It has been about three weeks since posting and the primary reason is that I've been in the wonderful (sort of) world of ordination testing. Thanks to the many you who have prayed for me as I've been taking the exams. I spent the week before Christmas taking the written exams and emailed those in on the 22nd then I the oral portion this past Saturday. for those of you unfamiliar with the process, it goes like this:
-post seminary you get a call to serve at a church somewhere
-to become a minister the Presbytery (the pastors and elders from Presbyterian churches in that region) has to ordain you
-to be ordained you need a seminary degree, a completed internship, and a few other things (character refrences, theological papers, a sermon, stuff like that)
-there is a specific committee within the Presbytery that does the majority of the work in giving you a written and oral exam, and in evaluating both of these
-if you pass these exams (on bible, theology, sacraments, church history, and church government) the committe recomends you to the presbytyer
-you go before the presbytery and they'll ask you some questions touching on these areas, you'll take certain vows, and they will agree to ordain you
-then there will be an actual ordinatio service, usually at the church you are serving at
Overall, the process has gone pretty well. The leadership development committee, who oversees the process, was very encouraging regarding my written exams. I thought I had done well, but there were also things that I knew I had answered incorrectly or had mixed up some of the details. As I was preparing for the oral portion of the exam I was reading some theology stuff online and realized that I had potentially steped on theological landmine in how I answered one of the question. When the committee brought this up, but it was easily resolved, since I had done further reading and knew how to answer the question better. I passed my oral exams in all areas except theology and my sermon - there are slight things in both of these which I need to tweak. So what I'll do is go before the leadership development committee on the night before the presbytery meets and if everything is ironed out I'll be recommended to the presbytery the following day. So, the studying continues but has somewhat lessened. I hope this makes sense to the many who are unfamiliar with this process (I've been learning a lot of it as I go along).
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