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Julie Holm's Blog
Thoughts as I figure out what to say now that I've finished my final paper on bonhoeffer.
Wanting to DO Ministry
Posted by:
Juliana Holm on
May 5, 2010 at
11:38AM EST
I love it when someone else's words manage to touch an inner harmony in my life. And I really resonated with the words of Bonhoeffer, as he prepared to go to his first church, where he would be an associate pastor, prior to ordination (he was too young to be ordained, at 22).
It is a very singular experience when one sees work and life really converge - a synthesis that we all sought but hardly found in our student days; when one really lives one life and not two, or rather, half of one.* Dietrich wanted to be about the work of ministry, even though the church was telling him, you have more to learn. His relief on being able to do something that felt more like ministry is evident in this quote. The feeling, as a learner, that one is called to Ministry, not necessarily to endless navel-gazing about ministry, is one I share. I, too, want to be living one life, not two. The further I get into seminary, the more I feel this, and I suspect Bonhoeffer felt this as well, which is why he was so relieved to become an associate pastor, part of his practical training, in Barcelona. Likewise for me, I am very very excited to be on the verge of doing fieldwork next semester, which fulfills for me the same educational niche as Bonhoeffer's work in Barcelona. That said, we need to remember that preparing for ministry IS an important part of responding to a call for ministry. On a bulletin board at school this last year one of our profs (I cannot remember who, as it was early in the semester) wrote something that really touched me, to tell our churches that seminary WAS our ministry at this point in our lives. I think for me, I need to tell myself that, as well. Seminary IS my ministry right now. So the temptation to be very involved in other settings of the church (since the UCC definitely identifies seminary as a setting of the church) can be exactly that, temptation!
Connecting with Bonhoeffer in this way is, I think, a good step in the process of studying him. Even though this particular moment has little to do with his biblical hermeneutic, it disposes me to think of him as a fellow traveler on this path. He may be a traveler writ large, and I writ small, but we are on the same path, aren't we?
Also, this Barcelona connection is quite serendipitous. This summer I'm traveling to Germany, and will visit some Bonhoeffer-related sites. At my husband's request, we're including a visit to Barcelona at the beginning of this (3 days in Barcelona, 1 in Mallorca, then Germany for the last 10.) I am trying now to find the church that Bonhoeffer was at, if it is still there.
Note, I have just added a link to the Barcelona Church that Bonhoeffer was vicar at. It's completely in German.
*Letter to H. Roessler, 7.8.1928, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke 10:90, reproduced in Eberhard Bethge. Dietrich Bonhoeffer:A Biography Revised Edition. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2000) 96.
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