Aaaaaaaaaaaargghhh!!! The madness, the madness!
That's me going slightly insane from staying inside all day trying to finish writing my ordination papers. Well, technically they're commissioning papers, as I won't be eligible for full ordination for three years yet, but it's all toward the same goal. And no one knows what commissioning papers are in the context of the church.
And mostly no one cares, except the Board of Ordained Ministry, the group of clergy and laity who will examine me in February (assuming I get all this paperwork turned in on time!!) to make sure (a) I can articulate my personal faith and intellectual/historical/critical perspectives on Scripture, church history, theology, the United Methodist tradition, doctrine, my personal ethical standard, the Wesleyan quadrilateral, etc., and (b) when I do so, I stay within certain bounds of "acceptable" Christian teaching.
They're nice people, I'm sure, and I believe in the importance of the connectional church - it's how we do good work in mission, how we support each other and hold one another accountable in covenant, how we bear witness to the good news of God's love in diverse situations and circumstances - but honestly, sometimes the bureaucracy of institutional processes becomes so many flaming hoops and daggers to pass through in order to receive the stamp of the church's authority on one's ministry. The nature of the beast, I suppose. And it would have helped if I had gotten more of the writing done before Advent and Christmas craziness took over my life in December. Still... you spend a few days cooped up staring at a computer and trying for the umpteenth time to explain your beliefs on the nature and mission of the church in the world today, you start to wish there were a more streamlined way of going about all this.
Okay, whining done.
Christmas Eve services went well, and I think our Christmas morning brunch fellowship was a good call for the community we serve; we'd worshiped our heads off the night before, so sharing table fellowship and singing Christmas carols was a nice change of pace. I think it was also a good compromise between full-on worship just because it's Sunday and canceling worship because it's Christmas and people want to be with their families.
My own family Christmas itself was nice, worth the long flight from Denver to New Hampshire on Christmas Day to see my parents and brother and do presents and dinner on the 26th. I'll head back to Denver for New Year's Eve, but haven't decided whether I'll try to find some celebratory festivities that night or not. I have to be at church again on January 1 (because, after all, it is Sunday, and that's what we do), but we're having a performance of "The Gift of the Magi" from a local theatre school, so that should also be a good change from "worship as usual" (which will resume January 8).
How about y'all out there? Traditions, innovations, surprises this Christmas?
Okay. Back to the fray. And by "fray," I mean "finishing these darn commissioning papers tonight if it kills me - not that that would be helpful toward my goal of ordination."
3 comments:
Hey--good luck w/your commissioning papers. Gotta love the hoops.
thanks, amy - i got them all turned in on friday, so now i just have to prepare for the oral exams next month... for which i have to fly back to new england again. [sigh.] this, too, shall pass.
Ooh--that sucks that you're being processed in New England. When I was going through it in Minnesota but living on the East Coast, the psychological review looked like it was going to be impossible. But that's another story. I'm sure you'll fly through the oral exams.
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