Life and death...institutions struggle with issues of life and death all the time. Institutions are born, they live, they die...and sometimes they resurrect. Sometimes the shift in management/structure/vision is so dramatic at an institution that it has to die in order to change. It must die and then be resurrected, a new creation.
I don't know the specifics of the goings on at Seabury right now. And I'm not entirely sure I want or need to. Selfishly I am simply glad that I can complete my thesis this year and still receive my 2004 MTS degree. A little more compassion in my vision reveals a deep love and concern for Seabury and the potential it has always possessed...skills and scholarship it has to offer to the Church Universal. I hope that the people on the current planning committee can resurrect Seabury.
No...that's not it.
Yesterday at CCW a group of clergy gathered to talk about church growth and development. We are all baptists trying to work and pray our way through re-invigorating our older churches. We've agreed to meet every 4-6 weeks and pray and talk together. Each congregation represented is at least 100 years old (or nigh upon it like CCW at 95). We talked about history and what is in the congregations' DNA...both the good and the bad. Like with any individual, there is the functional and dysfunctional. Also, as with any individual, what was once functional may have become dysfunctional. And somehow the pastor fits in with both functional and dysfunctional aspects of a congregation.
We spoke of metanoia...the "changing of one's mind," or "repentance." Is an ecclesial U-turn in order?
We spoke of prayer and how it is central to the process of ministering to a congregation. Even those among us skeptical of intercessory prayer ("Isn't God already at work doing what is best for Creation? I need to pray that I can discern and participate in what God is doing.") agreed that prayer is key in all of this. Why? Well, we all agreed that in the end, it is God who will have to put all these places together again. Whenever we try to "fix things" we stumble and fall. Inevitably, the Holy Spirit is wiser than we. Go dis at work. How do we join in? Can we be God's servants and let our own agenda fall to the wayside?
I imagine the same is true for SWTS. There is a lot of work to be done to fulfill God's vision for Seabury. One piece of that work is to discern what God is doing there. What does God want from SWTS and can the people called to ministry there trust, pray, and hope their way into God's vision? There's surely a ton to do...I know this. And I have faith that those responsible for Seabury's welfare are asking these questions...have been asking these questions.
SWTS is 150 years old...There is a lot of history, function and dysfunction at work. Sorting through all of this will take time, patience and wisdom...and the presence of God with all our prayers.
If you can, keep all involved in your prayers. Faculty...will they need new jobs ASAP? Staff, administration...Good grief, but it gets complicated very quickly...Pray for the students who relocated only to have to relocate again...amazing.
May God bring life into old bones. May Seabury be God's new creation in Evanston for all the Church.
Posted by tripp at February 23, 2008 06:52 AM