SPIRITUAL FORMATION

Bricks and mortar . . . flesh and blood . . . building up the body of Christ

James Kenneth Echols, President

In a 1998 book entitled "The Pastor as Spiritual Guide," Howard Rice, retired professor of ministry and chaplain at San Francisco Theological Seminary, claimed that a different, central image for Christian ministry is required today.

According to Rice, various images of ministry have predominated throughout the church’s two-thousand-year witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Christian leader as one filled with spiritual power was a central image in the early church. While the church in the Middle Ages emphasized the Christian leader as mediator of sacramental grace, the Reformation focused on the Christian leader as preacher. More recently, and particularly in the United States, central images of the Christian leader have revolved around the leader as educator, counselor, social change agent, and business manager. To these, I would add the leader as enabler.

Although Rice acknowledged that all of these are important dimensions of Christian ministry, he proposed that the image of the Christian leader as spiritual guide [as distinguished from a spiritual director] is essential to faithful and effective ministry in the years ahead. He wrote:

Teaching, educating, counseling, acting for social change, and managing the organization fall within an overall understanding of ministry. Each has its place in any understanding of the work of ministry. They all belong!... When people turn to a pastor [and other rostered leaders], what are they seeking? Whatever their response, they are looking for a source of validity in their lives. They are looking for a model of being in the world that is anchored in God. They seek, sometimes with near desperation, someone who can point them toward depth and meaning. They turn to their pastors in the hope that they will find someone who will suffer with them in their struggles and rejoice with them in their recurring discovery of God’s unexpected presence...The ability to assist people toward development of a faith that can celebrate and connect with the mystery at the center of all creation and name that mystery as the God of love is the central service that pastors [and other rostered leaders] offer to persons.

Howard Rice's voice is not a lone voice crying in the wilderness. It is one of an increasing crescendo of voices. In 1995, the voice of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was heard through its Study of Theological Education. Its imperative on "Depth in the Faith" declared, "We seek men and women whose personal faith in Jesus Christ is nourished and renewed through a disciplined devotional life...People look to their lay and ordained ministers for theological and spiritual leadership that is based on an intimate knowledge of scripture, a distinctively Lutheran theological understanding, and contemporary methods of theological reflection."

Two years later the Association of Theological Schools, the chief accrediting agency of seminaries and divinity schools in the United States and Canada, adopted new standards for its member institutions. For all degree programs oriented toward ministerial formation, whether lay or ordained, seminaries and divinity schools are charged with providing "opportunities through which the student may grow in personal faith."

In a North American culture that has marginalized the church, it is essential that women and men preparing for ministry be formed in ways that make them God’s spiritual guides for the Body of Christ.

Formation for ministry at the seminary has three dimensions. The academic dimension focuses on teaching both the faith and the tradition of the faith to students. In this regard, the seminary is blessed with an extraordinary faculty of gifted teachers, scholars, and theologians. In the classroom, what St. Augustine called "faith seeking understanding" takes place in a dynamic way.

The professional dimension of formation for ministry emphasizes the care of people of faith. Through various courses, the teaching parish program, internship, and practica, students are equipped with the necessary skills to be competent Christian leaders in congregations.

The spiritual dimension of formation for ministry concerns the nurture of students in the faith. This has been the weak link in mainline Protestant theological education in North America during the last 40 years. While the seminary has maintained a strong emphasis upon daily, corporate worship and a voluntary spiritual friends program for interested students, faithful and effective ministry demands that we do even more.

The Campaign for Worship and Spiritual Formation will do just this, ensuring that the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago will prepare women and men to be spiritual guides for their communities of faith in the 21st century!

One part of the campaign involves bricks and mortar. The plan calls for the undercroft chapel, the chapel-auditorium, and the reception area to be transformed into very attractive, dedicated, flexible worship space. The new worship space, "The Augustana Chapel at LSTC," will beckon and invite students anew to gather for worship and be formed by Word and Sacrament into spiritual guides.

Another significant part of the campaign involves flesh and blood. The newly created dean of the chapel and The Floy L. and Paul F. Cornelsen director of spiritual formation position will assist students in their spiritual formation through retreats, courses, and individual conversations. In addition, the dean and director will establish a center for spiritual formation that will serve rostered and lay leaders.

In "The Gift of Peace," the late Joseph Cardinal Bernadin related an experience he had when he was Archbishop of Cincinnati. At that time, his episcopal duties had become so exciting and intense that he found it difficult to give attention to his spiritual life. One evening, he shared this reality with several priests, priests who he had ordained. According to Cardinal Bernadin, they confronted him with the fact that he was urging on others a spirituality that he was not fully practicing himself.

Through both bricks and mortar and flesh and blood, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago intends to strengthen its nurture of the personal faith of women and men preparing for ministry, including the development of disciplined devotional lives. In so doing, the seminary will provide Christian leaders to the church who will be spiritual guides, building up the Body of Christ.