An Investment in God's People

"What difference does it make, homoousios (of the same substance) or homoiousios (of like substance)? "What's the difference between an idol and an icon?" "Do we believe in the perseverence of the saints -- in eternal security?"

Such are the questions -- along with many others -- that I've enjoyed hearing and responding two over the past two weeks at our local denominational seminary.

Friday marked the last day of my classroom commitment to the Course of Study School for this year. COS is a program of The United Methodist Church, an alternative to seminary, a condensed track for those second-career pastors and assorted laborers in the Lord's vineyard who are already working, and for whatever reason (such as an ongoing day job) cannot take three years out for a regular seminary curriculum.

For me, it is two weeks of joy as I have the privilege of opening the vault and turning the lights on to the Christian past for colleagues who are already "in the trenches". Thus I hold a special place in my heart for the COS folks. This is not to take away from regular seminarians -- some of whom, like my own assistant, are also student pastors. But year after year, the COS students are like sponges, eager to learn. They are fielding the questions about the meaning of the sacraments. They are sitting in the hospital emergency rooms offering pastoral care to those families who are struggling with the theology of death and resurrection in the midst of excruciating emotional pain. They are confronting the well-intentioned dragons of parish life: those who want to fight to the death about the color of the carpet or who has a key to the organ -- as Jesus put it, tithing mint and dill and cumin while the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faith go unattended for a broken and dying world around them.

I get to teach them. But often, I find some of my heroes among them.

Sometimes, it happens in the most obvious of ways. "Dr. Harrell, a member of my church who has been battling cancer just died. I know I'm supposed to be here ... but the funeral is set for Tuesday ...." Of course you belong with that family. At other times, it's the stories of personal vocation in motion, like the law-enforcement officer of the Rocky Mountain region who spends his vacation learning the skills and disciplines he needs to attend a small flock in his hometown. Or the second-career pastor who is pouring her heart and soul out to a dying two-point charge (one church "appointment" with two churches on it) that have already pre-rejected her because of her gender.

The Course of Study is not new. Back in my young buck days when I was a seminarian, I researched the service record of Emmett Eugene Harrell, my great-grandfather. "E.E." was a native North Carolinian, who began his service in the Virginia Conference in 1883, at a time when that conference included a piece of the Old North State. Later, when the conference boundaries were adjusted to conform to the state lines, he was already living in Virginia, and decided to stay there. He was something of a rare bird in his time: studied the theological curriculum at Vanderbilt (then just two years), and, his record said, "completed the course of study" in order to become a probationary member -- then called a member "on trial". Like going to law school and studying for the bar.

There is some talk about bringing back such a system: seminary plus course of study. The question, though, is the ongoing one about whether that would actually bring depth to our candidates for ministry, or whether it's just one more way in which we respond to problems by adding yet another hoop for people to jump through on their way into ministry ... hoops which too often beat the creativity, initiative and -- let's be honest -- spiritual spunk and chutzpah right out of them as we socialize them into the dark side of denominational and conference politics. We seem to be less tolerant of personal rough edges -- and the sharpening they can bring -- than the early Church was. It's doubtful to me that a Paul or Peter or Thomas, a Polycarp or a Cyprian or a Basil, could make it through the candidacy process today.

Meanwhile, the lectures are done for this year. There are still essay questions to grade -- well over a hundred of them -- but this annual chore pales to insignificance when I think of those students, and every year there are a few, for whom the delights of the Christian past come alive, and who light up like Christmas decorations as they get turned on to just how rich and wonderful -- and exasperating and chaotic and yeasty -- their spiritual heritage really is.

I live with the conviction that doctrine matters hugely, because ideas matter. Truth is not just an exchange commodity that is sometimes conveniently useful, but worth living and dying over. This means that theological education is one of the most important ministries of the Church -- in any of her denominational flavors -- for the future. It is not simply a gauntlet to be run. It is, as Jesus said, the "bringing out of the treasures old an new", an investment in God's people now and into the future.

Providence, Prince Frederick, Maryland