merefaith: two friends on pilgrimage

I may not be at the point where I can truly say that I love the youth who come each Sunday and Wednesday. But I'm beginning to love them.

That could sound harsher than the meaning I intend to convey. The youth group at Roxboro Baptist is very well-behaved. They engage in discussion fairly easily and are willing to pick up the Bible and read. There is a lot about this transition that has been much easier than one may imagine (and many truly experience). It's not that my stomach crawls when I walk down to the big basement room with the ping-pong table and the stereo, the Bible verses on the wall and the kneeler I rescued from storage. I usually look forward to the opportunity to teach, pray, and listen.

But I don't really know them yet. I don't know what drives each of them. I wonder about their desires, their wants, their wishes and their dreams. What frustrates or scares them? What do they wish they could change about their lives? There is a lot I don't know. But I look forward to knowing it. And I look forward to loving what I know.

Labels: Ministry

Posted by Chris Schelin at Tuesday, June 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Okay, so applying Martin Luther King, Jr.'s signature phrase to the end of my divinity school career may be a bit dramatic. But knowing that I don't have to write another paper anytime soon makes me feel like the shackles have been lifted!

I don't have much to write at this time. This is partly because I am still busy with preparations to get married, move, and start a full-time ministry job. But also this is partly because I'm simply tired of writing. It's good to have a break from outlining, citing, and pontificating. Believe me, I'll get back to the pontificating in due course. Now is not the time for it, though.

In my reading I am trying to turn towards more materials that relate directly to the practices of ministry in which I will be fully immersed in the near future. While I do believe that all good theology should relate to what happens "on the ground," it is obvious that some resources are more immediately applicable and require less "translation" work on my part. With that in mind, I started a "Transition to Ministry" wish list on Amazon.com.

I ordered the first book myself because it was offered really cheap by individual sellers on the site. It's entitled Enjoy the Silence: A 30-Day Experiment in Listening to God. The husband-and-wife coauthors are youth ministers who leave no ambiguity about the purpose of the book: they want to teach lectio divina to evangelical teenagers. The book is designed for youth to read themselves and not for someone like me to read and then filter as I see fit. After an introduction explaining the discipline they list a Scripture passage for each of the thirty-day cycle and offer a structure for contemplation. Naturally, I didn't order 25 copies of the book, so I may xerox a few exercises or I can use their overall pattern as a guide for my own introduction to lectio divina as a practice of spiritual formation. Enjoy the Silence is a simple, elegant and helpful guide for reading Scripture that draws upon an ancient tradition while communicating its concepts in a way that keeps it from sounding too strange to the unaccustomed. I hope my own communication skills will be comparable that I may lead youth into closer fellowship within the life of the Triune God.

Labels: Ministry

Posted by Chris Schelin at Thursday, May 01, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Last week, eight Duke Divinity students showed up in the darkened sanctuary of Watts Street Baptist Church for an abnormal ceremony. Filling the baptistery with water and changing into swimsuits, they stepped into the water two by two...and re-baptized each other. And not just once. Repeatedly. In the name of the Trinity! One guy was immersed at least nine times.

Broken baptismal practice? Hardly. As a matter of fact, it was a very appropriate baptismal practice. For, you see, it was....well, baptism practice. Under Dr. Freeman's leadership several of us future pastors had the opportunity to hone our skills. Actually, it would be more accurate to say we were given the opportunity to create them in the first place. Like good divinity students, we pondered the theological ramifications of our practice session. Should we “baptize” in the name of the Trinity? Or should we do it in the name of Snap, Crackle, and Pop? We decided in favor of the three friends we admire most because the “baptism” was not performed based upon a new profession of faith and with the intention of the church in the sacrament of baptism. However, given that we live on this side of the eschaton, we cannot speak with certitude and there remains the possibility that we shall be smitten (smited, smoted, smoten?) for offering “strange fire upon the altar.” Perhaps in that case, like a traditional candidate for Presbyterian ministry, we could just say we're willing to be damned for the glory of God. Damn – and all that for earning some style points for ministry!

Seriously, though, I appreciate Dr. Freeman's intentional (oh, that Duke Divinity word!) formation of future Baptist clergy for the practices of ordained ministry. In the Free Church class last fall, our midterm was a paper in which we planned an imaginary discipleship class lesson to explain Baptist distinctive to church members. Our final was a heavily-footnoted baptismal liturgy. Although I believe Duke holds much stronger connections with both individual churches and the church universal in its confessional tradition, even in this place where nearly three-fourths of the graduates will enter congregational ministry the emphasis in courses scheduled and academic work assigned within those courses falls heavily in favor of second-order theological reflection. However, as baptist systematic theologian Jim McClendon has reminded us, doctrine is first and foremost a first-order practice and theological reflection is dependent upon the narrated practice of the church. A casual, jokey baptism practice late one Thursday afternoon called eight young Baptists to remember that the discourse of Christian theology begins, and only makes sense, in the tangible and lived experience of congregations living, and calling others into, the faith that calls us to die and rise in the water.

Labels: Baptists, Ministry

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, April 04, 2007 | Permalink | Comments