{"id":64,"date":"2006-04-04T04:41:57","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T09:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/?p=64"},"modified":"2006-04-04T04:41:57","modified_gmt":"2006-04-04T09:41:57","slug":"finally-assessed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/2006\/04\/04\/finally-assessed\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally Assessed!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago I got back word about the Subordination exams I took back in January. (Really! It only takes 7 weeks to process. I’ve sent back rebates on computer peripherals that take almost that long, so what’s the complaint.) And, as the dialog in Star Trek 2<\/em> says (without explaining because so much was cut out) “The word is given.” I passed. Yay. Now I can take back all those things I said about these wonderful and judicious examinations.<\/p>\n

But even better, I went back to Colo this past weekend and got myself Finally Assessed as ready to seek a call. In my denomination, being a pastor is sort of like belonging to a medieval guild. In fact, it’s exactly like being in a medieval guild. Trade unions have moved on from wearing weird hats and robes, but academia and the church hold onto these things.<\/p>\n

Being finally assessed entails defending my Statement of Faith and preaching a sermon. My statement of faith is more or less orthodox reformed tradition lite (TM) so there weren’t any big complaints. But I was told to punch up the section on Baptism a little. No big. I can list the six bullet points of baptism in my sleep and — even better — I actually believe them! I’ll post the final version here Real Soon.<\/p>\n

My sermon went well. (I’ll post it here too.) Didn’t break down in the middle and start puking from anxiety or anything like that. There was some controversy about the charge I gave at the very beginning when I read from Scripture. I need to come up with a theologically sensitive charge to the hearers that will alienate neither the wooden literalists of the Westminster Confession (1649) nor the anything-goes hippies of the Confession of 1967 (1967). My best idea so far is something like “Hear the Word of God*” followed by an inaudibly muttered footnote of caveats.<\/p>\n

But! The drumroll sounded, I was dismissed into the hall while the panel deliberated briefly, and when I came back they had discerned in community the prompting of the Holy Spirit that I should be moved through this last* step in the ordination process.<\/p>\n

*Technically, it’s not the last step. The last step is getting ordained, and that requires locating a church that will call you to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. But you can’t do that until you’ve been Finally Assessed as Ready to Seek a Call. Which I now am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week ago I got back word about the Subordination exams I took back in January. (Really! It only takes 7 weeks to process. I’ve sent back rebates on computer peripherals that take almost that long, so what’s the complaint.) And, as the dialog in Star Trek 2 says (without explaining because so much was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRqpr-12","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}