importantly than conversion. In the pastoral vocation internal motivation is often related to a Bible verse, which seems to provide certainty and a life-long perspective for the person 200
