passion

When Email fails; blog.

~ revweisass ~ 5 Comments

Who knew that in this day and age of dependence on email, that email might actually fail me? I have spent the last week trying to email the following to Broad Street Ministry with no luck… I chalk it up to internet demons.

Anyways, if you are out there Bill, its me, Sarah, eagerly waiting to bequeath you with the reasons for why I would love to work at Broad Street this summer.

Ahoy there! It’s Sarah from Harvard.. It was great to get a chance to chat with you lat week; it truly felt like the Spirit is up to something, from being pointed in the direction of your church, to the parallels between your mission and my passions, to the awesome convo. I took very seriously your invitation to be creative, and thought perhaps I might construct an epic poetic account of myself to describe “Who Am I” but then remembered that I have seriously suboptimal poetic skills (I could give you some references for that if you want.) Anyways, if you want more info, I have a blog (of course I do, right? deeperinmethani.wordpress.com… and you are currently on it, so welcome to your first internet blog. I hope I don’t disappoint.). I also have a resume, which you mentioned might be helpful.

When I could Start: June 1
When I would have to leave: end of August

Anyways, in the absence of bad poetry, here goes nothing:

Who Am I?

Here are some phrases that describe who I (think I) am:
-passionately seeking to live like Christ
-missionally-minded: in other words, I believe that my whole life is a mission of love and service, and that our calling as Christians extends beyond Sunday and beyond the physical church
-a Presbyterian seminarian in search of a communal ministry that embraces the radicalness of Jesus.
-not content to stay where I am comfortable, but rather impelled to explore the fringes of my faith and my experience
-inspired by the ordinary radicals in my midst to be and live as they do

So those are a few things that characterize me, although for the most part these are things that not only characterize my psyche but stretch beyond the now to how I seek to be in my ministry and my life. For the more “fact-based” account of who I am, perhaps this would suffice:
My name is Sarah Glass, I am a 2nd year seminarian at Harvard Divinity School and a Presbyterian (PCUSA) under care with San Jose Presbytery. I am currently an Inquirer who will be going before CPM next week to make the case for Candidacy in the Church. I came to HDS considering military chaplaincy, which I believed and still believe is the most invisible youth ministry out there to the church, one with amazing potential as well as intense responsibility attached to it. Somewhere along the way I perceived that God might be calling me to something else, in particular doing the nontradition within traditional ministry settings in PCUSA. I am still trying to figure out what that non-traditional would look like, but I have a good idea–I feels strongly passionate about urban ministry, particularly urban youth ministry, as well with a ministry that engages the economic and social challenge of the Gospel.

How I found out about Broad Street Ministry

I knew early on this year that I wanted to have a chance to do something radically different the traditional ministry experience that I had this past year. I wanted to practice ministry somewhere that engages the things that I am passionate about, a place that, as you put it, “Gets in the mix” and is not afraid to engage the odd and risky and often scary aspects of following Christ. I wanted to find a place that would leave me passionately excited about my call. Anyways, I started looking (naturally online) in places that embodied the values I cared about. One place I looked was presbymergent.org, a blog for Presbyterians who are seeking to live up to the challenge to be reformed but always reforming. Broad Street was listed as a church that embodies those values, and so I checked out the website. Based on conversations with people on that blog and on my research, I had a strong feeling that Broad Street was doing what I dream about.

What I want to get out of this summer

To be honest, I think it all boils down to passion. I have spent the last year and a half learning about the theoretical and the academic aspects of ministry, and while I have spent the last six months doing good ministry in a good church, I know that God is calling me to explore something different from what is traditional. I came to seminary feeling strongly that God was calling me to work with youth, particularly young adults, particularly in settings that engage the world outside the church. My hope is that by the end of this summer I might have a stronger sense of that call, that I might feel as passionately in practice about my vocation as I feel about it in theory.

Election Fever

~ revweisass ~ Leave a comment

I admit it. I am obsessed with primary election gossip. Cnn’s “Election Center 2008” is hot-wired into my search engine history and now I only have to type the first “C” to get what I am looking for.

But I ask the question– What is it about this primary process that has me, and for that matter, that has America hooked? Why is my 18-year old brother passionate about the election?
While it seems like a cop out or perhaps a tired refrain to say “it matters now more than ever,” I think that perhaps the answer could perhaps be found by looking at the question of passion. Passion permeates the campaign, with each nominee staking their claim to “hope” and “change” in their own ways. And this time, more than ever, the candidates, at least externally, represent a great deal more of variance than they have in the past. There are evangelicals and liberal protestants, men and women, traditional and non-traditional. The fact that Huckabee is still sticking it out and WINNING states and REFUSES to bow out tells me that there is something to fight for on both sides, that it isn’t just the Democrats who haven’t made their mind up yet.

But again, I want to get back to the idea of passion. It feels as though people have woken up, or have been awakened, this year to the sense that things don’t have to be “the same old same old.” We have a choice. We have a voice. We may not be united in terms of what we want, but Americans seem more united than ever in our passion for something different, something better. We seem to be getting the message– Historically it seems that we always knew that our country is worth fighting for and perhaps even worth dying for, but we finally seem to be saying with our votes and our voices that it is also worth living for and dreaming for.

So while I may secretly hope that my candidate of choice blows everyone else out of the water and wins in a tidal wave of popular public opinion, I am grateful nonetheless to see that our country, on both sides of the aisle, seems passionate once more.