MASadmin – Page 88 – Pocket Sized Pastor*

Quick Hits

I really need to get back to work but I’d like to share with you two tidbits of information.

1) The new ELCA call process forms did not go live on December 9. They are now scheduled to be unleashed in “early 2014”. Formatta filler lives on.

2) LTSP is looking for a program director to oversee a new Masters of Divinity program called “The Cooperative model.”

In this model, a student does full-time coursework and part-time work in a congregation over the course of three years. The student gains insight and longer-term experience in congregational leadership, receives intentional and intensive spiritual formation, and has tuition and fees covered by work in the congregation. Congregations gain the benefit of nurturing and supporting a future leader and consistent leadership over the course of three years. Congregations that can no longer afford a full-time pastor may benefit from this model.

General Seminary has talked about something similar but is calling it a ‘Wisdom Year.’ The final year of seminary is spent half-time in school, half-time at a church, with the hope that the church would pay the tuition and housing of the student (and possibly nothing else). One of the first questions most seminarians are asking is “what church is going to give a seminarian control of the budget?”

Discuss.

Who has two thumbs, a gray cap, and is going to write a senior thesis next semester?

This guy.

A few hours ago, I trifolded three pages carrying the entire sum of my thesis proposal for next semester. After securing the signatures of my supervisor (General’s professor of systematics) and my second reader (one of General’s professors of history) at lunch time, I popped in my 100 word thesis proposal, a really minimal outline, and an initial bibliography with 25 sources on it. Come April 15th, and after about 8,000 to 15,000 words, I’m going to have a thesis. I’m excited. But I’m probably most excited about the title: Tweet Tarshish.

This thing is going to be epic. It is going to be stellar. It is going to require countless hours of research to develop just the right graphic to brand it. Ahhhh. I can’t wait.

I’m plugged in

Yesterday I received word that my forms successfully implanted themselves into the hive mind that is the ELCA database of available pastors. After two forms, twenty pages, and countless questions that are a tad too focused on the “Jesus loves me” style of theological reflection, everything worked. For the moment at least, I’m full mobilized and online. Let’s see come December 9, when the system is completely replaced by something brand new, if my data is still all there. And I hope it is. I was even told that I did a good job filling those forms out. Let’s hope that a few bishops/assistants-to-bishops agree with that assessment – I do need a job.

So, with that, well, I’m in the system. This is getting real.

Why the taco? Because I’m doing an Advent devotion and taking a picture based on one word a day. Today’s word is joy. I think this taco ornament works for that.

Links for November 30, 2013

Yoshi’s Island | November 21, 2013 | Kurt Snyder via Sarah J

An ancient wine cellar from 1700 BCE | November 22, 2013 | NY Times

A Meal is a Funeral For Your Food | November 22, 2013 | tooth paste for dinner

The Bifurcated Recovery in jobs | November 12, 2013 | The Big Picture

American Inequality in 6 charts | November 18, 2013 | The New Yorker via The Big Picture

Software engineering in crisis | November 21, 2013 | Naked Capitalism

The 40 Year Slump | The American Prospect

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving! May taters bless your plate and make your life pleasant, creamy, buttery, and fun.

Stick a fork in me…

I am almost done.

My forms for assignment in February are due on Sunday. Being the gentleman that I am, I waited till the last week to try and submit them. The form ABR, four pages in length, needed to be emailed to the churchwide offices. That was easy. The form RLP, twenty pages in length, needed to be submitted online through an archaic piece of software that only works on Windows. I submitted it about thirty times before I discovered that the reason why it wasn’t working was because I left one tiny field unfilled. It finally went through this morning. With the form RLP submitted, I sent everything off to my synod office. The forms are in. WOOHOO!

And, now, I wait. My Approval interview is in two weeks. Restriction decisions will be emailed back to me around Christmas (I’m asking to be located in Metro New York or New Jersey because, well, life). Based on what happens there, I either enter the February assignment process or a quasi-limbo world that might, just might, be Lutheran purgatory. I didn’t know it existed but it does; it does.

Christ the liturgical dance

As we end this last Sunday of the church year, may this bring you fully into the new Advent season.

I should wear shades to class every day

With the leaves falling off the trees in droves, I am currently in allergy mode. This means my mood is less than pleasant. As an identical twin, I knew this day would come. I knew that my sinuses would eventually revolt against my well being. I’ve watched my brother suffer with these issues since we were little, but only in the last year did my allergies actively start kicking my butt. So, at this moment, many things bug me at the moment. In fact, maybe all the things bug me right now. And as I sit here, at this exact moment, what I’m mot tired of is reminding everyone at my seminary that I’m Lutheran. From being asked to take the Episcopal church’s ordination exam, to being assumed I’m ordained just because I served with my bishop, to having to spend my history class learning about the English reformation, I’m just tired of it. I’m here, I’m Lutheran, deal with it.