Category: Faith

I’ve been dying to write about last week’s Candidacy retreat but, alas, I have not found a moment to put my thoughts down on electric pixels. However, I would like to announce to everyone that just because you turn in your Approval essay to your candidacy committee and affiliated seminary, that does not mean that such a document is firmly locked in stone. If, like me, you discover typos and bad grammar while en-route to your faculty interview, you can send a quick email to the head of your candidacy committee and ask if you can make some changes and replace it. There’s a chance that they’ll say yes.

So, my updated essay is now emailed to the Synod’s office. This will be printed out and handed to the candidacy committee for review prior to December 14. I’m currently waiting to see the report my faculty committee drew up and what will actually be presented to the faculty at LTSP on Tuesday, November 12. So many things to wait for and do. God willing, I’ll start working on the mobility papers this weekend. But, let’s be honest – when it comes to my to-do list, hope springs eternal.

It happened – the Lutherans took over General’s Chapel.

Yesterday, at our Thursday Eucharist, the Lutherans of the Metropolitan New York Synod stormed into the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, and spread law and gospel all over the place. Our six foot tall bishop with his 20 foot tall hat, with a mighty whack of his boot, battered those doors down and we, like our barbarian and viking ancestors of old, poured into that place and, let me tell you, we processed the hell out of that place! Luther himself would have been proud – some of us even sung “A Mighty Fortress” in GERMAN. We Lutheranized the place, taking over the liturgy, the space, and even using the words law and gospel from the pulpit.

It was beautiful.

I am not the biggest fan of high mass worship services (or even calling Lutheran worship services mass) but we tore that place up. The pastors of St. Peter’s organized everything, bringing their own vestments, choir, organist, and deacons to the service. The service was intentionally designed to be welcoming to our episcopalian friends by including a thurifer, incense, smells (but no bells) and even praying for the Archbishop in the prayers of the people (along with all our other ecumenical partners). The service even had me as a sub-deacon. Sub-deacon! I still don’t even know what that was (but my episcopalian friends were really confused and thought I was ordained already). But I did get to serve alongside the bishop. That was fun.

We had around 65 students, professors, alumni, and guests present. Bishop Rimbo preached a fine service and the gluten free bread provided by St. Peter’s was actually delicious. We filled the chapel with sound and singing, outdoing any Episcopalian service that I’ve been to yet. And we made sure that the entire service was in the bulletin. Not having to use three different books during the service blew everyone’s minds. The comments from the student body to me have been nothing but positive. They loved it. They want to see more of it. And, I’m with them on this because I found this whole thing awesome.

But (and there’s always a but) I’m still struggling with the very idea of this kind of worship service itself. There are, at most, three Lutherans on campus. We’re minority and we get that. We also understand the Chapel of the Good Shepherd to be this community’s sacred space. But the very source of how this happened – where the Lutheran liturgy was transplanted into the community from outside of it, that bothers me. The service only worked because we brought in our own choir, organist, and vestments. I felt like being a member of a band on tour. We came in, setup our stuff, had an amazing show, and then packed up and left. Even though law and gospel was preached, the sacraments celebrated, and worship was done beautifully and well, we were still a show. This wasn’t a service rooted from within the community, it was a showcase. And that gets me because the Lutheran liturgy isn’t a showcase. It’s worship but worship for a gathered community. It comes out of the community that the Holy Spirit has called to be at this specific place and at this specific time. The community carries with it tradition, history, understanding, hopes, loss, fears, doubts, joy, anger, and everything else. All of that feeds into the liturgy that speaks to the community. The Lutheran liturgy, when done well, is fed by the gathered community and by God. It isn’t a show – it is the place where God promises to be and where we can, as the gathered community, reliably meet God in a very earthly way. The community at General isn’t Lutheran and that’s okay. And it’s fine to do a worship service, every once in awhile, that showcases the vastness of Christian history and experience. But it can never be just for show. If it is, then it really can’t be called worship, can it? But, well, it was a lot of fun filling that Chapel with Lutheran sounds, words, images, and noise. And I did look good standing up there, yessir. And it felt downright subversive to say ” “the blood of Christ for you” during communion in that space. So maybe I was the barbarian in that space. I’m okay with that.

