BOM Retreat
I'm meeting with the Board of Ordained Ministry of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church in almost exactly 14 days, 2 weeks. After two days of meeting with me and my fellow candidates, they will determine whether or not to recommend us for ordination or commisioning to the Clergy Session of Annual Conference. This is the next-to-last step in being approved to be commissioned. I've been in the process for five years now. And in two weeks I will face the greatest hurdle of the process so far.
It's an interesting place to be in. Earlier in the process I took each step with what could almost be trepidation. I knew that each step was very serious and that I could not expect to simply be past. Now, although I still take this process very seriously and I know that being passed is not a foregone conclusion, I still don't feel I have much to fear. In the last 5 years, I haven't really been faced with many serious questions of fitness. Those that I have faced, I have worked on and developed answers to. I enter this phase now, just ready to be questioned, but not anxious about the process or the result. I don't feel that the board is out to get me. I feel like they will be just. I'm almost looking forward to it.
It's an interesting place to be in. Earlier in the process I took each step with what could almost be trepidation. I knew that each step was very serious and that I could not expect to simply be past. Now, although I still take this process very seriously and I know that being passed is not a foregone conclusion, I still don't feel I have much to fear. In the last 5 years, I haven't really been faced with many serious questions of fitness. Those that I have faced, I have worked on and developed answers to. I enter this phase now, just ready to be questioned, but not anxious about the process or the result. I don't feel that the board is out to get me. I feel like they will be just. I'm almost looking forward to it.
posted by david at 11:07 AM
2 Comments:
David,
Good luck and we'll be praying for you. Any chance you'll be able to stop by while you're here and say hi to Elliot and the rest of us?
I SO wish I felt the way you do about it. (Though of course I'll be praying for you despite your calm.)
As I try to finish the paperwork, do full time studenting and internship and Chun-wrangling and preparing for Sheeyun's mum and sister to visit for a week*, I am feeling remarkably low and having the devil of a time maintaining momentum. And for some exquisitely painful reason, a small flood of people are informing me of late that I am a "housewife." Housewives don't get hired, by and large.
It is very good to see you hopeful and cheery, though! And I do think you are justified. Not just in the Wesleyan sense. :D
*They arrive on Thursday. Sheeyun's out of town until late tomorrow night.
Mary Ann
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