Seminary Tutorial

How does Seminary work??

Candidacy - the process of getting approval from your Synod to attend Seminary. If you don't have their endorsement then you can't be rostered and you can't take a call at a church in the ELCA. There's a lot to this process. You meet with the committee and you also take extensive psychological tests and get evaluated by a mental health professional. I was approved for entrance (given permission to start school) in May of 2000 (but I didn't go to Seminary immediately). The NW MN Synod allowed that decision to stand after meeting with me again in April 2007.

Summer Greek - All Master's of Divinity Students are required to take Greek in undergrad or the summer immediately before starting Seminary. I took some Greek in college, but that was a long time ago (1998-1999) so I took Greek in the summer of 2007. Five weeks of conjugating verbs!

List of classes Below you will find an ever updated list of classes I took. Some everyone takes and some are electives. This is the list of classes I took specifically each semester.

Junior year - First year of Seminary.

Fall Semester Classes

1. Jesus & the Gospels (Study of the four Gospels)Exegetical Greek (Translating the Gospel of John)
2. Anthropology & World Religions
3. Spiritual Practices
4. Justification & Justice (Intro to Theology)
5. Early Church History

January Interim

1. Responding to Issues of Violence Against Women & Children

Spring Semester Classes

1. Text to Sermon
2. Pauline Letters (Study of the letters of Paul)
3. Systematic Theology
4. Parish Worship
5. Medieval History
6. Pastoral Care of Adolescents
7. Speaking on Tones (Chanting)
8. Israeli / Palestinian Conflict (Audit)

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) - Usually this part of Seminary takes place between Junior and Middler year. It must take place before you can begin internship. Juniors have interviews with CPE supervisors here at Wartburg and then send the written report to the CPE sites they want to apply for. Most of the sites are either in hospitals or nursing homes. We work as Chaplains to learn more about ministry and ourselves. It is a practical learning setting.

My site was Gunderson Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, WI. La Crosse is about two and a half hours from Dubuque. I'm lived in the Lutheran Campus Center house of the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, with two of my classmates, during the week. I tried to get home on weekends to help Mike remember what I look like. CPE lasted from May 27th - August 8th of 2008. In the hospital I was assigned to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) and the cardiac step-down unit as a Chaplain Intern. Our days consisted of visiting patients on our floors and classroom time.

Middler year - Second year of Seminary.
During the fall of Middler year you meet with your Candidacy Committee to receive Endorsement which is required before you can go on internship. After that meeting the committee will make an internship recommendation.

Fall Semester Classes

1. Lutheran Confessions (Study of the Book of Concord)
2. Educational Ministry (Learning about how do do education in the Parish)
3. Liturgy and Life: Marriage, Sickness, and Death (learning about the worship options around these life moments)
   
4. Hebrew Bible (Study of the "Old Testament")
   
5. Hebrew Language (This is HARDER then Greek!!!)
   
6. Systems Thinking and Family Theory (Learning about how different systems affect people's actions)

January Interim

1. Trip to China (Hangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai)

Spring Semester Classes

1. Preaching
2. Theology of the Congregation
   
3. Seen & Heard; Foundations of Youth & Family Ministry
   
4. Hebrew Language (part 2)
   
5. Hebrew Bible (part 2)
   
6. Ethics: Luther, the Religions, and the Global Economy
   
7. Contemporary Rural Issues
   

Internship - 1 year serving in a church with a supervisor. The location is assigned by the Seminary and can be just about anywhere in the country. The assignments happen in March of your Middler Year.

I served my Internship with 2 congregations in South Dakota; St. John's Lutheran in Bancroft, SD and American Lutheran in De Smet, SD. It was a rewarding year filled with lots of great experiences.

Senior Year - Final Year. Candidates write a 17-20 page essay. The seminary faculty and candidacy committee must both approve the candidate before they can be assigned and ordained. In February of your Senior year leadership of the ELCA meet and decide first what region candidates will be assigned to and then what synod (http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Synodical-Relations/Regions.aspx). Then candidates begin interviewing at churches for first call.

Fall Semester Classes

1. Church Administration and Mission
   
2. Person and Work of the Holy Spirit
   
3. Christianity and Islam
   
4. Children, the Family, and Faith
   
5. Practical Theology
   
6. Senior Preaching - Preaching the Hebrew Bible
   

January Interim

1. Trip to Haiti

Spring Semester Classes

1. Shalom Church
   
2. Spiritual Practices 2
   
3. Senior Bible - Isaiah
   
4. Senior History
   
5. Bible in the Parish
   
6. Leaders in Mission
   

GRADUATION - MAY 15, 2011!

My first blog... ever!

I'm really excited about starting a blog. I originally thought of it because I often have lots of people I want to update about my life and it takes so long to email and I have to edit and send different versions to different people. This seems like the perfect solution.
To begin with I should mention that I'm just finishing up my first year at Seminary (see the next post for a tutorial on the Seminary process). We're all in finals mode around here. Right now I'm working the extra late shift at the library that happens the last two weeks of the semester. I'll be here until midnight. I have several projects that I'm finishing up, but everything should be finished in a little more than a week.
Seminary so far has been a great success. I have enjoyed it more than I anticipated. Greek has been a challenge and Systematic Theology has made me wonder if I ever really knew anything about God, but all in all school has been great fun. Both Mike and I also like Dubuque (even if Mike is calling our years in Iowa "the exile years"). We keep busy with people our own age, which is great fun, and there's always something going on at the castle. We call Wartburg the castle because it is modeled after Wartburg castle in Germany (where Martin Luther translated the bible while living in hiding from the pope). All in all life is very good.
I am currently looking forward to:

1. The end of the Semester (assuming I pass everything)
2. Our trip to St. Paul for my broth -in-law's graduation with a master's in business (May 17)
3. Our trip from St. Paul to Fargo to see friends and borrow my mom's car for the summer (May 18-20)
4. The beginning of CPE (I think, I'm a little nervous) in La Crosse, WI
   

Okay that's all for now - goodnight!