I wanted to use the time in an installation service ot review some of the points of ministyr in my eyes.
preach-I do not find the bible easy reading. I do find it a receding horizon where more can be discovered wihtin its precious pages. further, it is a door into one’s own self and one’s communities.I work hard at it, for it is my contention that the people deserve sustained attention to what emerges fromt he passages in reflection and prayer.It is saying out loud the whispers we hear from God through the bible and our lives.
teach-we have always, always prided ourselves as a thinking faith as Presbyterians. In Calvin’s view, once a human life and community find a place with god we constantly are involved in a school for christianity across the board to learn of how to see and live life through a Christian lens.-these gowns are less symbols of being clergy but a demonstrations of the ancient name that we have restored, the teaching elder.what we are to do is expose the height and depth and length and breadth of the faith.Learning to listen is a vital habit, for others teach all of the time.
pastoral care/spiritual care-finding god in the everyday-finding god’s hand in the everyday
every person’s life , every person’s body every person;s heart is a gateway to the osul, to the realm beyond.Like it or not, clergy do represent the care and indwelling presence of god in good times such as a wedding and in the hard and difficult moments of anxiety in a hospital room or grief.We invoke the presence of the eternal one, the holy one into moments not seen as holy. Oh that we could magically heal, and sometimes we do see it. Most of the time, we help eachother see that God is with us, has not forsaken/abandoned us, but works iwth us and through us and even suffers with us in our trials. It is both keeping a respectful distance from experience sof others but offering the gift, one prayers, of compassion and even empathy in our often stormy troubled lives.
humility is not a virtue that we commonly associate with clergy.. Humility derives its anem from the soil; at its best, it means that we seek be be grounded in normal life, rooted in the bible. Humility also picks up the fundamental equality of being made in the image and likeness of God, Part of the marvel of vocation is that we bring skills sets and severe limitations to any place where are to bloom where we are planted.
patience is not a virtue that comes easily to me. things take time in the church. Since I am most definitely not a CEO of a business, all the tools given us are oriented toward patience, incremental steps in process as well as product. I don;t know if many of pastoral activity can be well-measured. So the only direct power a pastor has in in sleecting bible readings and the hymns, and both of those here are shared iwht the common lectionary and with our music people.
install like a carpet? less about the individual and more about the position where they are being placed. Notice the passive construction there. Just as we are called to a vocation, we are placed/installed to a position. Bring life, the spirit of life, to what we do. It is an installation to having a place in this particular place and time to work a tthe timeless work of god
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