The Rev'd Marsue Harris, ordained 29 years, said recently of her ordination in The Episcopal Church, “You just don’t grab your Bible and go out to the street and start preaching.”
In all the discussion about ordination, ministry of the baptised, comes the question about seminary and do we still need a three-year residential, costly program or can we do it locally?
I will get flamed from various sides but I still believe that in this church, we need some ordained people to have pulled up stakes, left their home congregation, left their home diocese, pack up and go to seminary where they get mixed in with a whole bunch of other people who have done likewise and where the cross-pollination can enhance their learning.
Regardless, I hope and pray that in TEC, we never lose sight that one of our greatest riches is an educated clergy and people and that, yes, you just don't grab your Bible and go out to the street and start preaching.
Wish I could expand on this little posting; it is short-hand, but work calls.
Maybe it comes into mind because tomorrow marks 17 years since I was ordained to the transitional diaconate, the moment at which I felt I had crossed the Rubicon and there was no turning back... I had just vastly narrowed my options of living into the vows made on my behalf at my baptism which I started renewing in the context of the congregation circa 1981 when I went back to church after a hiatus between 1975-1981 (otherwise known as the college years and my first two years of teaching).
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grabbed from here.
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Light one in your heart.... click on the photo to see a short video of burning velas.
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“The Windsor report. It’s just a report. When did it become like the Bible? The Covenant. Why do we need another Covenant? We have the Baptismal Covenant. We have the Creeds. What else do we need?” Bishop Martín Barahona, former Primate of la Iglesia de la Región de Central América and Bishop of the Iglesia Anglicana Episcopal de El Salvador
About Me
- Caminante
- I am a life-long Episcopalian, who has been ordained since 1993. I was rector of a family-size congregation from 1994-2008 and and ended three years as priest in partnership at a pastoral-size congregation in Vermont's fourth-largest city (Rutland) in 2011. Now I am vicar of a tiny congregation in the Green Mountains of Vermont. I am involved in church governance at the diocesan, church-wide and international Anglican levels. I was a member of a CREDO faculty team working with the clergy and lay leaders of l'Eglise Episcopale d'Haiti. I also try to go to El Salvador a few times a year and am officially Canon Missioner of the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador (since 2004). In 2007, I finished the 1570 km Chemin de Saint Jacques/Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I greatly enjoy hiking in the Vermont Greens and NH Whites and reflect on those hikes. In 2010 I also completed walking the 273 mile-long Long Trail in the Green Mountains of Vermont... maybe next the Appalachian Trail? Lastly but most important, I am a cat-fanatic. (N.B. Whatever I post here does not reflect either the opinions of my congregation or of The Episcopal Church but merely those of an individual.)
Inspiration Pilgrimage
Photos and description of the Camino de Santiago/Chemin de Saint Jaques
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3 comments:
I agree that seminary trained priests are a good idea. So who pays for their education and, especially, who pays their salaries? TEC seems to be encouraging young people to get life experience before going to seminary. That is a great idea. I wish our bishop had had some life experience outside the diocese and VTS. Unfortunately that life experience often means a spouse and kids. How many people can simply pull up stakes, leave jobs and spend three years getting educated simply to return to the diocese that can't afford to hire them? I don't know what the solution is. I don't even have any wild ideas. If we don't have or can't afford seminary trained priests, should we simply abandon the local Episcopalians? This is not a rantp. It is a cry for help.
PseudoPiskie --I had the higher salary when we decided it was time for me to go to seminary (had to wait 20 years for Joel to think it was okay for women to be ordained!). But we pulled up all stakes, risked everything. He stayed while I went away --it was terribly, terribly hard. And we were dirt poor --and I had to work (scrubbing toilets and doing laundry in the guest house) while I was in seminary, while many students didn't have to.... I had scholarships out the ying yang too.
And I wouldn't change a minute of it. It was the best possible training for parish life. Evah. Hate to say it.... but true.
Admirable, Margaret, but we couldn't afford to pay you. Should we just abandon the parish? Our people will not come to Morning Prayer. If there is no eucharist, they simply stay home. It took forever to convince them to endure the longer service every week. Now they don't feel they have been to church without the eucharist. And only priests can do that - unless there is a deacon nearby with preconsecrated elements. There are many aspects to this dilemma.
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