eFormation on the Holy Hill, Part II

Day two (Tuesday) of eFormation primarily focused, for me, on video production. I took a seminar series on video pre-production, production, and post-production and we talked about how that might be used in a parish setting. Useful information, though i was thinking it could have been done in two sessions versus three. I also attended a "designing adult education in a twenty-first century church" or something similar. We talked a lot about how to do adult Christian formation with people who work or commute long hours or otherwise simply do not have an hour or two a week to spend. Perhaps the best seminar was one on "curating" information on Christian formation. Before this, my assumption is that people could simply look up whatever they wanted online. As was pointed out, however, there is so much information available that it is very useful to people for a church to compile a page of trusted sources for Christian formation. So, I'll be putting a web page together on our church web site.

Wednesday was essentially a wrap-up day focusing on what people had learned about eFormation and looking forward to implimenting what we had learned. During lunch, we participated in a live-taping of "Easter People" the VTS Key Hall webcast.

eFormation on the Holy Hill

Old Chapel garden--where the altar once stood

For the first time in almost decade, I have returned to Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), my alma mater. I must say, it is a little strange wandering around buildings that hold so many memories from 20 years ago. The Addison Academic Center, brand new when I was here, is nearly two decades old. The old chapel is gone, consumed by fire several years ago and now a prayer garden. The new chapel is rising. Key Hall, once a classroom and storage space, is now the bright, airy location of the Center for the Ministry of Teaching. Can't believe it has been nearly 20 years since I left this place.

One thing that has not changed is the seminary's commitment to teaching and learning. It has been a privilege to be back here for a conference on "eFormation"--highlighting how electronic media have changed how we are formed as disciples of Jesus and how we help form others. Like any conference, there is far more available than one can hope to take in. I focused my attention on only a few. On Monday, I attended "Stealth Christian Formation" with Tim Schenck (pronounced skank--make of that what you will). Tim talked about how to make everything we do in church a formation opportunity--as exemplified by the phenomenal success of Lent Madness, which he launched several years ago.

The next seminar was "Getting Started with Online Christian Formation" with Chris Yaw. I decided to take this class because Good Samaritan is a subscriber to ChurchNext, Chris' online video educational site.  He had some good reflections on this very early venture into helping churches set up online schools for members new and old. It seems like a great way to both connect with people who may never darken the doors of our church (not exactly a great image, actually...) and to teach and form people within our church without having to make things up from scratch--which many clergy end up doing because they don't know what resources are there for things like Confirmation classes. It was a good presentation and motivated me to actually start our own online school through our parish web site.

Finally, I ended up attending a "Curating Faith Formation: Digital Content for Bible, Theology, Spirituality, and More" with Sharon Ely Pearson and John Roberto. This was a fascinating seminar highlighting not only the HUGE array of web sites and materials available, but the critical task of curating--filtering, if you will--those resources for one's own congregation via the church web site. Oddly, it never occurred to me that people would look on our web site for links to help them study the bible, raise their children with Christian values, or deal with the challenges of growing older. I figured that it was out there and they would just find it. As was pointed out, however, Google is notoriously unselective when presenting resources, so some human curating is both necessary and valuable.

So, all in all, a great day of learning. Also, a great night in the new(ish) "pub on campus--named "1823" for the year the seminary was founded.

On Sabbatical: Back to Blogging

As of tomorrow morning, I will officially be on Sabbatical. A Sabbatical, for those not familiar with previous sabbatical, I'll be blogging fairly regularly.

The cleanest the office has been in years...

the term, is a lengthy period of rest, refreshment, and re-formation afforded to clergy and professors. Clergy Sabbaticals are not intended simply as a long period of rest and relaxation, but a time to step out of day-to-day church life, have some new experiences, learn some new things, and return to church rested, refreshed, and bearing new ideas and/or new perspectives that will assist in both congregational and personal ministry. As I did in my

My hopes and plans for this Sabbatical are threefold:

1. Technology. I'm really eager to explore the world of blogging, video blogging, and social media in general more deeply. It seems like this is an emerging evangelistic medium and, as I am not a big fan of door-to-door evangelism, it also seems like it would be a great option and opportunity for me. I'll be attending the eFormation conference at Virginia Theological Seminary (my alma mater!) to get a taste of the possibilities. I'm also hoping to take some seminars on video production.
2. Spirituality. One of the great ironies of professional pastoral ministry is that running the "business" of the church can often crown out time for deepening one's spiritual life. Since my last Sabbatical, I've been intrigued by Benedictine spirituality and will be doing some research on, and experimentation with, that. I'm also going to be attending a retreat at Mount Calvary Benedictine Monastery in Santa Barbara.
3. Family and Household. The world runs really fast, and this is also true of pastoral ministry. I'm hoping and planning on doing a lot more focusing on my family and taking time to be with them. I'm also hoping to get some long-postponed projects completed around the Rectory, so we can more fully live here and make it completely our own.

That's pretty much it for now. No church in the morning for me--but lots of church this week!

Andy wins! Another GenX Bishop!

Thirteen years ago, I graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary (Class of 1995) along with dozens of other folks who aspired to serve God in lay or ordained ministry. One of the fun games we used to play is "Who is going to be the first bishop from our class?" Well, looks like we have a winner! Our class president, C. Andrew Doyle ("Andy" to us) was just elected as Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Texas. Though not quite as fresh-faced as we all were those many years ago, Andy is nevertheless to be the second-youngest bishop in the Episcopal Church (behind Sean Rowe, of Northwest Pennsylvania, also a VTS grad). That makes him one of only a handful of Generation X bishops.

Congratulations, Andy!