Finding True North #1: Orientation (or, I'm Really Excited for this Summer)

Last summer, I blogged about my experience serving as a field education intern at Hill's Chapel UMC in Stanley, NC. I've decided to do something similar this year as I venture to Indianapolis to work and learn in the community at North UMC. In the future, use this link to filter out just my blogs about being in Indy.

I've decided on the (maybe?) clever series title "Finding True North." I might wake up tomorrow and decide it's cheesy, but this struck me as appropriate for several reasons: (1) The church I will be serving is named North United Methodist Church, and I will be getting to know the congregation and seeking truth alongside and among them this summer; (2) I am, quite literally, going north—I've lived in the south all my life and will probably take a few gallons of sweet tea with me; and (3) The idiom "finding true north" has to do with getting your bearings in relationship to the north star, which never changes, and this summer for me is all about vocational discernment—that is, getting my bearings calling-wise in relation to God's steady love and the firm foundation that is the Gospel.

That having been said, I am SUPER excited about this summer. Yesterday and today we had field ed orientation at Duke Divinity School, so I got to meet my supervisors and learn more about the many, many amazing things I might get to do this summer, time and God permitting. Last night, I had the pleasure of meeting Brenda Freije, Associate Pastor of Discipleship and Formation, with whom I will probably be working a great deal. Brenda does a lot with worship and the arts, some at North and some at Lockerbie Central UMC, which runs Earth House, a coffeehouse and arts collective. Today we both caught up with Kevin Armstrong, the senior pastor at North, with whom I will also spend time in ministry. They joked that Brenda will do the fun stuff while Kevin will do the serious stuff—but I have a hunch it will all be fun.

One thing we have to do in a field ed placement is to create, commit to and fulfill what is called a Learning-Serving Covenant. The idea of this document is to set goals—some very practical, like when your day off is, when you can meet regularly with your supervisor, and others more along the lines of setting ministry and vocational goals—and to refer back to the covenant over the course of the 10-week assignment to see how things are going. They give us until a few weeks into our placement to turn it in so that we can get a handle on how things will go before we commit to such a thing, but Brenda and I sat down and went ahead and outlined a few general goals that we can frame more practically once I'm up there. I'd like to share a few of those because I am just SO excited about this.

1. Worship planning and design is my current obsession and will be a big thing for me this summer. I'm already planning to follow Marcia McFee around at the Indiana Annual Conference. Brenda does a lot with worship arts both at North and at Lockerbie Central, so there will be plenty of opportunities for me to observe and perhaps contribute to creativity in liturgy and worship. North's Sunday morning worship is traditional in style but apparently has a great deal of space for creativity within that structure. Lockerbie Central's Sunday evening service is emergent (not contemporary), observes weekly Eucharist, and oftentimes conversation is substituted for preaching (this is a small group of young people). I already know that I will be preaching on Pentecost and am very much looking forward to that and to learning all I can from Brenda and the rest of the staff and laity at North.
2. Hospitality, Evangelism and Membership is the name of North's current group that might also be called a welcoming or outreach committee. Right now, the team is in the process of re-tooling the vision and giving that ministry more direction, tools and a philosophy. That's at North; at Earth House and Lockerbie Central, the congregation is all young people, and the coffeehouse is intentionally low-key on evangelism because many of its constituents have been burned by the church or are anti-establishment. Apparently there is ongoing discernment about how to be a faithful witness to the Gospel without making it a bait-and-switch situation. Interestingly enough, I'll be working on a directed study in evangelism this summer, and our coursework is open to being determined by our interests, so I'm hoping to draw on my experience at North and Lockerbie Central to inform what I'm doing on that end. Brenda was interested to see what sort of things we'll be reading for the class since both churches are working toward a clearer philosophy of evangelism, so I may even be able to contribute to that effort in a way.
3. Pastoral care is an area where I know I could use some work, so I was happy to hear from last year's intern at North that Rick Pickering, the Pastor for Care and Nurture, is a superb person to follow on pastoral visits. I am mildly terrified of hospitals and nursing homes, so observing someone like Rick will, I hope, help me overcome that obstacle to my future ministry, because that's what it is.
   
4. A website re-launch/re-vamp is in the works. I'm a fan of technology and have dabbled in web design, and I'm particularly interested in observing how North works out the theology surrounding storytelling via its website.
5. Mission and outreach seems to be central to North's self-identity, with a plethora of ministries both at home and abroad functioning at all times. I look forward to participating in as many of these programs as I can, especially Bread and Bowl, a soup kitchen that operates out of North three days a week. Side note: North, along with other partner churches, does a lot of work in Kenya, and the students from Duke who will be serving in Kenya will spend a few days in Indy at the beginning of the summer and then about a week and a half there at the end. It'll be fun to have them there and to hear about their experiences.

This blog post is entirely too long (unless you read my classmate Tom Lewis' blog) (which you should if you can find the time), so I'll end it there, but suffice to say I am thrilled about all the opportunities before me this summer. There is too much to do, and that's a good problem to have. Please be in prayer for me as God prepares me for this adventure and as I serve and learn in Indianapolis.