| Article Index |
|---|
| Introducing NEXT |
| Beth Taylor on Square Pegs |
| Bonnie Anderson on the Charism of the Laity |
| Bishop Jeffrey Lee Reflects on Seabury NEXT |
| All Pages |
Daniel Aleshire: The Future Has Arrived
At the recent Association of Theological Schools biennial meeting, Executive Director Daniel Aleshire gave the keynote address:"The future has arrived and brought a multitude of changes in cultural norms, educational models, international tensions, business practices, and religious presence. Theological schools need to change to meet the needs of changed and changing religion, and there are a few things worth remembering along the way."
Read Aleshire's entire address on the ATS website here.
Square Pegs
Several years ago I was the director of a nonprofit emergency services center. We provided groceries, toiletries and other basic needs to thousands of people in the Denver metro area. This agency had a capable staff, but the core of our programs were delivered by an amazing group of volunteers. These volunteers were wildly diverse – they came representing every theological and political persuasion, every age group, and every socio-economic background. We were a motley crew, and we loved learning how to work together!
At one point, a planning team decided to replace the complicated process of checking people in by hand with a quick-and-easy computerized process. At first, the idea was met with some skepticism. We heard, ‘We’ve always done it by hand,’ ‘It gives our guests a sense of personal attention,’ and ‘A lot of our volunteers are not going to want to learn how to use computers.’
Despite the criticism, we knew we had to move forward with the plan. It wasn’t that what had been done in the past was bad or wrong, it was just no longer possible. We had outgrown paper processing. We had to be able to create reports in real time. As a concession, however, we decided to leave one electric typewriter on the front desk. This typewriter was massive. It ‘hummed.’ Its hue was a less than charming goldenrod color.
Over time, the typewriter was rarely used, and eventually it became a piece of unnoticed office furniture on the front counter. We may have even put a cover over it. But we kept it because it was a comforting symbol. One day new volunteer, a teenager, came in to be trained at the front desk. She sat down in front of the ‘symbol’ and asked, in all seriousness, “What is that thing?” She had never seen a typewriter in her life! We all burst into laughter, realizing how far we had come in such a short time.
I was reminded of that typewriter last week when Seabury students met with a visiting team from the Association for Theological Schools. One of my classmates observed that when he was looking for a seminary just a few years ago, he knew that he wanted a theological education offering quality and depth. But he also needed to be a long-distance ‘commuter’ student who attended classes over a period of several years. At the time he applied – just a few years ago - his request was met with uncertainty. Could theological education be done differently? Would the experience he was describing lack personal attention and formational opportunities? Despite the skepticism, this student persisted. He is now a student at Seabury. At first he says he felt like a square peg in a round hole. But he went on to note that within just a few years, his need for a flexible, creative, adaptable theological education is no longer the exception to the rule. We all burst into laughter realizing that we have all become – and are embracing – our square-pegged-ness!
In my first year of seminary I took a course at Seabury co-taught by our visionary faculty. It was a course in missional theology called Gospel Mission. They taught a vital concept that seems so apparent now, but it was life changing for me at the time. I learned that the Church does not have a mission. It is God who has a mission, and we are invited to be a part of it. And at some point I got it – that we cannot save, or grow, or preserve the Church. We are not meant to maintain systems and institutions and ecclesiastical versions of electric typewriters for our sakes. We are invited instead to discover God’s mission in our own time, in our own contexts. It’s not just Seabury that is changing. Theological education is changing. The social and cultural landscape is changing. Everything is changing.
In retrospect, I am filled with gratitude that I was part of the Seabury community in this transitional time. I believe that my classmates and I have been prepared in a very unique way to embrace and to lead a changing church. We are left with very few illusions that things will stay the same. We have gained a realistic outlook grounded in a deep theological conviction that God is doing something new! Look for us in the photos of this year’s Commencement celebration– the wildly diverse motley crew, the last residential MDiv class in this particular iteration of Seabury’s life, going on to what’s NEXT -- to something new! We are square-pegged Partners in the Mission of God.
Beth Taylor, Seabury Class Convener, MDiv, 2010
Diocese of Colorado
The Unique Charism of the Laity
“There are many different gifts but it is always the same Spirit; there are many different ways of serving but it is always the same Lord. There are many different forms of activity, but in everybody it is the same God who works in them all.” (1 Cor. 12:4-6)
St. Paul writes about charism with a double meaning. In the broad sense charism is the “gift” received at baptism for the Christian life. In the stricter sense, charism is the special and unique gifts that each one of us has received to be put to use for God’s work in the world.
In the Episcopal Church, all people come to the baptismal font and are received by the Holy Spirit into the Community of Christ. Reinforced by our baptismal covenant and the Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer, lay people make promises to God in the context of our Christian communities. Our baptism brings us the gift of the Christian life, but our individual charism are the gifts we have been given that enable us.
