Candidates in the Queue

What makes an outstanding PreachFor America Fellow? The success of the PreachFor America Fellowships initiative hinges in part on high-caliber and proven candidates who have a heart for God and the Church, and demonstrate deep leadership capacity, character, competence and chemistry.

Campus chaplains and pastors, professors, and ministry heads – Christian leaders who know what ministry requires, know what leadership is, and are face-to-face daily with talented, eligible candidates – are currently making nominations for the inaugural cohort of Fellows.

Let’s be fair. Young adults are not expected to have it all together. But what does character, competence and chemistry look like for a candidate in their early- to mid-20s?

Character

Character is who a person is becoming. We look for signs of integrity, humility, and steady personal formation, as well as courage, teachability, compassion and faithfulness. If the saying goes, culture eats strategy for breakfast, then surely we should start with who the person is.

Competence

We look for developing competence—skills that are present in seed form and growing through practice, curiosity and mentoring. The successful candidate is developing relational intelligence, has demonstrated capacity for leadership and vision, intellectual clarity and academic excellence, spiritual depth, organizational awareness, and early skills in and passion for preaching and communication.

Chemistry

This is the relational posture that enables ministry to be life-giving. PreachFor America Fellows should demonstrate healthy patterns and the capacity to grow through empathetic presence, emotional maturity, self-awareness, a hopeful disposition, integrity of word and deed, playful resilience, and simply someone others want to be with because they feel good to be around.

What’s Next

It’s exciting that PreachFor is receiving nominations for candidates who embody these attributes from campus leaders who interface frequently with suitable candidates.

Nominations close in mid-February 2026 and candidates will submit applications by March as shown in this timeline. If you are a campus chaplain, professor or ministry leader who knows a suitable young person who wishes to explore preaching ministry through the rigorous and highly competitive PreachFor America Fellowship, contract Dr. Trygve Johnson at fellowships@preachfor.org to learn more.