Friendship as Formation Across Cultures, Centering the Marginalized

In this article, we share authentically from our own experiences of tasting” heaving on earth,” centering the margins as a place of richness and weaving in scholarly work with practical implications. The margins are experiences, encounters, exploration of spiritual development that occur organically. Usually, they are an afterthought during formal education and spiritual formation, and yet they are spaces where divine and human energies meet. We hold up friendship as an illustrative example. We would go so far as to posit that the “margins” are often labeled as such because those who do not belong to or understand it have exerted power (and in some cases, injustice and oppression) by giving a name for that which is not their primary domain. Yet in our Christian tradition, heaven is described as a place where “every tribe and tongue and nation” worship God together. Moreover, Christian discipleship has been predicated on the friendship of the first apostles, and through apostolic succession extended to the entire human race through friendship with and from Christ.&nbsp

Formation and Supervision at the Margins

Campus ministries have long been at the forefront of building responsive and resilient Christian communities through creative worship, faith formation, and servant leadership development.  This article offers wisdom from the field, naming ways the church, and the Gospel, might respond to the myriad crises facing young adults at this moment

Queering CPE in Central Pennsylvania: An Embodied Womanist Approach to Learning

The growing awareness in clinical pastoral education is the importance of students' ability to reflect on their cultural identity. The purpose is that a student's ability to be in a relationship with another person is directly impacted by how the student is in a relationship with oneself. Spiritual care clinicians and educators are calling for a decolonized approach to learning that centers the body as the focus of learning. This type of learning invites us to pay attention to our Be-ingness in relationship to self and others. The focus is on how being a black, queer, and woman influenced my supervisory relationship with my students and the environment where I work as an educator. It demonstrates the theories utilized to engage students who don’t have the context of this style of learning.  Ultimately, discovered that certain persons and environments are on the margins of queer, and liberating thinking.  This article aims to invite certified educators and certified educator candidates to reflect on how their social location impacts their relationship with their students

The Language of Exile: Ministerial Formation in the Post-Christian Context

The Babylonians decisively invaded Ancient Israel in 587 BCE and sent many of the leading citizens of Judah off to exile in Babylon. This marginalizing act demanded that the people of Israel adapt their faith and the practice of it to a new and challenging set of circumstances. While the experience of the church in North America is very different than that of ancient Israel it is facing a time of moving from near the center of cultural influence to a place nearer to the margins. The experience of ancient Israel can inform the life of the church today. The prayer language of Israel found in the book of Lamentations and a number of Psalms can provide perspectives that will inform practices for ministerial formation in these challenging days

St. Mary Seminary, Cleveland Pathway Grant Reflection

Fr. Andrew Turner continues his reflection begun in Vol. 43 of the unfolding story of their institution's Lilly Pathway Grant implementation. &nbsp

SECTION 5: ACPE THEORY PRESENTATION OF THE YEAR

Introduction of the concept of ACPE Theory Presentation of the year and its history. Also names the 2024 recipient, Benjamin Paul Allward-Theime

Good Morning

Russion Poem from a mother

Essence Seeing in Reflective Practice

This article probes the question “What is essential in the program of supervised ministry to help students develop as reflective ministers?” The author employs Richard Osmer’s reflection method to describe and reflect upon theological field education in San Antonio, Texas, during the COVID-19 pandemic

Clinical Pastoral Education is Evolving with an Intact Soul

The categories for the ACPE Revised Outcomes and Indicators adhere to traditional values in CPE and expand on those values. The skill development that previously began in Level II CPE begins immediately in entry-level CPE. This evolution of the CPE Outcomes better serves students seeking to learn to offer spiritual care, and better serves care recipients. The Revised Outcomes raise a deeper question: do the members of ACPE believe the processes of CPE can and should evolve? This article makes a positive case for such evolution

Holy Friendships: Nurturing Relationships that Sustain Pastors and Leaders, by Victoria Atkinson White

Reviewed by Chelle Hut