Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker writes: “There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired. So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that?” The article focuses on quarterbacks and teachers, but what of priests? How can you tell ahead of time whether a candidate will succeed?
God of grace, as I cast my vote, remind me that I do so as a citizen of your kingdom. In the name of the One who showed us how to lead by serving, Jesus Christ, our Lord.Amen.
The Alban Institute and the Lily Endowment are beginning a project to assist the newly ordained make the transition from seminary to ordained ministry, as well from the life as a lay person in a congregation to pastoring a congregation.
As many of my readers know, I used to be a screaming conservative street preaching ‘it’s not religion it’s a relationship’ ethical black and white liberal = evil Catholic bashing Christian pop music listening shine-Jesus-shine singing puritan paperbacks reading borderline-Fundie. While there is much about that background for which I am grateful, I’ll never forget the day I was sitting in a bus (prayerfully) listening to a Brueggemann lecture on the OT portrayal of God.
As buildings cry out for major maintenance, and the financial responsibility gets passed from one generation to the next, we “boomers” are emerging as the new elders, whether we like it or not. Raised in the counter-cultural, anti-institutional world of the 1960’s and 70’s, we now have to ask ourselves. “Do we think there should be churches for the next generation?
The term “discipleship” is probably associated, for some of us, with more evangelical and fundamentalist traditions and “making disciples” primarily with overseas mission, often associated with cultural conservatism. But I believe it’s a term that we in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition should be reclaiming, reframing, and considering in light of our tradition and the culture surrounding us.
As I said the words and moved my hand in the familiar shape of the cross, something caught my eye. One of the first grade boys seated in the second row was moving his arm with mine. His face was scrunched in concentration, his little fingers shaped just as mine were, his arm also tracing the shape of the cross through the air. He was mimicking me.
It isn’t all that clear what that means, “fishers of men,” and it doesn’t seem to be their reason for following him: there’s no new job description here. But Jesus is promising some kind of change that begins where they are. That’s the literal meaning of the Greek, I’m told: Follow me: and I will make you to become fishermen-of-people. They will be transformed into some new version of what they already are.
Simon Barrow, one of the editors of Ekklesia writes on his discovery of a new book by James F. Hopewell, Congregation: Stories and Structures, available
Maggi Dawn has an interesting post that starts off addressing questions about Christology and the emerging church, and how the latter has received some criticism for not having enough of the former. She goes on from there, however, to address how we as Christians engage the non-Christian world we often find ourselves living in.