“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens …” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
In the changing of seasons, it’s time to say a faithful farewell to my service on the College of Emmanuel and St. Chad Council. Even though there is much more rewarding work left to do, I felt a new season emerging, in my own life as well as the life of the council and college.
After all, I have been on council since 2012. Having been recently ordained, I looked forward to giving back to the college that I loved and helped form me as a Christian and a priest.
The presence of the college in my hometown was a clear blessing, affording me many opportunities to learn and grow, spiritually, theologically, personally and professionally. I was able to be a part-time student while taking care of a family at home.
When I became a student in the ’00s, I merely wanted to add some academic understanding and knowledge to my relatively young faith and take classes that would help me be a lay teacher in my home church in the Free Methodist denomination.
But, as I immersed myself in the Anglican tradition and in college life, I sensed a call to ordination. After 10 years of discernment, God deemed it right and good that I was ordained.
When I was invited to join the college council, it was in the midst of navigating a transition. Just a few years earlier, the college considered closing. As a student, I rarely was aware of the college’s structure and governance.
My head and heart were too immersed in study, reading, and in learning to be involved in the council work. I knew the college had sold buildings and moved into the Lutheran Seminary. But, I didn’t realize it was in danger of closing.
I have always been grateful to those who came before me, who sat on council, and prayerfully discerned the will of God to keep the college open and to re-think its future. I served the council as secretary, then vice-president, and as president for the last seven years.
I was privileged to be chair of the search committee who vetted the current principal, The Rev. Canon Dr. Iain Luke. For the past eight years, working well with the council, he has helped steer the college towards a sustainable future.
He helped renew the college’s mission, faculty, and relationships within and outside the college, reaching out to others, reminding us all not only of the college’s offerings, but that our never-tiring loving God is with us.
It is with mixed feelings that I say goodbye. Being on council has been both challenging and satisfying. But it is time for new people to take up the new challenges emerging in this moment.
The college has worked very hard in the past few years to formalize a deeper working relationship with its Lutheran and United Church partners, incorporating the Saskatoon Theological Union (STU) and creating a STU Board to oversee the future of good theological education on the prairies for all three denominations.
Emmanuel & St. Chad’s mission is to be a College for the Church. It’s my fervent hope that Anglicans of the West will continue to support this mission by choosing to pray for the college on a regular basis and donate time, energy and finances to support the college.
We are eagerly searching for faithful followers of Christ who will share their gifts with the council or its committees for the sake of the college’s work.
Our hope is to continue developing the council to grow in faithful governance and stewardship of the college’s mission and resources
It’s important for all of us, especially in theological colleges, to learn together how to follow Jesus through these times of change and transition.
We need God’s grace to empower our seminaries to shape apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers who can lead and support God’s people in living our faith in a post-truth, post-modern and post-Christian world.
Change is a constant in life and transitions can be daunting. But I’m comforted by this quote from Rabbi Rami Shapiro, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The rabbi’s words encourage us to always work with faith, hope and love for a college that desires to support the Church in its God-given mission in the world.
I invite you to remember that in changing seasons and times, our God is unchanging, always good, always compassionate, always merciful … and for eternity. I need to remember to trust God, who allows us to embrace change and transition. Embracing a new season means that every phase of life has its unique beauty and purpose.
I will miss the rhythm of College Council life. But, just as seasons change, this new chapter of my ministry will bring its own time for growth, reflection, and joy.
If we embrace our seasons of life, we can know each moment as a divinely appointed time just for us.
“What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:9-11).
May our unchanging God continue to call the faithful to find the courage, commitment and constancy to support the College of Emmanuel & St. Chad, as it navigates the transitions of theological education on the prairies and fulfils its mission to be a College for the Church.
