Date: May 22, 2025
VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith and Community Engagement) has helped remind me why I came to seminary. As I think many do in their first year of MDiv studies, I found myself grappling with a sense of aimlessness. I often felt bogged down with homework, yet left without a place to integrate the things I was learning with ministerial praxis.
In my middler year, field education provided a much needed opportunity to reconnect what I was learning to my vocation. It was while serving at my incredible field education site, Grace Episcopal Church in Alexandria, that I learned about VOICE. I found my connection to the ministry of all faithful people reinvigorated as I witnessed clergy and parishioners from Grace and other local congregations in VOICE push beyond their comfort zones by showing up and advocating for others, by taking time to engage in listening campaigns to learn about the issues that affect their neighbors, and by stepping up and leading in meetings with local political leaders, and state senators and representatives. They have pushed me to do the same. From the parish hall to the state capitol, their example inspired me and gave me a renewed sense of direction in seminary, and I am grateful. I struggle to imagine how my formation may have looked without my participation in VOICE.
Moving into my final year at VTS, the newly launched Saint Nicholas Center for Faith & Justice supported my continued engagement in VOICE. As a Saint Nicholas Fellow I had the opportunity to participate in the reconstitution of a VOICE core team at VTS and to invite my peers into this important work that has been so impactful for my personal growth and spiritual development over the past two years. As the Saint Nicholas Center for Faith & Justice tends the flame of this important partnership by supporting our VOICE Core Team and by extending our hospitality to more programs such as the Faith and Labor Summit, it is my hope and prayer that many more generations of seminarians will be empowered to engage in the work and witness of this ministry. I know that they and this community of Alexandria—our adopted home for these three years—will both be all the better for it.
Noah Aukerman ’25
Saint Nicholas Fellow 24-25