Dealing with Something New, or, The School for Formation Is Wrinkling My Brain

This past week, I finished with my first course in the School for Formation! I'm already starting the next course. Like, I'm already a week into the next one because I didn't notice on the calendar that they overlapped. That was jarring. But nonetheless, I buckled down and I wrote the papers and submitted them in order to meet requirements. But I also had something like a coming-to-Jesus moment, too.

Why the Episcopal Church? Because We Become Who We Are

This post is my submission to the last of three-part prompt from the Acts 8 Moment BLOGFORCE Challenge. The last prompt is this: "Why the Episcopal Church?"

Truth be told, I have struggled to answer this question since it was announced. Oddly enough, answering "Why the Church?" and "Why Anglicanism" were both pretty easy for me... in contrast, this one has left me speechless because I'm having a hard time naming anything distinct that I have not already posted in either of my other two responses.

Things, They Are a-Changing at Church, or, Moving from Problems to Possibilities

I don't think that I've mentioned this on my blog before, but this month marks the beginning of my formation to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church!

What that means is that my time in discernment is over (so all those posts I made about grappling with the process and feeling impatient don't need to be continued) and now I have a two-year track ahead of me in the School for Formation that is organized by the Episcopal Church in Minnesota.

The Episcopal Church in Minnesota's Academy for Discipleship and Mission

I know that the School for Formation will be taking up a lot of my time, but I do not want that to keep me from posting here on my blog. But that, of course, poses a problem when I usually sink a decent chunk of time into my blog. I can't continue to do that if I want to also have the time to write lesson plans for my job as well as be successful in my learning and formation.

So the conclusion that I've come to is that you, dear readers, will benefit from some of the work and reflection that I will be doing in formation.

Y.A.P. Has Its First Episode!

Hello all,

In lieu of my normal blog this weekend, I am sharing with you the first episode of a series in which my good friend, Craig Lemming, and I will be collecting and publishing the stories of young adults and young professionals who are active in the Episcopal Church in Minnesota.

This is our pilot episode, so Craig and I, as co-hosts, thought it would be good to share a bit about ourselves. So in future episodes, we will dig in and begin to feature the stories of our peers. And (what I think is the best part) since this is a video podcast, we have the ability to have our friends tell you their stories as they want to tell them. I'm very excited.