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Zachary Nyquest grew up in Calumet, Iowa, population 99. Dr. Ebenezer Concepción grew up in Union City, New Jersey, just a stone’s throw away from New York City. Neither students’ childhood religious tradition could hold the fullness of the men they would become. Both fell away from church for years, as they learned to embrace their sexualities and live into the abundance God intends for their lives. Now, both are pursuing their Master of Divinity degree, so they can create spaces of thriving—nurturing a more loving world than the one they inherited. While there are broad commonalities between their journeys, it’s the differences between their stories that reveal the breadth of Garrett Seminary’s community—space for all people to explore the particularities of their faiths and callings.

Concepción’s childhood was powerfully shaped by Latiné Pentecostalism, rooted in a Puerto Rican community where the boundaries between church and family were thin. “I often say I was born and raised in the gospel,” he says with a smile. “From a very young age, I grew up singing in the church. I was the leader of the children’s group, and a youth pastor when I was in college.” But those college years were also a period of personal transformation. “At that time, I was awakening to my sexuality as a queer person,” Concepción remembers. “Pentecostalism, for the most part, leans more conservative. Being gay was not okay. It wasn’t until I started to take classes on Latiné queer literature—topics of gender, sexuality, and power—that I began to understand how I could connect my queerness to my cultural heritage.”

The conservatism of Nyquest’s home church was of the white evangelical persuasion, but it held similarly scant space for his burgeoning identity. Moreover, its theology could not help him parse that stirring longing. “Growing up, theology was easy: I just had to listen to the pastor and that was my theology,” Nyquest recalls. “But all of a sudden, I had these big theological questions that defied simple answers. My entire theological foundation crumbled and I was too scared to rebuild it, in case it crumbled again.” In that fearful moment, joining the National Guard provided stability he so badly needed. “I joined when I was 17, a junior in high school,” he says. “When my life was going crazy, the National Guard was the one thing that was consistent—and that consistency helped me get out of that dark place.”

After graduating from college, Concepción accepted a public policy fellowship in Washington D.C. and began a path that would lead him away from the Pentecostalism of his youth, and through a doctoral program at The University of Chicago. After completing a post-doc, he accepted a Leading Edge Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, which brought him back to Chicago for a job with YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. “I lead their prevention work against gender-based and community violence,” he explains, “but I’m still reconciling with my faith as well, trying to find how I can follow Jesus without all these things that have been imposed onto him.” Nyquest similarly found that even when he rejected his childhood Christianity, he couldn’t shake the feeling of divine interconnectedness. “I ran away from church as fast as I could,” he laughs. “But the harder I pushed back against God, the more I believed in Him and His love.”

Eventually, that spiritual discernment led Nyquest through a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation that offered affirming theologies that helped him integrate his queerness and his faith. But it was the military that continued to shape his sense of call: In the middle of a particularly intense drill weekend, he had an awakening that illuminated the road ahead. “During a religious service while the chaplain was talking with us, I was praying and suddenly knew: I could be in that chaplain’s position, helping those who struggle,” he confesses. “The stress and physical exhaustion lifted from my body. I knew my calling was to be the person who I needed when I first joined.”

When he describes what led him to study at Garrett, Concepción’s words reverberate that desire to create the space for people who follow in his footsteps. “I want to create a curriculum for LGBTQ+ people of color, particularly Latiné folks, so they can better understand the history of Christianity and religious violence and how it intersects with race, ethnicity, queerness, and transness,” he explains. “The YWCA doesn’t only do prevention work, we also offer counseling for survivors. I want to give better tools to survivors of religious or spiritual violence and engage more deeply with faith communities.” In some ways, this is a natural extension of the work the YWCA is already doing. “I want to be more structured and intentional about it, though,” Concepción adds. “Garrett will not only give me the theological foundation I need. Its practical components and encouragement to intersectionality will also set me up for what I want to do.”

At Garrett, their experiences join those of their classmates. The seminary’s wide diversity offers both the resonance that feeds belonging and a difference that spurs growth. “There’s such a wide range of faiths and ethnic heritage, we’re exposed to so many different thoughts, opinions, and ideas,” Nyquest excitedly reports. “Some people who grew up in the United Methodist Church are very strong in that faith. Then you have someone like me who completely forgot faith but came back, but we’re all sharing ideas and beliefs, and growing together.” While he attends a United Church of Christ congregation now, pieces of Concepción’s Pentecostal heritage still inform how he experiences the learning community. “God is real. The Spirit, however we name it, does great things—it brings renewal, happiness, and joy,” he concludes. “God is just becoming more expansive, welcoming, even rebellious. Every new perspective adds nuance, strengthening faith so we can approach it through a different lens.”