Seminaries Under Stress
Posted by plse on March 17, 2008
An interesting article on Episcopal Seminaries.
Posted in Ordination, Seminary, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted by plse on March 17, 2008
An interesting article on Episcopal Seminaries.
Posted in Ordination, Seminary, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted by plse on February 5, 2008
Posted in Ordination | No Comments »
Posted by plse on February 5, 2008
“My brother/sister, every Christian is called to follow Jesus Christ, serving God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. God now calls you to a special ministry of servanthood directly under your bishop. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by plse on January 30, 2008
Posted in Ordination | No Comments »
Posted by plse on January 30, 2008
By cultivating the spiritual discipline of radical nondefensiveness, I believe God has given me the grace to put my focus and energies where they need to be: on loving the other (in all his or her cantankerousness).
Perhaps the single most important lesson I learned about ministry happened when I was going through “The Process,” and it has influenced the way I interact with people to this day. This lesson was about being radically nondefensive. I’m not always good at it, but I’ve tried to approach it not so much as a technique to be mastered as a spiritual discipline to be lived into, as I hope to grow in empathy and love toward everyone I meet.
To illustrate what I mean by “radically nondefensive,” I will first describe how I learned this lesson, and then give a few examples of how I’ve applied it to my priestly ministry in varying contexts.
I was twenty-four years old when I entered the ordination process, which in those days was regarded as barely out of diapers for an aspiring priest. My first meeting with the Commission on Ministry went well, but not well enough for me to move on to the next step in the dreaded Process.
“Don’t you think you’re too young to be a priest?” asked the Commission on Ministry (COM) member. She continued, “I mean, don’t you think you haven’t got enough life experience…haven’t suffered enough?” Read the rest of this entry »
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