Existential Crisis

Admittedly, the title of this post is a tad dramatic. However, some days I feel that it is entirely accurate. Seminary ahs led me to have regular existential crises.

Seminary has been a great experience thus fat. I have completed a little over a year and a half of a three-year program. I am more than half done. I have had ups and downs. I have failed and I have succeeded. I have had numerous health problems and have made great friends.

But one thing seminary has truly done is to make me question everything. I have never really questioned that there is a God but I have questioned so many other things. When I came to seminary, I thought I would be leaving ordained and ready to lead a small congregation. I know now that this is not the case. I no longer have an interest in pastoring a church or in being ordained.

I have been a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) since elementary school. I have been ordained as a deacon and as a ruling elder. I am currently an inquirer of the ordination track. But my classes and my experiences make me question whether or not this is the right denomination for me. For one thing, all of my Presbyterian comrades seem to love love love Karl Barth. I have not read much Barth and I have no interest in reading any more of his work. My Presbyterian friends and professors LOVE John Calvin. I cannot stand John Calvin! My hatred for him and his work began when a professor said to me, “If a baby gets a brain tumor and dies, John Calvin says that it is God’s will!” I that that that is messed up and that does NOT sound like the God I believe in! I do not really fall in line with predestination and the total depravity.

I believe in pacifism. I believe in a God who lets us make out own mistakes but is there to save us. I believe in unending grace. I believe that awful things happen but not that those awful things are God’s will. I believe in free will. I believe in a God who acceptance and loving embraces.

II do not know where I belong. Maybe the PUSA is the right lace for me, but maybe it is not. Is it possible to live within a denomination while totally excluding the works of the theologians that they build their beliefs off of?

Finding a Church

So last week I went online and looked at the two PCUSA churches within walking distance of the Seminary. One of them is Nassau Presbyterian Church and the other is Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. I looked at their websites and what I could find about them online. Nassau street has an intense staff with multiple pastors. They have somewhere upwards of 1200 members and ...primarily Caucasian. Witherspoon Street was started as the first all black PCUSA church a couple hundred years ago. 

I don't know why I have an issue with the churches with huge staffs. It could be that they are wealthier, but I don't see why that would be an issue. I think it's because they remind me of mega churches and therefore do not seem like the personal connection that I have always found in my refuge at church. Also the churches with large staffs also tend to be all white, lacking in diversity, except for sometimes age. 

I went to witherspoon and it was very much steeped in the African American heritage which I enjoyed but it seemed to be an African American church that just happened to be PCUSA. So I don't think that is the church for me. I am a fan of the PCUSA traditions. I'm hesitant to try Nassau because that's where all of the other PCUSA students went on Sunday and they described it just as I pictured it. Lots of members, all white, pretty dry. 

I'm on the PCUSA website looking for other churches in the area. I am trying to discern just what it is I have against larger churches. I grew up in a church of a little over 100 members. The members were from all different backgrounds and spanned all ages and socioeconomic classes. It had a massive heart for outreach and social justice. The Church I attended while in College, and that I am under care with is about 70 members. Maybe 40% of our members are from Cameroon. The church I grew up in had one pastor, an associate for a while, but a lot of seminarians. The church I am a member of has one pastor who is amazing and makes stuff happen. 

Next Sunday I will try a new church. Maybe I will go to Nassau so that I can see what it is like for myself or maybe I will check out a different church. According to the PCUSA church locator site there are 45 PCUSA churches within 15 miles of the seminary. 

It Makes My Heart Happy

Tuesday Afternoon I was sitting in my New Testament Epistles class. The final class of my undergraduate experience. This has been a difficult experience for me this semester, not because the work was too difficult but because my beliefs are so vastly different than the beliefs of my classmates and this class really brought that to the surface. In this class I preached a sermon on the role of women in the church. I preached the sermon as woman who hopes to be ordained some day. Many of my classmates come from backgrounds where women are not meant to speak in church, women are meant to teach the little kids and that is it. I also wrote my thesis on homosexuality in the bible, and not from the “condemning Gays to hell” perspective that my classmates support. Rather, I wrote it from a open and accepting viewpoint and presented it as such to the class. So Tuesday when someone was presenting their paper on “Sexual Immorality: fornication and homosexuality” everyone in the class turned and stared at me.

