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Bread for the Journey
Notes to Those Preparing for Ministry
Thomas W. Currie
Bread for the Journey
Notes to Those Preparing for Ministry
Copyright © 2015 Thomas W. Currie. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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Seven Stanzas at Easter” from Collected Poems, 1953-1993 by John Updike, copyright 1993 by John Updike. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
“As I Walked Out One Evening,” copyright 1940 and renewed 1968 by W. H. Auden, “For the Time Being,” copyright 1944 and renewed 1972 by W. H. Auden; “Lullaby” (1972),” copyright 1972 by W. H. Auden, and “Precious Five,” copyright 1950 by W. H. Auden, renewed 1978 by The Estate of W. H. Auden; from W. H. Auden Collected Poems by W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
By permission of Oxford University Press, Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works edited by Catherine Phillips (2002); 7 words on p. 129; 8 words on p. 131; 7 words on p. 152.
“Sunday Psalm” Copyright © 1960 by Phyllis McGinley. First appeared in Times Three, published by The Viking Press. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
To the students, faculty, staff, and friends who helped bring the Charlotte campus of Union Presbyterian Seminary into being, and with whom it was a privilege to serve.
Acknowledgements
In writing these weekly notes over 13 years, I was aided by my colleague in the dean’s office, Mrs. Terry Johns, who not only kept my schedule and posted helpful reminders to me, but also who collected these notes and made sure they were preserved in one place. For this and many other reasons, I need to acknowledge my indebtedness to her.
There are others I would mention as well. Our faculty and staff would meet regularly on Wednesday mornings for devotionals. Since many of these notes were written on Wednesday afternoons, the witness of those morning devotionals often loomed large in my thinking and writing. I would like to thank my faculty colleagues, Richard Boyce, who is the current dean, and Pamela Mitchell-Legg, Rodney Sadler, and Sue Setzer, as well as staff colleagues, David Mayo, our librarian, Susan Hickok, Nadine Ellsworth-Moran, Susan Griner, Lisa McLennan, Anne Rankowitz, and student participants, Thomas Agbemenou and Kevin Davis.
From the very beginning I received unflagging support from Louis Weeks, who as President of the seminary, invited me to serve as dean, and from Brian Blount, the current President, who was and continues to be a source of encouragement not only to me but to all who are engaged in theological education.
In 2014, the board of trustees granted me a sabbatical during which I was able to put these notes in some form of coherent order. I want to thank them for that extraordinary gift. I spent part of the sabbatical at Westminster College in Cambridge, England, where I was made to feel most welcome by the Principal, Neil Thorogood, and the staff, particularly Syd Harper and her administrative colleagues. My wife and I are deeply indebted to Westminster College for the hospitality we received there, and I particularly want to thank the minister of St. Columba’s United Reformed Church, Nigel Uden, for his pastoral care to us during this time and for the preaching and worship that congregation shared with us.
Upon our return, we moved temporarily to Shreveport, Louisiana, where my son, Chris, is pastor of First Presbyterian Church. I want to thank him for providing his father some space to finish this book. In particular, I want to thank Ann Dodson, the church librarian, who was helpful in tracking down certain sources for me.
Introduction
In 2001, the board of what was then Union-PSCE (and now, Union Presbyterian Seminary), located in Richmond, Virginia, voted to call me to serve as the dean of a proposed extension campus in Charlotte, N. Carolina. For 25 years I had been a parish minister of two congregations in Texas, serving each for 12 and a half years. This new campus in Charlotte was intended to serve second-career students, new immigrant populations, and the strong African-American Presbyterian constituency in North and South Carolina. Dr. Billy O. Wireman, who was then president of Queens University of Charlotte, graciously enabled this fledgling enterprise to nest on that university’s lovely Selwyn Avenue campus.
Classes began in February of 2002, and continued on the Queens campus until the fall of 2012, at which time the seminary moved into a new building of its own on land leased from Sharon Presbyterian Church.
Because most of our students were working in full-time or part-time positions and were themselves scattered over a wide swath of North and South Carolina (one or two from Georgia and Tennessee), commuting to school at nights or on weekends, the seminary worked hard from the very beginning to put in place ways that a community of learning and faithfulness might be established that would contribute to their formation as pastors and teachers. Regular worship, weekly table fellowship, admission by cohort, small group tutoring sessions, and strong administrative support from colleagues in Richmond and Charlotte helped build a vital sense of community that in some ways was more formative and visceral than that known in residential settings.
One of the most important ways the seminary sought to build and maintain a “life together” was through weekly notes from the dean addressed primarily to the students. Many of these notes sought to encourage those who were undertaking the hard work of preparing for ministry. Often these notes reflected on the even more challenging work of ministry itself, pointing out the peculiar joys and burdens hidden in that form of Christian discipleship. Many of these notes share insights from others who have traveled this way, some of whom articulate the journey poetically, while others describe this path in more strictly theological terms. Sometimes note is taken of specific events within the life of the seminary itself (e.g., a death of a student) or some local or national event (e.g., the Iraq War, school shootings, etc.), or events in the life of the church (e.g., a denominational split or church council decision) in an effort to provide a theological context for reflection. More often, the beginning and ending of terms provided occasions for self-examination, asking again and again what we thought we were doing in studying and preparing for ministry. Some of these notes deal with certain disciplines of the faith like prayer, reading, worship, and learning, - sanctifying gifts that strengthen disciples for this journey. Sometimes the notes are simpler, expressing unapologetically the joy of being alive in God’s creation and being called into God’s service.
The purpose of these notes from the dean was not simply communication or building community or offering words of encouragement or exhortation. Rather, these notes sought to offer a vision of Christian discipleship that would inspire, and even make one glad that God had called one to walk this particular path. Does that seem too pious or idealistic or happy? Perhaps it does, especially if such inspiration overlooks or ignores the messiness of ministry and the challenges of bearing faithful witness to Jesus Christ today. But neither ministry nor theological education, however rigorously undertaken, is a dreary thing. The task is overwhelming and there is plenty of reason to be discouraged, especially when we look