A new leg of the journey
Posted by Jordan on November 10, 2008
On November 1st I started a new job. I am now the Community Architect at Church of the Apostles, a sacramental/liturgical/emerging church in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. My main purpose as the Community Architect will be working to create systems of communication and connection that allow for the fostering of community within the church.
This new leg of the journey has caused me to reflect upon the path that I have been traveling for the past few years (though it goes back even farther). Back in 2005 and 2006 I completed a year of study at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL. During my time there I had the privilege of taking classes from the late Robert Webber. In his classes on worship and spirituality Bob introduced me to ancient and liturgical forms of worship as well as integrating them into the postmodern world that we live in today. He taught me that to worship is to participate in the enactment of the story of God (See Why Episcopal I, II, III). Under Bob’s teaching I was soon an Evangelical on the Cantebury Trail.
During this time I was also becoming more and more disillusioned (if you are at all familiar with my theological musings the reasons for this are quite obvious) with the church tradition that I found myself in. This disillusionment and other circumstances that Kate and I were going through brought us to the realization that we needed to go West. In the summer of 2006 Kate and I packed up our stuff and headed to Seattle to attend Mars Hill Graduate School. We went to MHGS with the hope of re-imagining our Christian faith with the help of others. Little did I know that my journey towards Anglicanism would pick up here in Seattle. Some friends of ours were attending St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lower Queen Anne (the neighborhood that Kate and I moved into). Upon their invitation we started attending, and it was pretty soon that Kate and I knew that we were home (Again, see Why Episcopal?).
However, this new found home also caused me a vocational dilemma. I am now part of a mainline protestant denomination where most of the paid jobs belong to ordained priests and I just graduated from a little known evangelical/emergent seminary that has no ties to this church. Where in the $&^% am I going to find a job?! And then right as I am graduating I am presented with a unique opportunity to work at a church here in Seattle, that is both Episcopal and emerging.
I resist using language of “God ordained this” or “it was God’s hand leading me the whole way”, etc… That language is difficult for me because one, I used that language to describe choices in my life before that turned out to not be the healthiest choices, and then I am left with the dilemma of “Did God want to cause me harm? Or did I mess up God’s plan, etc…”. And two, I believe that God wants me to make choices, wise choices, that reflect upon a whole range of things, only one of which is “What is God leading me to do?”.
In this situation though, I can’t help but smile a little bit with the sense that God is walking with me as both God and I make our way into this next leg of the journey.
Josh said
Jordan, this is great news. The pastoral heart, creative imagination, deep passion and gift of counseling that God put in your DNA will be well used here.
I sympathize with your struggle to find words to express God’s involvement in bringing you to this place. The terms that we have misunderstood/abused in the past are slippery and tricky to use again.
But you could say with confidence that God has chosen you (and me and Kate and Aubrey and Karl and Yoder and Jurgen and Jon and…) to be his presence bearer in the world and that this is an excellent way to live out that chosenness.