Tuesday afternoon, people were glaring at me and making snide comments because the only conclusion they can draw is that if I support gay rights and do not condemn homosexuality I must therefore be gay and practice sexual immorality. Truly, I do not care. The looks and the comments are no skin off my back. I know who I am and what I believe. Tuesday night, in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities, the votes were cast and tallied and Amendment 10A passed. This Amendment, which I have written about previously, will change the wording of a section of the book of order (The Constitution of the PCUSA- for all you known presbys)to allow those who are not in a committed relationship consisting of a man and a woman to be ordained into official positions of the church.

It should not come as news to any that follow this blog that I rejoice in the passing of this amendment. I did not wish to be in a church that would exclude so many devoted Christians simply because of who they love. Many have threatened to leave the church and to those who do, I wish them all the best. I hope that they find a new church home that is more in line with their theological standing, but please do remember that you are leaving by your own free-will, no one is forcing you to leave. To those that have been standing on the sidelines, the PCUSA is open to you. We will accept you and the one you love.

Someday I hope to be ordained as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament within the Presbyterian Church (USA), and it makes my heart happy to know that one day I will have the opportunity to serve alongside my fellow Christian brothers and sisters regardless of their sexual identity.

Date Night Conversation

This weekend I had the joy of attending yet another meeting where I was the youngest person in attendance. This time around, I was the youngest person by at least 35 years. When I first started attending Synod and Synod type meetings it bothered me that I was the only young person there. Now, however, it fuels me in a way. As the only young person in attendance I am the only voice for the "youth" of the church that they here.

The Moderator Elect of the Synod of the Northeast is in my Presbytery Partnership Group (PPG). She has some big changes in mind for the Synod Assemblies once she is installed in October. She was telling me about some of the changes she wants to make and I am a huge fan of all of them. I also voiced my opinions on some aspects of Synod and she listened to me. As I have voiced before, I often feel that the young adults of the church go overlooked. But in this meeting everything I had to say was listened to and unlike the actual Synod meeting, in the PPG, I have voice AND vote.

After the New England Presbytery Partnership Group meeting, I went out to dinner with my boyfriend. Considering we are total dorks we don't have normal dinner conversation. Add to the fact that we are religious dorks and it gets worse. David is a religious studies major. He has a minor in Christian-Jewish-Muslim Relations and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Yeah, he is pretty amazing. I'm a religion major but I study theology whereas he studies different religions. David plans to be a professor. I plan to be a minister of the Word and Sacrament. So our dinner conversation covers different theological ideas, classes, current events, the future, acpocalypse, and any number of topics that would be unusual for any other dinner couple.

Talking about the PPG meeting led us into talking about the future. I am a church geek. More specifically, I am a Presbyterian Church Geek. I am a Presbygeek. I hope you figured that much out at this point. I enjoy polity. I read the Book of Order for fun. I am a geek. I recently added a new item to my lsit of life goals: become the youngest Moderator of the General Assembly. The role of the youth in the church and the voice of the youth in the church. I have about 17 years to complete this goal.

20-Somethings in the PCUSA

Something that has been on my mind rather frequently is the role of young adults in the church. I wrote a bit about it in my post about the TAMFS webinar, but it continues to be on my mind so I will focus on it for this post. This topic is regularly on my mind because it affects me a great deal. Being twenty-two years old, in the church, contemplating my future as a possible pastor within the church brings the issue to the forefront of my attention. Additionally, I have been reading Jim Kitchens' book The Postmodern Parish, which I highly recommend and a quote from it has continued my thinking about young adults in the church. Kitchens writes, "We puzzle over why older members want to hold on to forms of church life that may have inspired them when they were young, but that do not meet the needs of today's 20-somethings." I find this to be very true, at least in my area. There are programs for the youth but once you hit a certain age, usually somewhere in the sphere of 20, it is difficult to find a place to belong within the church.


For the children there are Sunday school classes catered to their age level. For the youth there is youth group. For the adults of the church, they have their own Sunday School class and gender specific meetings (at my church [Clinton Presbyterian Church] it is Men's Breakfast and Ladies' Lunch Bunch). But what is there for those that fall in between. Those of us that are too old for a youth group and yet feel to young to be in the same Sunday school class as our 70 year old members? Outside of my congregation is exists as well. There are summer camps and youth retreats for those in middle school and high school, but what of those in college? When there appear to be no interest paid to this range of members how are we to feel?


