Committee 15: Ministry

3 Responses

  1. Jordan Hylden says:

    Scott+, thank you for this service you perform for the church! I wanted to comment about Fr. Holt. Have you seen the letter he wrote in response to the concerns being raised, and his repeated affirmation of B012?

    https://livingchurch.org/2022/05/27/challenge-raised-to-florida-bishop-election/

    https://livingchurch.org/2022/05/27/challenge-raised-to-florida-bishop-election/

    TBH it seems to me like Fr. Holt is being held to a different standard as a theological traditionalist, and it does not feel fair to me. Thanks again for your good work on the resolutions.

    • Scott Gunn says:

      Hi Jordan, thanks for your comment. I do agree that some people may be holding Fr. Holt to a different standard. However, I think there may be reasons for concern with this election, regardless of theological position. Let me emphasize *may* in that last sentence. I’m waiting for the report from the Court of Review. Thank you for the links to coverage. It’s helpful for folks to have as much information as possible.

  2. Drew Kadel says:

    Scott,
    I just want to second your observations about retirement age, etc and GOEs. I’m old and retired, but relatively energetic, etc. There are plenty of ways to support the work of the church and exercise ministry without occupying full-time jobs, which are in short supply. I’m actually pretty good with the youngs, but we DESPERATELY need clergy in the younger age cohorts to gain confidence of younger people–the church suffers badly because we have not lived in a trustworthy enough way, and younger people, especially, have less reason to trust us. Bishops, especially, trying to hold on to their jobs, get no sympathy from me. Retire & live simply.

    I agree wholeheartedly about GOEs–there are many observations that I could make about ways to improve them & make them more of a test of how candidates would do theology & make choices in the context of ministry, but that’s about making them better, not eliminating them. I worked most of my career at seminaries & at GTS we did work long and hard in evaluating students for ordination–but a)these were our students to support in the midst of often onerous & unfair ordination processes–concerns were often raised that observations of any challenges the student faced would be used to dump them from the process, which turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since any negative comments were normally reserved to people the faculty were seriously doubtful about. b) The evaluations ended up being treated like personal recommendations and file elements to complete a dossier rather than part of a dialogue about formation.

    I was ordained at the end of the 70s. People ordained before GOEs were adopted in the early 70s were very happy to tell us the horror show of diocesan “examining chaplains” who rode their personal theological/ecclesiastical hobby horse to haze candidates, allowing through unqualified people they liked and driving out people who disagreed with them. So a standardized national exam process is important, it doesn’t need to be a hazing ritual, but the one person who I’m aware of who was knocked out of the process by its timing was a very wealthy guy who told his bishop he was more interested in taking his family to the Caribbean during the first week of January than taking the GOEs. The bishop decided he’d seen enough from a particularly arrogant & self-interested guy.