seabury next

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