This fall, seven new students began their studies at Bexley. In the next several months, we'll introduce all of them. This month, meet Jennifer Oldstone-Moore and Peter Pond:

Jennifer Oldstone-Moore

I am a postulant from the Diocese of Southern Ohio, sponsored by Christ Church Springfield. I'm married and have three high school and college aged daughters. I teach in the Religion Department of Wittenberg University. My undergraduate majors were in Religion and Art History at Swarthmore College, and my graduate degrees from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago.  I've been thinking about religion in formal settings for a long time now!  This thinking has always been accompanied with seeking and with living the tradition as fully as possible.

My call to ordained ministry has grown out of many aspects of my life, most importantly my call to education, my interest in moral formation in children, and the richness of personal growth in family life. I've taught about the religions and cultures of East Asia, especially China and Japan, for many years, and I've found Asian religious traditions both provocative and formative. I've also been engaged with an emerging pedagogy called contemplative education, which is a wonderful resource in and out of the classroom, and, I think, a bridge between the academy and religious & spiritual life.  I've been involved with the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a program of religious formation for children, since 1995. Finally, I relish the integration of faith and practice in the every day, which for me is most powerfully realized in my family.

I'm grateful to be pursuing this call that brings together so much that is so meaningful to me, finding the Holy One in new and exciting ways. I find the community of Bexley Hall to be nurturing and stimulating, with fellow seminarians already engaged in wonderful and interesting ministries, attentive to liturgy and worship, and mindful of the shape of the call to the wider world. I very much appreciate the larger community of seminarians, professors, and a shared religious life that our connection to Trinity Lutheran offers. I'm looking forward to the connections and collaborations that will come with the new confederation with Seabury.

Peter J. L. Pond

I am an entering junior, a Postulant from the Diocese of Southern Ohio.  I am attending Bexley Hall on a part time basis, commuting from the Cincinnati area.  My home parish is St. Anne in West Chester.  My wife Donna and I have four children: two daughters in college, one in high school, and a son in junior high school.  We relocated to Ohio in 2008 for my current job and we have all fallen in love with the Buckeye state.

I have a BA in History from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and an MBA from Norwich University in Vermont.  I work full time for Amylin Pharmaceuticals in West Chester.  I grew up in a family that afforded me the opportunity to travel, to explore my faith, and to serve others.

Bexley Hall appeals to me for several reasons:   Bexley Hall was a leader on the frontier of a growing and changing nation and it educated priests in the mid west to serve Christ and His church.  It has a story rich in history.   Many years later Bexley has shown great resilience in its ability to adapt to circumstance and location.  Bexley Hall's current location offers both small class sizes while providing the resources of a larger seminary environment at Trinity Lutheran Seminary.  And Bexley Hall is located in a neighborhood of one of the larger cities in the country.  Lastly Bexley Hall's founder Philander Chase grew up in a New Hampshire town that bordered a town I lived in.

I have been discerning God's call for a long time and ignoring the call for even longer.  I look forward to my time at Bexley Hall:  To learn, to grow, and to courageously bear the Cross.