For Flourishing Churches

September 2026

IDENTIFYING. FORMING. EMPOWERING. FUTURE LEADERS FOR THE CHURCH.

The work of raising up the next generation of pastors and Christian leaders is work we do together.

At PreachFor, our vision has always depended on collaboration — bringing together thriving churches, exceptional academic institutions, church residency leaders, campus ministries, and generous supporters around a shared commitment to the future of the Church.

This month, we’re highlighting one of those partnerships: The Parish of Calvary-St. George’s Episcopal church in New York City, which has welcomed Sam Fleischer, one of our inaugural PreachFor America Fellows. The Parish’s Rector, the Rev. Jacob Smith, is in conversation with PreachFor Executive Director Dr. Trygve Johnson, reflecting on the call to vocational ministry, the beauty and the cost of that call, and what awaits the next generation of faithful leaders.

The PreachFor partnership is growing: nominations are now open for the second cohort of PreachFor America Fellows who will be carefully placed at new host churches. We invite you to help us identify the exceptional young men and women who may be called to serve and lead the Church.

On Calling, Cost, and the Living God: A Conversation with Jacob Smith

Dr. Trygve D. Johnson, Executive Director

I have a habit of calling pastors I admire and asking them questions. I have found that continuing to learn is less about intelligence or intellectual faculties, and more often the consequence of asking questions that lead to wisdom. So I like to ask questions. 

I do it because I want to hear how people who have actually stayed in this vocation talk about it. Not the conference version. Not the green-room version where everyone has a tight three-point framework and a compelling personal brand. I want the honest version. The one that shows the seams and the wear and tear.

Rev. Jacob Smith is the Rector of the Parish of Calvary-St. George's, an historic Episcopal parish consisting of two churches in New York City. He's been in this work long enough to know what it actually costs, and he's still in it — which is itself a kind of testimony. When we had our call, he was leaving for Turkey the next morning, leading a nineteen-day pilgrimage through Istanbul, Aleppo, Tarsus, and the old apostolic roads of the first century. The man had envelopes of tip money to sort, a congregation to leave, and a family to say goodbye to. He still made time for the conversation.

That's a true pastor.

On how a call actually sounds

I asked Jacob to take me back to the beginning — to the moment when he first thought he might be called to ministry. What he described was a junior high school kid serving as an acolyte in Yuma, Arizona, in the dead of summer. Half the congregation had fled the heat. He and his brother were at the table almost every Sunday, and somewhere in that ordinary, understaffed faithfulness, he heard something.

"That still, small voice," he said, "that you know is not your own."

He went to the interim priest and told him. The priest gave him the full checklist — finish junior high, finish high school, college, the bishop will want you to work, then seminary — which is the ecclesiastical equivalent of bless your heart. Jacob knew he was being blown off. And something in him went quiet about it.

That didn't surprise me. I had nearly the same experience. I went to my pastor — young, confused, no ministry pedigree, no one in my family who had ever done anything like this — and he handed me the same list. What was left unspoken was: I'm not sure you're the type. It's a strange thing, to carry a call that no one around you can quite see yet…

Nominations are Open

The PreachFor Foundation is now recruiting its second cohort of PreachFor America Fellows, and nominations are open through October 31, 2026.

Do you know an emerging leader who will graduate from university in Spring 2027 or an early career individual who has shown a deep love of the Lord and demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential? And is looking for an exceptional funded formation opportunity that transcends a gap year?  

For successful candidates, the uniquely-positioned PreachFor America Fellowship allows young adults to test the call to vocational ministry over 24 months through meaningful ministry work at a healthy, thriving church (see what good looks like!), simultaneous graduate study at Fuller Theological Seminary or Wheaton College’s Litfin Divinity School, intentional mentorship, and sustainable pay. After reviewing the nominations and selection process, contact us to take the next step to nominate a candidate.

Investing wisely: A future pastor for the generations

The single highest-leverage investment anyone can make in the American church right now isn’t a building or a program. It’s a person — a future pastor, identified early, formed well, and given room to grow inside a real congregation rather than apart

from one. PreachFor invites you to join us — and our network of collaborators — as we invest in the future of the Church.

PreachFor Foundation is a fully qualified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 93-3869440. Donations and contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by the law. You may make a one-time or recurring gift online, donate by check, Donor Advised Fund, ACH or stock transfer. You may give here.

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