As faculty in a seminary of the church, we are especially conscious of the importance of intentional spiritual formation for pastoral ministry, the diaconate, and other forms of church leadership. Seminary students must receive the encouragement, urging, and instruction they need in order to find a stable and enlivening pattern of spiritual practice capable of sustaining them over the long haul in life and ministry.

-The LTSS Faculty, “Spirituality and Spiritual Formation”

Here are four questions:

How will you be spiritually sustained during your years in seminary and over the long haul in public ministry?

What is the spiritual life?

Why does Southern Seminary emphasize intentional spiritual formation?

Where do you begin?

Check the link for the answers.

For the nearly 200-year-old General Theological Seminary, which has the bulk of its campus between Ninth and Tenth Avenues and 20th and 21st Streets, the deal was a matter of survival, spokesman Bruce Parker said Thursday.

The institution carries $41 million in debts, a quantity that nearly prevented it from opening for classes this fall, according to Parker. The sale, to the Brodsky Organization, would fully cover those debts, said Parker, who could not provide the total price tag for the deal.

The properties the Seminary is selling off include a residential building known as Chelsea 2, 3, 4, a portion of the schoolyard currently used as a tennis court, and 422 W. 20th Street. The school currently fills the buildings with a mix of dormitories and offices.

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Area Episcopalians elected a church historian and former divinity school president as their 11th bishop Saturday evening after more than seven hours of voting.

The Rev. R. William Franklin, who has been a priest for just five years, but spent nearly 30 years in a variety of Episcopal lay ministry roles, received the majority of votes needed from both clergy and laity of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York on the seventh ballot.

Franklin edged out the Rev. Barbara J. Price, rector of St. Peter’s Church in Amherst and the only local candidate in the four-person race.

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The Oct. 22 fire that quickly destroyed the chapel at Virginia Theological Seminary has been ruled accidental.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced its findings Oct. 28. ATF’s National Response Team, along with ATF special agents from Falls Church, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., worked with the Alexandria Fire Department to investigate the cause of the fire. The federal response is routine when a fire of this size occurs in a house of worship, the seminary and the ATF said.

The fire began in a trash can left near a heater in the sacristy, Susan Shillinglaw, VTS director of communication, told ENS.

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The blaze, which raged through the 19th-century Immanuel Chapel, was described by the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, dean and president of the Episcopal seminary, as a catastrophe.

The blaze was reported about 3:55 p.m., and “the moment the fire took hold, it went down rapidly,” Markham said of large sections of the 129-year-old building. No injuries or damage to other buildings was reported at the facility, on the western side of the city, at Seminary Road and Quaker Lane. The cause was not yet known.

“I watched it,” Markham said. “Within 40 minutes, the heart of the chapel was destroyed. It was a trauma that will stay with me.”

Many members of the Episcopal clergy were ordained in the chapel. It had also been the site of marriages and funerals.

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There is a general headline on the main Washington Post site: “Large fire burns at Alexandria seminary.” Ugh.

Update: I found a slide show of ten pictures here.

The following is from the VTS website:

This afternoon, at 3:55 p.m., the Virginia Theological Seminary community became aware that the historic 129 year old Immanuel Chapel was on fire.

9-1-1 was immediately called, buildings were evacuated and the emergency services responded quickly and efficiently. It is clear that significant damage has occurred, including the loss of the stained glass windows and iconic words “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.”

“At this stage, the cause of the fire is unclear. The VTS Community is saddened and devastated by this catastrophe,” said the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary, said, “The buildings nearby are intact and safe. The ministry and mission of VTS continue, even as the community grieves.”

Founded in 1823, Virginia Theological Seminary is the largest of the 11 accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church. The school prepares men and women for service in the Church worldwide, both as ordained and lay ministers, and offers a number of professional degree programs and diplomas. Currently, the Seminary represents more than 40 different dioceses and nine different countries, for service in the Church.

Americans do not have to believe in God, because they believe that it is a good thing simply to believe: all they need is a general belief in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce interesting atheists in the US. The god most Americans say they believe in is not interesting enough to deny, because it is only the god that has given them a country that ensures that they have the right to choose to believe in the god of their choosing, Accordingly, the only kind of atheism that counts in the US is that which calls into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and happiness.

America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people that believes it should have no story except the story it chose when it had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom.

The problem with that story is its central paradox: you did not choose the story that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story….

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“Anyone who wishes to become a priest must be first and foremost a ‘man of God,’ to use the expression of St. Paul (2 Timothy 6:11). For us God is not some abstract hypothesis; he is not some stranger who left the scene after the “big bang.” God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we see the face of God. In his words we hear God himself speaking to us. It follows that the most important thing in our path towards priesthood and during the whole of our priestly lives is our personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

“The priest is not the leader of a sort of association whose membership he tries to maintain and expand. He is God’s messenger to his people. He wants to lead them to God and in this way to foster authentic communion between all men and women. That is why it is so important, dear friends, that you learn to live in constant intimacy with God. When the Lord tells us to ‘pray constantly,’ he is obviously not asking us to recite endless prayers, but urging us never to lose our inner closeness to God.

