Heilsgeschichte

The title of this post more or less sums up my time at the FTE conference-"Becoming Rich Toward God: Pastoral Leadership and Economic Justice." It was a tremendous five days in a very ecumenical context. The other fellows attending were very gifted. By far the greatest benefit of the conference was the opportunity to engage in conversation with leaders from every corner of the church. Meals shared with Catholics, Episcopalians, and Baptists stimulated some interesting conversations regarding the state of the church. In general, I was impressed with the number of leaders who recognized that church as we know it no longer works very well in our culture. There seemed to be a genuine interest in change. After this experience, I think that every young Christian leader would benefit from engaging in ecumenical community for two reasons: 1) it quells suspicion of the other; 2) it reminds us that our theological orientation does not have it all figured out and that we have a lot to learn from other traditions.

Besides these many enriching conversations and new friendships, the highlight of the conference was a lecture by Ched Meyers called: "Decisionism, Denominationalism, or Discipleship?" Meyers argues that evangelicals are concerned with the world making a decision about Jesus while mainline Christians are concerned about pulling people into their respective denominations. I found Meyers' idea that the rubric "discipleship" could provide a dynamic way forward for all of us to work together in our variegated forms. Who disagrees with the fact that Jesus calls all of us into discipleship as a way of life? BTW-I highly recommend Meyers's commentary on Mark: "Binding the Strong Man."

In sum, I heartily recommend the Fund for Theological Education to any seminary student. Their staff was not only hospitable, but seemed to have a profound interest in who we are as the next leaders of the church. You can check out their website here.

This entry was posted on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 14:28

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