The Church, the new nave of professional retraining in Switzerland

June 18, 2022Lucas Vuilleumier

They were in the economy, behind a bar, driving a truck or at the bedside of our pets and became pastor, deacon or leader. Would the Reformed Church have become a professional horizon almost like the others?
“Since I became a pastor, I have never had so many responsibilities,” laughs Ariane Baehni, in her early sixties. A graduate in higher commercial studies (HEC), this mother, minister of the parish of Vallorbe, is the very example of a successful professional retraining. At the age of 40, while working in communication at HEC Lausanne, she decided to start studying theology, while continuing to raise her children.

His case is not isolated. It would also be less and less. Indeed, many people who have already had a professional career suddenly branch off for a job in the Church. Didier Halter, director of the Protestant Training Office (OPF), confirms the trend: “People who begin theology as soon as they have their federal maturity in their pocket have become a minority. They now make up only a third of our workforce.” And to reveal: “A person who begins his career in the banking or legal world and who decides to become a pastor is no longer an unusual profile.”

Significant skills

Moreover, the reorientation in the ecclesial milieu does not only concern the pastorate. Indeed, the professions of deacon, chaplain or church leader also attract these new profiles. According to Jean-Christophe Emery, director of Cèdres Formation [organe de formation théologique de l’Eglise réformée vaudoise], they are often people with a strong social fiber. “The work of spiritual accompaniment of chaplains, in particular in hospitals, can constitute a form of revelation for nurses who see it as an extension of care”, he illustrates.

The reasons for these retrainings are as diverse as past careers are multiple. These newcomers, or former converts to Church professions, therefore represent, according to a report by the OPF, “a significant reality and many skills”. Today, it is moreover on these qualifications that the Reformed Churches in French-speaking Switzerland have decided to bank, while supplementing them with a theological contribution.

Bartender, veterinarian and truck driver

But what are the motivations of these new professionals? Often, the desire arises following a real personal trigger, “a deep spiritual crisis”, in the words of Pastor Ariane Baehni. For Gaël Letare, now a trainee deacon in the parish of La Chaux-de-Fonds, it was a Bible taken to Spain, where he then worked as a bartender, which brought him back to Switzerland with the project of training in a meaningful profession.

“Before I left for Marbella, my brother told me he had faith, and that haunted me,” he says. My reading of the biblical texts made me decide to leave the world of the night, thus avoiding the danger of addictions. Now, Gaël Letare organizes “friendship dinners” open to everyone in his parish. He recognizes that “something of my old approach to hospitality is at stake here”, inherited from his experiences in restaurants and bars.

For Anne-Sylvie Martin, chaplain at the Rennaz hospital, in the Chablais, it all came down to contact with disabled people whom she began to visit, on a voluntary basis, within the Plein Soleil institution in Lavigny. . It was twenty years ago, Anne-Sylvie Martin had just obtained her doctorate and had recently been working as a veterinarian.

But despite this long university course, “the sharing and prayer experienced with these vulnerable people”, she says, had permanently moved something in her. “Even though my work with animals was very rewarding, my whole mind was turned towards this mission with people with disabilities, and where the help I could provide went far beyond the only ailments of the body,” he recalls. -she. The moment of caesura occurs when she is fired from the veterinary practice where she was working, her boss having detected, by thanking her, that she was destined “still unconsciously” to another path…

Social first

But faith would not necessarily always be the primary driver of these reconversions: “Theological training is sometimes, for people without a religious background, the opportunity for a first real contact with Christianity”, notes Jean-Christophe Emery , adding, however, that their aspirations and previous activities “already approached a Church dynamic marked by attention to others”. This is the case of Antonin Lederrey, who has always felt attracted to social work. Once at the end of his schooling, he began his professional life as a truck driver, and then worked as a ski instructor. In 2005, however, he was hired by the parish of Môtier-Vully, in the canton of Fribourg, as a socio-cultural animator with reformed young people. The condition? That he engages in “on-the-job training in order to obtain a diploma from a social school within three years”, he says.

More flexible routes

Antonin Lederrey is typically one of those lay people with specific profiles, to whom the Reformed Churches in French-speaking Switzerland entrust “emerging ministries”. A workforce warmly welcomed by the institutions and what, perhaps, to increase the ranks of a “stable, but insufficient succession”, as the OPF report still points out. Etienne Guilloud, pastor from Vaud, has moreover recently been hired at 20% by the Evangelical Reformed Church of the canton of Vaud for a mission of “promotion of these new professions among actresses and actors of the Church. In the long term, we wish to give an image of the Church as a place of potential career. Concretely? “We want to motivate parishes to create positions and thus allow pastors to refocus on the ministry of the Word, the heart of their profession.”

The theological training of these lay people can last up to two years and varies from one cantonal church to another. “Professional retraining in the Church has therefore become possible without necessarily carrying out the ten years of study and internships required by the classic path leading to the career of pastor”, notes Jean-Baptiste Lipp, president of the Conference of Reformed Churches (CER ). Pastor candidates will also soon enjoy these changes. Currently, the OPF and the CER are looking into the training of these ministers. The objective, according to Didier Halter: “To make it more flexible, in particular thanks to equivalences and an adaptation of the course to individual trajectories.”