The more I think about this gap within the church, the more I pay attention to the different things I attend. Yesterday, at church, I looked around the sanctuary and saw three people under the age of 35. If we raise the age to 40, it only grew be a very small number, which included The Pastor! This is not in just our congregation, according to Presbyterian Research Services, 8 in 10 worshipers in PC(USA) pews are aged 45 or older. I go to Presbytery meetings and look around and I am almost always the youngest person and unless their are seminarians present, the only one under 35. If I take a look at our Middle Governing Bodies, it is the same story. At the Synod of the Northeast meeting back in October, I was the only YAD. No other Presbytery sent a Youth Advisory Delegate, and for some presbyteries it was because they did not bother to ask a youth. At the meeting I stood up and asked who in meeting was under the age of 40. There were two people at the entire Synod meeting...myself and my pastor (Rev. Cindy Kohlmann).


I think it is time for the PCUSA to realize the role that the young adult members are capable of playing. Both the median and mean age of PCUSA members is 60 years old. I am a little over 1/3 of the age of the majority of our members. I wonder if we found a way to include those in that 20-somethings category, if that statistic would change? The Youth are the future of the church and we need a voice in the church. Furthermore, I believe that the Youth of the church need to have a voice and representation. From the chances I have had I have been able to meet people from all over the country. Attending Synod meetings and conferences has allowed me to meet amazing people within the church (like our Former Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow and Vice-Moderator Byron Wade). The young adults of today are the future leaders of our church and I think it is time that the 20-somethings have a chance to show their potential.

*My experience pertains to The Presbytery of Boston and the Synod of the Northeast. For those Presbyteries and Synods that have opportunities for the 20-somethings, that find ways to keep the 20-Somethings involved in church and have found a way to minster directly to them, I applaud you.*

I did It!

In the event that my last post was confusing, allow me to explain: I "have been accepted into candidacy for the Master of Divinity - M.Div. program starting in the Fall Term of the 2011-2012 Academic Year." Last week I had received the letter telling me that it could take up to six weeks to get notification, and I have been checking the website daily, so I was not expecting anything. David's mom came by campus to bring me mail on her way to the library and Low and Behold amongst my mail was a letter from Princeton Theological Seminary! I opened it and once I read the word "Congratulations!" I screamed. I'm not going to say that I had a mature response. I screamed...multiple times. I have been praying and praying for this to happen and oh my goodness my prayers have been answered.

The first person to know was Jenn (David's mother) because she was there when I opened it. I then called David and left a voicemail. Once he called me back I did a little more celebrating. I told my two best friends on campus and then my favorite professor, Mr. Adam Ingano. He wrote one of my recommendation letters so I went and interrupted his class to tell him. I called my grandmother's house and left a message for my mother and grandmother. Then I told David's father and sister. I called my brother and told him and then I called my sister.  I figured I had all of the people who would skin my alive if they had to find out second hand or by facebook, so I posted it online. After that started the texts.: My boss, Alexander (see previous post about the only other person applying to grad school), the Dean of Students (he has asked every day if I had heard), my advisor (who was in the hospital and appreciated the text), my uncle, one of the people in Boston I used to live with, a few on campus friends, my camp friends, and a few other random people. I also emailed the secretary of my CPM to let CPM know. I also emailed someone that I am close to on Boston's COM who has been in conversation with me about seminary options. Hopefully I covered everyone.

Possibly the best reaction I received as from my friend Kelly. Kelly is a senior in high school and has been like a little sister to me for years. She got accepted to an amazing music college in NYC and we had talked about the very real possibility of getting together regularly if I got into Princeton. I sent her a text to let her know that I got in and that we are going to have fun together next year and her response was "HOLY BALLS CONGRATULATIOOOOOOONS! Oh man I can't wait for next Year!!" Clearly the best response.

For the first time I feel that my family is actually proud of me. I've always felt like an outcast in my family and that they never were really proud of anything I have done. I'm going into ministry and as a much of lapsed catholics they do not really understand that. They pretty much want me to get a job that will pay. If I had decided to go to Louisville or some other seminary they would probably pretend to be supportive but the fact that Princeton is a name that people know is something that they can be proud of. My mother can now say that her daughter is going to Princeton. When I told my brother yesterday he said "we always knew  the smart one." When we were younger that was used to make fun of me, but now it's morphed into an actual complement. When he said it there was no sarcasm or malice. My mother said (via text) "I always knew u was the smartest!" and "so proud of u luv u" and "It is all u girl u did it by urself and u deserve it". It made me feel good to read that! I have worked for this and I achieved it. I haven't had the best relationship with my mother, but I'm working on it. To hear that she is proud of me is something I've needed to hear for years.