Often, lay people and clergy tend to think of lay ministry, or even baptismal ministry, as the ministry done by the laity inside the Church. But the ministry of the laity mostly occurs outside of the church. While the roles lay people have assumed over the years as readers, Eucharistic ministers, lay preachers, pastoral visitors, vestry members and others, are very important roles in the life and worship of a congregation, most of our ministry is done in the context of our “secular” communities, our homes and our workplaces.
This is good, for we are doing God’s work in the world. The problem is that these important ministries go largely unsupported and unrecognized by the church. Often only we are aware that the ministry we do in our daily lives is done in response to our baptism and our call as a lay minister. Often only we know what our unique charism is, instead of bringing those gifts into the context of our Christian community where they can be affirmed and joined with other gifts in the Body of Christ for the purpose of intentional ministry. Just as lay members of search committees and commissions on ministry and standing committees affirm the charism of clergy and bishops, the clergy and bishops also have a responsibility to help the laity identify and use our charism. The larger responsibility of the laity is to claim our baptism as our life’s primary vocation and then to use our charism in our secondary vocations in God’s world.
Just as a call to the ordained ministry comes with certain responsibilities, so does the call to lay ministry. In the Book of Common Prayer our catechism answers the question, “What is the ministry of the laity?” with this:
“The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.”
As baptized lay persons, we are responsible to understand not only what our ministry is, what particular charism we bring to it, but also to know how we will “carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.” This takes some understanding, commitment and education.
The landscape of theological education in the Episcopal Church is changing. In the midst of that transition, we have the opportunity to emphasize the importance of educating lay people for ministry. With high-quality, flexible enrichment programs and continuing education, we can help the two million lay members of God’s Episcopal Church understand the promises we make at our baptism and why they are the most important promises we will make in our life.
The promises we make at our baptism sustain us. If we can rise to the challenge of putting the unique charism of the laity to intentional and prayerful use, they will also sustain the church.
Bonnie Anderson, D.D., President, The House of Deputies
Seabury NEXT: What We Profess by Our Faith
For the Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer 1979 represents a sea change from just a few generations ago in the way we understand the ministry of representing Christ and the church. Ministry is rooted not in ordination but in Holy Baptism. The Holy Spirit lavishes gifts for ministry on all who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. The ordained are leaders and servants of the whole assembly of the baptized, equipping and energizing their ministries in and for the world. This view of ministry is not new. And although it represents broadly the ancient church’s understanding of baptism and ordination, our current Prayer Book expresses a vigorous recovery of this perspective for the church of our own time. And for very good reasons.
Seabury Next is the way we have found to talk about Seabury’s attempt to recover its place in this biblical perspective on the nature of ministry. Inherited models of seminary education based on an overly neat distinction between ordained ministry and what we have all too often called “lay” ministry no longer serve the needs of the church as they once did. In the face of the dizzying social, economic, and technological change, if the church is to meet the challenge of presenting the Good News of Jesus in ways that are compelling and that can be heard and received at all, we need to be in the business of equipping all the members of Christ’s Body for their apostolic ministry, their mission of making disciples of all the nations. Seabury Next stands for our attempt to reinvent this institution as a seminary rooted in baptism. We want Seabury to be available as an agent of transformation for everyone who hears God’s call to grow into the full stature of Christ.
This is an exciting time to be a Christian. The challenges of our age – from the ravages of environmental degradation through global economic and political instability to declining interest in traditional forms of institutional religion – none of these things should cause Christians to despair. We are people of hope, and with the sign of the cross in our baptisms we have been marked with the emblem of Christ’s victory over all the forces that threaten God’s intention to save the world. At Seabury, we are choosing to view the challenges of our time as animating principles for the work God has given us to do. I heard it said once that the church does not have a mission, rather, God’s mission has a church. The salvation of the world does not depend on our attempts to succeed. God’s wills the salvation of all people. It is God’s project, not ours. But by God’s grace and invitation we have the awesome privilege of joining with God in this work. That’s what is means when we say that we have been made members of the royal priesthood that is Christ’s alone.
Episcopalians have grown perhaps overly familiar with some extraordinary promises we make routinely. At every celebration of baptism and baptismal renewal, in the Baptismal Covenant, after we have professed our trust in the vast mystery of God’s goodness and self-communicating Love – all that we mean by the Trinity: God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – we come to what I often call the “So what?” questions.
Will you continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers?
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever, you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
The answer, of course, to each of these questions is, “I will, with God’s help.”
It is not enough simply to say that we believe in God the Holy Trinity. As Christians, we are compelled by the Holy Spirit of God to put our faith into action, to turn it into practices that will transform our lives and the lives of our sisters and brothers in this world. The mission and ministry of Seabury Next is just this: to assist all those who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ to make real in our lives what we profess by our faith. We invite you to join us.
Jeffrey D. Lee, Bishop of Chicago