Monday, April 24, 2006

Ministerius Tobeus: Not Yet Ordained

What am I? What should I be called?

I've passed my 8 written exams--from Theology and History to Greek & Hebrew, working until my brain was squeezed like a melon.
Then I submitted an exegesis paper and my theology paper (my 85 page M. Div thesis!)--surely my brain was as empty as outer space.

But Presbytery was not finished with me yet! I still had the oral floor exam: 1 1/2 hours running the entire gauntlet of theology--including pastoral questions--asked randomly from any member of the body.

So, it is all done. 3.5 years, 115 credits and hundreds of pages later, seminary was finished. God sustained my wife and I through it all.

Before this point I was a licentiate--one allowed to preach as a means to moniter my progress but not a full-blow minister who leads worship, calls worship, presides over the sacraments, and announces the benidiction.

But I am not ordained yet. There has been no laying on of hands of the Presbytery (1 Tim. 4:14), so technically I am not a minister.

Then what am I?

A friend (wanting to show off what little Latin he knew) suggested, that since I am a minster-to-be: ministerus tobeus!

Sounds pretty neat, eh? But then I find there is an official name for this nebulous state of being. I am called an ordinand.

Pretty dull, eh? I'll stick the the former, Presbytery can call me the latter.

But Lord willing this will be moot Friday night!

SDG

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