The two seminary students sat in front of me wearing suits that didn't appear to get a lot of work. They had completed the first two years of their course work, had mastered the art of the all-nighter study session, knew what it took to get the A in their classes, and were now interviewing with me to be interns in our congregation. As one of them eventually said, "This is like a job."

As the three of us talked, they kept looking over my shoulder surveying the theology books that line the walls of my study. I knew it was my job to get them to look as longingly at the work of Christ in human souls. I wondered how I would ever do this.

I remembered when I interviewed for my own seminary internship more than 25 years ago. I still can't believe a pastor hired me, because I must have appeared, well, pretty much the same way these two did.

It isn't that these students looked bad. They were sharp, pleasant twenty-somethings who I knew had done well in their coursework. They ...