The Call Process

I am preaching a candidating sermon on September 11.

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The Process

That's how we refer to it: the process.  In the Presbyterian Church, it's a long and involved one; at least one of the nearby Presbyteries has organized it into a spreadsheet, and I think there are 42 steps.  Maybe 47.  A lot of people have asked me what it means that I've passed the exams, or have presumed that that means that I'm ordained.  So, a little primer for my friends:

First, you need to know that our theology of authority and government is grounded in community and democratic process. (Don't worry; I'm not going to impose my 20-page polity exam on you!) It's quite distinct from the episcopal process in the Catholic and Methodist churches, in which certain decisions come down from on high.  Therefore, once we have satisfied all requirements, we are not ordained en masse by a bishop and then assigned a call.  In our system, we are ordained into a specific call -- usually a church, but sometimes a chaplaincy, or sometimes an academic or administrative position.  Once ordained, always ordained --  but that first call comes out of community ~ for instance: a church, a hospital, or a seminary.  A candidate is ordained by her presbytery (our version of a Catholic diocese or a Methodist conference), which has overseen her "process" ~  usually in her home church, which has sponsored her ~  and then installed in the church or other institution she will be serving ~ which may be in a different presbytery, in a different state.

The basic requirements in my presbytery: earn an M.Div. degree, complete a unit (400 hours) of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), complete a year-long field education experience of 10-15 hours a week in a church or other setting.  Show up each year for an assessment with the presbytery's Committee on Preparation for Ministry (CPM). Pass a psychological evaluation, which takes two days here.  Pass the five ordination exams. Some presbyteries don't require CPE; some require two different field placements.  Most will give exceptions or offer alternatives for multiple exam disasters, particularly in the languages.  Of course, things can go wrong at various points along the way.  Oddly enough, despite the death of my son, my process has been a smooth one thus far. (An exam retake is not an unusual glitch.)

I'm now at the point at which I seek my CPM's certification to receive a call.  That means that in November I will go to the CPM meeting where I will preach a sermon, defend my Statement of Faith, and review with the committee the form of fill-in-the-blanks and short essay questions that is submitted to churches looking for pastors.  If all goes well (and sometimes it doesn't), I will be certified to contact churches and respond to their contacting me.

Let's assume that someday there's a match.  The contract of call is among the church, the pastor, and the presbytery, so a candidate called by a church appears before a presbytery meeting at which anyone can ask her pretty much anything.  It's up to the presbytery to approve the call, and then . . .and only then . . .

Ordination and Installation. 

There's still a long  way to go.

Sunday Stuff

~ Went to my home church today.  We were honoring graduates, so I got some nice hugs. 

~ The gospel text today is the story of the "sinful" woman in Luke who weeps and kisses Jesus' feet as she anoints them with oil and wipes them with her hair.  (During Lent, I preached on the version of this story that appears in John's gospel.) Four reasons why I love my church: (1) In her introductory remarks, one of our pastors made the point that whenever Jesus interacts with a woman, something significant is going on, and since this story of his interaction with a woman is told in in all four gospels, we are talking major significance.  (2) I can characterize her remarks as "introductory" because today the sermon was a congregational group discussion rather than a pastoral homily.  (3) One of the folks who spoke up said that she thinks that Jesus and this woman must have had a previous encounter, and always wonders about that back story.  (Great sermon topic there.)(Or discussion topic.)  (4)  Instead of the usual focus on forgiveness that this story generates, our emphasis this morning was on Jesus' extension of inclusion in community. All good stuff, all hallmarks of our church.

~ One of Josh's high school teachers and his wife have recently joined our church, and so I pulled him aside to talk to tell him about Josh.  As it turned out, he knew that Josh had died, but not how.  The strangest thing: after a conversation like that, I always think: OK, all done; he'll be back tonight.

~ I am trying to create an account so that I can sign up to re-take my Exegesis exam.  The length of confirmation time is not bolstering my confidence in the PC(USA) capability for online registration.

~ I am also trying to get my passport application finished.  I realized last week that I can't just dash up to Algonquin to scatter ashes because my passport is no longer valid.

~ My hair is much shorter and browner than it was at my graduation a week ago.

~ I am going to another graduation today, that of the Jewish school at which I once taught.  In fact, I taught all of the seniors who were there then in both 8th and 9th grade, so I know them well.   There will be some screeching.  "Ms. Craig!  Ms. Craig!  Are you a rabbi yet?!"  Well, no ~ there is this little matter of YOUR language . . .       .

~ My father is quite ill.  My family's dynamics are challenging at their best, but I will probably plunge into the middle of them later this week.

~ Another good thing about my church: our summer lay preachers series.  (How I got started in the pulpit!)  A friend sent me his first sermon draft ever a few hours ago.  I must be at a new place, if people are sending me drafts to critique.

~ My imaginary walk has gotten me to Nauset Beach.  Another scene of high school adventures.  I could never stand up on a surfboard, so maybe misadventures is the more appropriate term.

Hope (Daily Photo 3)

This one, too, is from Church of the Saviour.

Thanks to the focused attentiveness brought on by my picture taking, I checked out the words over one of the side doors.  I don't think that I had any idea that there were any words there at all, which only goes to show how completely oblivious one can be ~  walking in and out of a door over a period of 25 years and having NO IDEA that its designers or builders wanted you to understand its significance in a particular way.

Which, today, is twofold.  First, the verse itself (and I had to go home and look  it up, because I'm not one of those people who knows those kinds of things), from Isaiah 56:7:

"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people."

As a spiritual director and future pastor, I'm thinking that that's a very nice sense of mission for a church indeed.

And second:  As I was trying to work my way around the steps and railing, to take the picture the words that came into focus are those above, from the very center.  Now we in the PC(USA) today struggle to understand what we mean by "all."  Or we struggle to be in a church that doesn't mean the same thing by "all" that we do.

So when I saw those words over the very center of the door, I thought:

Hope.