DALLAS—In pursuing a United Methodist seminary education, the Rev. Ella Luna faced so many trials—some of them matters of life and death—that friends began to compare her to a certain Old Testament character. They meant well, but that too became a trial. “People would mention Job to me and I would just want to wring their necks,” she said. Ms. Luna never faltered in taking what she calls “the long way around” to realizing a childhood dream. On May 12, at age 43, she received her master of divinity degree [...]