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Growing up in Emery County's Green River, the Rev. Jeffrey Silliman learned early about scrappy religious institutions.

The First Presbyterian Church, what he called the "only show in town" until the LDS Church appeared about 15 years later, fought hard to stay alive. For years, rotating and traveling pastors came through only once every four weeks. Families supported the weekly Sunday school, which Silliman attended regularly.

"It was a small church hanging on by its fingernails," remembered Silliman, 63, who last year attended the centennial celebration for the church, now known as Green River Bible Church.

So there's something apropos about his stepping in as the new president of the Salt Lake Theological Seminary (SLTS), a position he assumed last month. Utah's only graduate school for Protestant clergy has beaten back the odds time and again.

To stay afloat and become debt-free, the 23-year-old school has undergone - in recent years - restructuring, cutbacks, voluntary salary reductions, early retirements and the sale of its Salt Lake City building, which it acquired in 2001. Like most seminaries, only 20 percent of SLTS's income comes from tuition; the rest is through charitable gifts, which are hard to come by in a state where the religious demographics work against a Protestant institution. Silliman replaced the Rev. Bill Heersink, who had been the interim president ever since the Rev. Donald McCullough resigned late last year.

"This is probably the dumbest move I've ever made," the new president said with a laugh during a recent interview. "But God got my attention . . . and I just had to respond."

For some, the call to serve comes from within, a personal epiphany that changes one's course in life. For another set, including Silliman, it requires other people to take notice and point the way.

Silliman was 13 when his childhood church got its first full-time pastor. That pastor and his wife, whom Silliman grew close to, said they saw in him great potential for pastoral service.

"At first I was just puzzled. I thought I'd be a chemistry teacher," he remembered. "But I said I'd pray about it."

And pray he did, as others - including his grandmother - echoed the same thoughts about his future.

"Lord, if these people are right, I will move in the direction of being a pastor unless you tell me otherwise," he said, recalling his mantra. "And so far, He hasn't told me otherwise."

Silliman began undergraduate studies at Wheaton College in Illinois, but graduated from the University of Utah before heading off, with his new bride, to Fuller Theological Seminary and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He served for six years as a pastor in Richfield at Valley Community Presbyterian Church before taking over at Holladay's Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church, where he remained for 26 years. A year before he left Mount Olympus, he was asked to serve on the SLTS board. He continued this service, as board chairman, from Riverside, Calif., where the father of two moved in 2002 to head up the Southern California regional office of the Presbyterian Church USA.

The call to return to Utah began when his predecessor at SLTS posed a question. Silliman said McCullough, who knew he was going to resign, asked, "If we can ever get the school on more secure financial footing, would you be president?"

It was only a hypothetical back then. But as had been the case before, others' suggestions and his prayers sent him on his way. His top concern: Did he have it in him to raise the funds that would be needed? In May, he got his answer. After meeting with trustees for a charitable trust in Anaheim, Calif., Silliman secured the "biggest gift in the school's history," $300,000 up front, followed by $200,000 in increments and as matching dollars.

It's a good start, no doubt, but the new president, who said he'll need to raise about $800,000 a year, still knows he's got his work cut out for him. He dreams of expanding enrollment - the school currently has 48 students - growing and diversifying the staff, and leading a financially secure team as it trains future pastors "to positively minister in this culture."

"I don't know how God's going to do this," he continued. "But I'm going to work my hardest to discover and develop the ways it's going to happen."

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* JESSICA RAVITZcan be reached at jravitz@sltrib.com or 801-257-8776. Send comments about this story to religioneditor@sltrib.com.