“Praying means growing in this intimacy. So it is important that our day should begin and end with prayer; that we listen to God as the Scriptures are read; that we share with him our desires and our hopes, our joys and our troubles, our failures and our thanks for all his blessings, and thus keep him ever before us as the point of reference for our lives. In this way we grow aware of our failings and learn to improve, but we also come to appreciate all the beauty and goodness, which we daily take for granted and so we grow in gratitude. With gratitude comes joy for the fact that God is close to us and that we can serve him.”

May the Lord make us better servants who do what we ought, never focusing on being better than or above others, but recognizing our obligation to be greater servants to others, precisely because we have been given so much, forgiven so much, and blessed so much. May God grant us generous hearts as we serve Him and love him in others! To him be glory forever and ever.

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The four-hour [Union Theological Seminary] session, “Humor in Ministry,” was a kind of seminar in how to do stand-up for God.

The workshop’s leader, the Rev. Susan Sparks, pastor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church on East 31st Street, moonlights as a nightclub comedian. Her adjunct for the day was another stand-up comic with whom she sometimes works, Rabbi Bob A. Alper, who bills himself as “the only practicing rabbi in the world doing stand-up comedy intentionally.”

Ms. Sparks and Rabbi Alper, invited as part of the seminary’s “field-based” program to teach some of the intangibles of ministry not covered in the divinity curriculum, surveyed the arc of potentially humorous situations ”” including weddings, funerals and long, hot summer days when even the sermonizer can lose the thread of a sermon.

They discussed the often-overlooked humor in some passages of the Bible, including Jesus’ use of irony and exaggeration, and the ribaldry in the Book of Esther.

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There are 583 students enrolled at Duke Divinity School. Slightly less than a third are there for their first year. Most are pursuing a master’s of divinity degree. Some are fresh out of undergraduate school, some have spent time in the working world before deciding to pursue their calling. Most are from the Southeast.

For major events, like the opening convocation Aug. 30, they worship in Duke Chapel, the stained-glass cathedral that is as iconic of Duke as Coach K. But students spend most of their time in the buildings next door — Westbrook, Gray and Langford — which house the Divinity School, including Goodson Chapel, its clear glass windows letting in views of God’s creation. The faculty of Duke Divinity School are experts in their field — theologians and authors oft-quoted and studied. The students share the same hallowed halls, but are still sorting out their spiritual education and career paths.

Robert Moses, who is from Ghana, went to undergraduate school at Howard University before coming to Duke for his master’s of divinity degree, which he received in 2008. He is now two years into the New Testament doctoral program at Duke Divinity and one of just 42 doctoral of theology candidates there….

Read more: The Herald-Sun – Spiritual journey

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Check it out: Baroness Caroline Cox, Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi, now retired Bishop Tom Wright, and others.

You can find information on St Paul’s Theological School here and the classes offered there.

i would appreciate your prayers–KSH.

In the annals of Stephen McCray Smith’s stellar academic career — ranging from undergraduate study at Stanford University to more than two decades as a professor at Trinity Seminary in Ambridge — the 1963 school year at Multnomah University in Oregon stands out as an exception.

“We didn’t get very good grades that year,” laughed his wife, Joyce, who was an undergraduate there while Dr. Smith was in graduate school. “We fell in love in the fall and got married in June.”

Dr. Smith died Sunday from Parkinson’s disease. He was 70.

“He was just a great teacher,” said Bishop John Rodgers, former dean and president of Trinity Seminary who hired Dr. Smith in 1981 to teach Christian doctrine and ethics. “He gave his students a sense that they’d really have a chance to master something — not just survey it.”

One of God’s truly marvelous saints–he preaching at our wedding. Read it all–KSH.

CT: When you just said, “The Episcopal church is the embodiment of much that Wesley cared about,” I think you are referring to a particular congregation and not the denomination as a whole.

SH: I say, “We’re all congregationalists now.” I don’t particularly like it, but we are. How to ensure given that reality that Eucharistic assemblies are not separate from each other is one of the great challenges before us. The role of the bishop is very important to make sure that Eucharistic assemblies are not isolated from one another. There are also other ways to do it. Certainly sending people from one congregation to another helps. But how we recover Christian unity in the world in which we find ourselves is a deep challenge. By “unity,” I don’t mean just agreement about ecclesial organization; I mean the refusal of Christians to kill one other. I think that the division of the church that has let nationalism define Christian identity is one of the great judgments against the Reformation in particular.