The next stage in my ordination process? The dreaded faculty interview.

Dun dun ddduuuunnnnnnnnnnn!

Yesterday I woke up early, put on a suit and tie, and headed to Penn Station to jump on the Bolt Bus to Philadelphia. The seats were not as comfy as I remembered, nor were their cup holders, but I was off to the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia for my faculty interview.

For those of you who don’t know, the faculty interview is part of the candidacy process. After my internship evaluation forms are submitted (which didn’t happen till October 10th – I know, I know), I’m required to visit the seminary I am affiliated with (LTSP) and be interviewed by various faculty members. These faculty members (two) are, in essence, a sub-committee for the entire faculty body. The candidate (i.e. me) am interviewed and the two faculty members write a report. The report will be presented to the entire faculty in November. The entire faculty body has an opportunity to amend, change, or enquire about that report. After the report is given (and/or modified), the faculty votes and sends a recommendation to my candidacy committee in New York. They can recommend that I should be approved for ordination, delay my ordination, or that I should not be ordained at all. Based on that recommendation, my candidacy committee in New York has the option of going one step “up” or “down” from what the faculty recommend. So, if the faculty said my ordination should be delayed, the candidacy committee is “allowed” to change that up one (I should be ordained) or down one (I should be denied). If the candidacy committee does make this change, the faculty must be re-consultant and a conversation between the faculty and the candidacy committee will ensue. There is, in theory, a chance that the candidacy committee could jump two steps (say, from denial to approval or approval to denial). If that happened, I’m not sure what processes would need to be followed but I’m hoping it would involve a very un-hilarious version of ABC’s “Wipe Out.”

Most of this process, especially the bit about the back and forth between the faculty and the candidacy committee, I did not know. My two faculty interviewers explained it to me before the beginning of our chat. They also told me that anything was fair game; they could ask any question about anything. Six weeks ago, I was asked who I wanted on my panel so I picked the two professors who I knew the best and who knew me the best based on my classwork. Before the interview began, I sat in a comfy chair and was promptly asked to step out of the room so that the two could develop their game plan. After ten minutes, I was ushered back in. I took my seat, the process was explained, and away we went. We chatted for an hour.

I had a lot of fun.

I’ll be able to report the final verdict once the November faculty meeting takes place but I really found the whole thing affirming and invigorating. I got to talk about faith, the church, the role of Word and Sacrament, and myself for an hour. Who doesn’t love talking about themselves? And it was worth the ridiculous commute. I left my apartment at 6:45 am and arrived at the seminary at 11:15 am. I left the seminary at 1:30 pm and arrived back at my apartment at 5:45 pm. I even had enough time to kiss the wife, hug the toddler, and see the back of a bunch of bishops during the installation of my seminary’s new dean before I had to rush uptown to a church council meeting. One more step finished in the process. Next up, fixing my approval essay (there are SO many typos in it), a candidacy retreat next Friday, then submitting a 16 page resume to the churchwide body by December 1.

I’m getting closer, God-willing.

One of the more irksome realities of seminary living is having to purchase the meal plan. Usually, the food is pretty terrible, expensive, or both. My work schedule is so constant that if I have any free time, I am 70 blocks north and not on the seminary campus. And the seminary meal plan only covers one meal – lunch. It kicked off 3 weeks ago during orientation week. I’ve eaten there four times. The food is good, mind you, but I’m not a vegetarian so the fact that there are plenty of meat options make me happy (and I really love the cookies they provide). I also know that my funding of the meal plan is really helping to support the staff (including the wonderful ladies who watch Oliver all week long), faculty, facility workers, administrators, receptionists, and executives enjoy a meal while I’m at work. The meal plan is $1350 a semester. Since I’ve eaten lunch four times, each meal cost me $337.50. That is why I typically overload my plates and have seconds – I want to make it count.

I’m curious what my per meal cost will be once December hits. At this rate, I think I’m pushing 28 meals for the entire semester (making sure to not include Thanksgiving week or my fall break) which would give me a per meal cost of $48.21. There’s no meal a seminary can put together, even in the heart of NYC, that is worth that much.