I GOT INTO PRINCETON!

The Joys of Blogs

Lately I have been finding numerous blogs by other members of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The majority of the blogs I have found are being produced by pastors within the church. Many of the posts have been thought provoking and I am enjoying reading all of them. The log I have found most recently has been Shuck and Jive, a blog by Rev. John Shuck of Tennessee.

I'm not sure what I would do without access to blogs. Yes, that is a bit of an exaggeration...but still. The blogs that I find make em think. They can reaffirm my views or make me think about things I believe in a new light. They provide me with new resources and "evidence" to make my arguments.

A lot of people who blog have been blogging about Amendment 10A because it is such a hot topic in our denomination right now. In Shuck and Jive he posted his own beliefs on Amendment 10A and then provided other resources as well. There is the vote count front he presbyteries, the Morelight Presbyterians Blog post, a link to Bruce Reyes-Chow's Presbymeme, youtube videos, and other sites relating to the debate over Amendment 10-A.

I love the Internet and social media. it allows us to connect with people all over the country and the world. In seconds you can get your views to people everywhere. And you can learn some one's opinion on a topic in the amount of time it takes you to read a blog post.

More Light Vs. Adventist

So the Spring Semester has begun. If all goes according to plan, I will be walking across a makeshift stage May 15th and recieveing my diploma. I cannot wait for that day! This semester I am taking 16 credits through Atlantic Union College and because my advisor messed up my schedule previous semesters, I will be taking 12 credits online through another school.
The credits I am taking through AUC are some interesting classes. I have Intro to Tennis to fulfill my Life Activity credit, Computers to fulfill that requirement, Spanish (which I am doing independent study), Introduction to American Film and then rounding it off with my last two classes for my major: Revelation and New Testament Epistles. I have shared with some of the Presbys I know the required reading for my Revelation course and they have come up with other books I ought to read to dispell some of the things I will learn in class this semester. My New Testament Epistles class is rather interesting. I need to pick a topic off of a list that the professor provided and by the end of the semester I will have written an 8 page research paper on the topic, as well as multiple article reviews and preached a sermon on the topic.

I have decided that I have kept my radical liberal Presbyterian views quiet for too long. I have not shared what I truly believe and what I truly think in my time here at AUC, and that is about to change. It is my last semester in conservative Adventist land, to to cause a stir. I am not intentionally causing trouble, but once I saw topic number 13 on the list I knew it would be inevitable. Topic 13 is about homosexuality and sexual deviance as portrayed in the New Testament Epistles. He was expecting the homophobic anti-gay sentiment...he is not going to receive that. I raised my man and asked if we could alter a topic on the list. When I explained that I am interested in researching the pro-gay, we're all Christians, it's all love standpoint he agreed. However, looking around the classroom, I was waiting for my classmates to start stoning me.

The first place I plan to go for my research material will be the More Light Presbyterians. I have spent lots of time on their site before and everything is worded perfectly. I need a minimum of eight sources so I will need to find other resources of the same caliber. This could possibly be the one assignment I spend the most amount of time on in my college career. The paper, I believe, will be a lot easier than the sermon I will have to deliver in class. Preaching in front of my classmates makes me immensely nervous due to theological disagreements that I have had with them. For our viewpoints to be so diametrically opposed on this mater only elevates my anxiety.

I have kept my beliefs and opinions of homosexuality and a number of other issues to myself for far too long. I realize this semester I will cause a stir and people will look at me differently, but when this topic is presented to me in such a negative light, I cannot help but choose it and correct it.

Day Four

12/31/10 8:50 AM
Day 4? They sort of all blur

Shelby and I just woke up and got ready for the day. I'm in Africa and I'm cold. What is this? I'm on the freaking equator. I slept in a sweatshirt last night and now I have jeans and a sweatshirt on. The rooster is something else. It makes sure you know when to get up. And I swear it's just walking around the house checking on us.

There's an interesting religious dynamic in village life. They are Christians. That is a fact. The Nkikko village is all Presbyterian, a Presbyterian village. But at the same time they acknowledge the ancestors in the winds. Yesterday the kola nuts we smashed to see if the ancestors approved. Three nuts were smashed, one for each member of the trinity. The pieces were rolled out and it turns out that the ancestors approve and will provide us safe travel home. We all ate a piece of the kola nut. It did not taste good...but as Shelby put it this morning "we couldn't not eat it, it was Jesus!"

"he who brings kola nut brings life."