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The Church of Uganda has established a seminary, the first in the western region. Bishop McAllister Anglican Seminary, which was founded by the West Ankole Diocese, was inaugurated on Sunday in Sheema district.

However, unlike the Catholic seminaries which admit single-sex students, this one admits both sexes.

John Kateshumbwa said the seminary has been long overdue because the society has had generations which have not been morally upright.

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The Rev. Lang Lowrey, Interim President of the General Theological Seminary (GTS) announced today the appointment of the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, as Interim Dean of GTS, the Episcopal Church’s oldest theological seminary. The former Bishop of Virginia and one of the Church’s longest-serving bishops, Bishop Lee currently serves San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral as Interim Dean.

After the Seminary’s 12th Dean and President, the Very Rev. Ward B. Ewing, announced in December of 2009 his intention to retire, Trustees of the Seminary formed a search committee under the leadership of trustee Dr. Michael Gilligan. Upon recommendation from the committee and in light of serious financial challenges faced by the school, Trustees decided in June 2010 to divide the post of Dean and President into separate positions. On June 9, 2010 the Rev. Lang Lowrey was selected as Interim President and charged with financial and administrative oversight of the school and was vested with all the constitutional powers previously lodged with the Dean and President. Meanwhile the search continued for a new Interim Dean to be responsible for day-to-day operations of the Seminary including oversight of its academic programs.

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Faith in a crucified Christ allows Hauerwas to continue his work with what seems like indefatigable energy. It also inspired him to argue that the “we” in a “we are at war” response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, could not possibly be a Christian “we.” One might suggest that such a challenge was not a far cry from Stanley Hauerwas, age 7, who innocently challenged the etiquette of the water kegs available for bricklayers with one cup designated for white and another for black workers. Young Hauerwas drank indiscriminately from either one. The difference now, 60 or so years later, is that Hauerwas intentionally chooses to drink from the cup that unites us all as sons and daughters of God, no matter the consequences.

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Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?

I am a Christian — I love the Lord Jesus. Christ is the prism through which I interpret everything. I don’t interpret the world in terms of complicated bundles of atoms that are ultimately purposeless, but I see everything as an example of the agency and the love of God, and everything held in God’s eternal loving gaze.

How can you trust that your Christian beliefs are correct?

The way of the world is that all knowledge is provisional — it is human constructs in conversation with experience. Therefore, all of us should hold what we believe about the world with some humility.

Now, why I believe what I believe is because it makes more sense of the complexities of human life than the alternatives. My experience of morality, of beauty, of love — all these things point to the divine, which makes theism more likely than atheism. And then if you ask how can I believe in a God that allows so much suffering? Part of the answer is that I can only believe in God provided I know God knows what it’s like to suffer — and that is the Christian claim, that God knows human suffering. So, for me, it has the ring of truth, more so than the alternatives.

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Who are these robed in white, and where do they come from? They are the witnesses to the truth, and they have come through the great ordeal without capitulating to the comfortable lies of a society that urges them to relax, fit in, and enjoy the benefits distributed by Caesar.

From start to finish the Book of Revelation juxtaposes the truth of the gospel to the lies and illusions of powers that try to deceive the saints and lead them away from allegiance to the one true God of Israel who acted in Jesus Christ for the salvation””the soteria””of the world. The entire book calls us to discern the truth and to make a choice. So, in John’s vision, the martyrs in the heavenly throneroom are models for us. They diagnose our true condition by showing that the world serves false gods, and they offer us a model to be emulated: like them, we must worship only the one true God, and put our lives on the line for our testimony to him.

Wayne Meeks writes about the Book of Revelation, “The business of this writing is to stand things on their heads in the perceptions of its audience, to rob the established order of the most fundamental power of all: its sheer facticity. The moral strategy of the Apocalypse, therefore, is to destroy common sense as a guide for life.”

That is what the testimony of the saints does for us: to destroy common sense as a guide for life….

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Representatives of European theological faculties and church theological institutes have warned against universities dropping the teaching of theology in favour of religious studies that are seen as a more general approach.

“Theology has a major role to play within the university by countering stereotypes, demonstrating ways of dealing with religious conflict, and working out its own unique specificity in dialogue with other disciplines,” said Orthodox Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, the president of the Conference of European Churches.

He was speaking in the Austrian city of Graz at a meeting of theological faculties in Europe.

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Herewith the blurb about it.

On July 1 The General Theological Seminary (GTS) reached agreement in principle with its chief lending institution, Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company (M&T Bank) on terms for a $5.3 million short term loan that will provide working capital for the upcoming school year, the Rev. Lang Lowrey, GTS Interim President, announced in a recent letter to trustees. While subject to definitive agreements and final approval by both institutions, the plan provides General with a $5.3 million line of credit on which it can draw for operating expenses until the Seminary proceeds as planned with the sale of four residential units in the building known as Chelsea 2,3,4. The loan will be repaid from the proceeds of the sale which could take up to a year. At a special meeting in March, 2010 Trustees were made aware of an impending cash shortfall that could affect Seminary operations as early as the fall of this year. At their meeting in May, 2010 the Board approved the sale of up to four apartments in Chelsea 2,3,4. Since the building was renovated six years ago, three of the four apartments to be sold have been leased to outside tenants.

