Tennessee Broadens Training for Ministry
Diocesan Press Service. November 22, 1974 [74330]
Isabel Baumgartner
MONTEAGLE, Tenn. -- The Diocese of Tennessee initiated a new approach to training for ministry September 27-28 when 25 men gathered at DuBose Conference Center, Monteagle, to begin a tutorial program.
Their goal:. either ordination as perpetual deacons or self-supporting priests, or an informed and deepened ministry as lay persons.
The Rev. H. Gordon Bernard of Cleveland, who heads the new venture, said of the group, " These men from 14 congregations, from Morristown to Memphis, find themselves at a variety of stages in their thinking toward the future. Some have already begun reading for holy orders; others are seeking to discover precisely the ministry they're being called to exercise, ordained or lay."
By entering the program, each agrees to undertake prescribed academic studies at home, under supervision, plus an active lay ministry in his parish or mission under the guidance of his priest. Quarterly meetings at DuBose, led by teachers distinguished in given fields, will reinforce individual and area study and work.
After at least one full year, men who so wish may apply for candidacy for ordination. Those accepted after screening will participate at least two more academic years in the tutorial program before taking the regular canonical examinations for the diaconate, and at least one year after that for the nonstipendiary priesthood.
Tutorial work constitutes one aspect of a wider program now being shaped "to advance the ministry of the whole Church here," says Bishop Coadjutor William E. Sanders. It emerged first because during the past year, more than 50 Tennesseans have expressed interest in seeking candidacy for ordination.
It supplements the traditional full seminary preparation for ordination, and the year of pre-seminary orientation which now takes place under the oversight of the local priest and the Screening and Guidance Committee of the diocesan Commission on Ministry.
Father Bernard, who chairs the S & G Committee, will be area tutor for Chattanooga/Sewanee. Three other examining chaplains will guide tutorial training elsewhere: the Rev. Larry Gipson in Knoxville/Upper East Tennessee, the Rev. Robert Tharp in Nashville/Middle Tennessee, and the Rev. Wallace Pennepacker in West Tennessee. Participants in each area will meet monthly with their tutor, and all four areas will use the same curriculum outline.
Comments Father Bernard, " The fact that people in Tennessee are having the opportunity to explore ministry in a new way can deepen our experience of our Lord. Any person in the program may withdraw at any time, remaining a layman enriched for lay ministry. Whatever else we accomplish by this innovation, we hope to produce across the Diocese a better theology of ministry, lay and ordained."
Bishop Sanders notes that the tutorial plan "in no way envisions matching the preparation a seminary gives for full-time priesthood. " Men who follow the tutorial route to ordination "will always work under the supervision of and see their ministry as auxiliary to that of men with full seminary training."
"We have designed the tutorial. program," the Bishop adds, "as a disciplined and structured path to the self-supporting ordained ministry, which has recently taken on increasing importance to the Church's whole mission strategy. It can raise up ordained men in small and isolated communities where we now have no deacon or priest, and in some present congregations whose life might be strengthened by the assistance of nonstipendiary clergymen."
"All across Tennessee," he says, "we are committed to mobilize and train the whole Church for ministry, lay as well as ordained. We understand the ordained ministry to have as its purpose the equipping of all the people of God for ministry."
He expects to share lay training plans with Diocesan Convention in January.