Date: July 19, 2024
Last month I had the privilege of preaching at the diaconal ordinations for the Diocese of Texas, where 15 new deacons were ordained, including several VTS graduates. In my sermon I reflected on the practice of ministry.
In thinking about this idea of practice, I reflected back on when I learned to drive at fifteen and a half. It was mid-December, just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Driving on snow takes practice but you can quickly get accustomed to it. Then, in the summer months, you can just as quickly get accustomed to driving differently: taking turns a little faster and braking more suddenly.
Every year, the first time it snows, there were always an abundance of minor accidents. And it wasn’t a lack of experience with driving on snow, but rather a lack of practice that bedeviled so many drivers.
I was intending to remind the ordinands that Christianity is something we practice. And the practice of ordained ministry takes a particular form, where we pray for the concerns of our church and its participants, we lead communities through difference and disagreement, and we seek to respond faithfully to God in each moment.
And as I think back on my residential seminary experience at VTS, the opportunity to engage in such practice was definitely one of the hallmarks of my time there. Whether I was playing flag football, interning at my field education site (St. Paul’s, Rock Creek), or perhaps most helpfully of all, being a dorm proctor, the reality of life together at VTS helped to begin to form me in my vocation to the priesthood. The routine of “class, chapel, lunch” is more than the sum of its parts, as it hopefully affords students the opportunity to build relationships across difference, sustain community, and worship God together.
I am so grateful for my time at VTS, and I pray that I and all those who have been touched by this place may practice our faith in such a way that we fulfill Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians, when he says, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
The Rev. Canon Christine M. Faulstich ‘10
President of the Alumni Association Executive Committee (AAEC)
Canon to the Ordinary, Diocese of Texas