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Read it all: Part one is here and part two is there (many thanks to Christian book dot com).

By the time she graduated from Vanderbilt Divinity School in May 2009, the Rev. Kara Hildebrandt could translate a passage from the Greek New Testament with relative ease, write a sermon like a pro and pass her ordination exams with flying colors.

Finding a job as a pastor?

That was a bit more difficult.

A combination of many preachers, too many small churches and a bad economy have led to one of the worst job markets for ministers in decades. That has led to the so-called clergy glut. According to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, there are more than 600,000 ministers in the United States but only 338,000 churches. Many of those are small churches that can’t afford a full-time preacher. Among Presbyterians, there are four pastors looking for work for every one job opening.

That has left many good pastors out in the cold, waiting before finding a new job or finding alternative employment, denominational leaders say.

Read the whole article.

Bruce Waltke built a national reputation teaching the Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) for more than 20 years. But in March, when he seemed to challenge evangelicals in a video interview to consider the possibility of evolution or risk being seen as a “cult,” Waltke’s scholarly life exploded.

Seminary administrators asked Waltke to have the video removed from the website of BioLogos, a nonprofit promoting the integration of Christianity and science. Waltke promptly did so, but the video already had kicked up controversy. In early April, the renowned scholar resigned from RTS’s Orlando campus.

Waltke’s video addressed the barriers evangelicals face in considering the possibility of evolution, a process he believes is guided and sustained by God. Waltke said that “if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult ”¦ some odd group that is not really interacting with the world.”

My Old Testament Professor for two years when I began graduate school in a land far away a long time ago, and one of God’s great saints. Read it all–KSH.

Seminary campuses grew quiet this week with the 2009-10 academic year now ended, but that quiet belies vigorous — and by turns upbeat and cautious — discussions about the future of theological education.

As the year was beginning, a re-configured Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, had just sold its property to nearby Northwestern University, using the $13 million to pay off its debt and balance its budget.

While it ended its master of divinity degree the year before, Seabury this year began a joint doctor of ministry degree in congregational development with the Church Divinity School of the Pacific 2,100 miles away in Berkeley, California. It is an example, the school has said, of what it calls its new mission: to “embod[y] generous Christianity, grounded in the Baptismal Covenant and the Episcopal tradition, as we educate lay and ordained women and men for ministry, build faith communities, and enrich people in their faith.”

In deciding to sell property, Seabury took a further step on a path that Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Episcopal Divinity School went down in March 2008 when it sold some of its buildings to Lesley University for $33.5 million and entered into a partnership that includes academic program enhancements and shared facilities for uses such as library, student dining and services, and campus maintenance.

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Lord God, in whose providence Jackson Kemper was chosen first missionary bishop in this land, that by his arduous labor and travel congregations might be established in scattered settlements of the West: Grant that the Church may always be faithful to its mission, and have the vision, courage, and perseverance to make known to all peoples the Good News of Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

After a decade-long clergy shortage in America’s pulpits, Christian denominations are now experiencing a clergy glut — with some denominations reporting two ministers for every vacant pulpit.

“We have a serious surplus of ministers and candidates seeking calls,” said Marcia Myers, director of the vocation office for the Presbyterian Church (USA), which has four ministers for every opening.

The cause of the sudden turnaround: blame the bad economy.

According to PC(USA) data, there are 532 vacancies for 2,271 ministers seeking positions. The Assemblies of God, United Methodist Church, Church of the Nazarene and other Protestant denominations also report significant surpluses.

Cash-strapped parishioners — who were already aging and shrinking in number — have given less to their churches, resulting in staff cuts. Meanwhile, older clergy who saw their retirement funds evaporate are delaying retirement, leaving fewer positions available to younger ministers.

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The notion that enrollments at theological schools rise in tough economic times did not hold true for Protestant and Catholic seminaries in North America this academic year. In fact, over the past three years, the total student population slipped about 6 percent””down to 75,500 from a three-year plateau in mid-decade when more than 80,000 students were studying theology.

“The idea of going back to school seems to have worked for U.S. education in general,” said Daniel Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools, but not for seminaries, whose enrollment slid again in the past year about 2 percent, according to ATS data released in April.

Mainline Protestant schools have seen enrollments rise and fall over the past decade. Between the fall of 2000, when student bodies totaled 22,651, and last fall, when they had 22,068, mainline seminaries had peak years of 24,133 in 2002 and 24,024 in 2005.

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