Enthused! \in-'thüzd\:

There are various benefits to being a student at Candler School of Theology, and one of them is the numerous opportunities to use resources from Emory University that relate to your specific interests. My primary academic interest in Christian Ethics drew me to apply to the 2011-12 Ethics and Servant Leadership Forum offered by the Center for Ethics at Emory University. This program is a weekly, interdisciplinary forum focused on service, community building, and leadership development. The Forum’s topics include racism, sexism, classism, relationship to the environment, urban development, and intersection between ethics & the arts.

Specifically, in the ESAL Forum, we formed three subgroups focused on a particular topic, and I belong to the group – Arts and Ethics. Our group collaborated to make a short film – “The Exit” – concerning the issue of child sex trafficking in the city of Atlanta. Through this movie, we intend to raise critical awareness of such a serious ethical problem near our life – the reality in our society. Please, watch the film first and then continue to read.

The term “child sex trafficking” can be defined the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The use of force, coercion, and slavery-like conditions are specific features of child sex trafficking. Atlanta was named by the FBI as one of 14 US cities with the highest of children used in prostitution. Letitia Campbell – a Ph.D. candidate in Christian social ethics at Emory –   insists that Atlanta’s busy airport make it an easy destination for men who desire to buy sex with children, as well as a domestic and international hub for distributing trafficked women and children in her article, “Selling Our Children.” According to the Schapiro Group’s demand study conducted in fall 2009, in Georgia, 12,400 men purchase sex with young women in a given month; more than 27,000 men purchase sex with young women in Georgia more than once per year; Craigslist is by far the most efficient medium for advertising sex with young females.

The short film, “The Exit” is based on the real story of one victim of child sex trafficking (we made a few artistic modifications to the story). She was lured by a pimp and became a victim of child sex trafficking in her teenager years. Once, she escaped from the pimp’s house, but found she could not live by herself outside of the house. Tragically, she had no choice but to return to the evil house. Finally, she became a madam – female pimp – in her twenties. Her story is tragic itself.

I understand that making a film concerning the issue of child sex trafficking is a beginning in the whole process to address this ethical problem. I am planning to disseminate the film more widely with assistance of colleagues and professors at Candler. As a president of the Social Concerns Networks for the next academic year – a student organization at Candler focused on promoting social justice, I will collaborate with our committed members in order to make concrete ways to respond to such tragic problem in our society.

- Won Chul Shin

Won Chul is a second year MDiv student from Incheon, South Korea.  He will return home this summer as part of the Candler Advantage Program where he will serve a paid internship in a Methodist Church in Incheon.

It’s crazy to think that in a couple of months, I will be facing yet another transition in my life. It seems like only yesterday that I hopped on a plane to fly across the country (literally – from California) to start my graduate education. Personally, coming to Candler was a HUGE decision. In so many ways, it was out of character for me to choose to invest so much time and money into an education that could not guarantee me a set career. And to get up and leave my family, friends and comfort zone to go to the South! What could the South possibly offer me that LA couldn’t? However, I knew that if I chose to ignore the opportunity set before me and refused to take that leap of faith, I would be left wondering “what if…”

Many people have told me that you need to be really intentional about spending time with God in seminary. Doesn’t seem to make much sense right? Shouldn’t it be easier since I will be reading, writing, breathing and living everything God? But it’s true–the academic demand does cause a spiritual disconnect at times. However, my studies here at Candler have also enriched my relationship with God in so many ways. I have been introduced to so many great thinkers, writers, theologians, preachers and the like. The readings that I actually got around to really challenged me to go deeper in my understanding of God and His Word. Similarly, the discussions with which I engaged during classes have also stretched me to look at things in new and different ways. Even though I know that God isn’t calling me vocationally to ministry (whew!), the skills that I have found and honed here at Candler will be an asset wherever I go.

So. Was it worth it? Was it worth getting past my fears and insecurities, of trusting that God will somehow make everything work? Most definitely. This of course does not mean that I have all the answers. Graduation is in 3 months and I still have no answer to where I will be going next. But that leap of faith has brought me to trust in God at a different level. He not only met me here in s-l-o-w Atlanta, but He revealed different parts of Himself to me in the green trees and the curvy one-lane roads and even on the MARTA bus. He answered my prayers for real community and good people in a way that I didn’t think possible. I am astonished at how much God has grown me and stretched me in the past two years. Not only have I learned new things about myself but I have started a journey in finding parts of me that I have lost along the way. To think that I would’ve missed out on all of that…

- Jung Won An

Jung Won is a second year MTS student from Los Angeles, CA and a Student Ambassador.

Candler School of Theology has offered me many opportunities to develop as a pastor.  One of the most formative experiences has been participating in the Emory Global Health Case Competition.  The event, which is funded in part by Candler’s student government the Candler Coordinating Council and other graduate school’s student governments, brings together students from the entire university to compete on teams to propose solutions to a current global health issue.  In one competition we proposed training community health workers and providing farmers subsidies in order to bring relief to the economic and health burdens of tobacco use and production in Gujarat India.  In the other competition we proposed funding food trucks with health food options, community/school gardens, and building capacity around an existing maternal health program to address the issues of childhood obesity in Mexico.  The problems were complex and the teams competing to propose the best solutions found out that solutions were even more complex.

Though neither team that I competed with won the competitions, a few Candler students have been on winning teams and earned the cash prize offered.  Though I am a competitive person this was truly a time when the experience was worth the time investment required to participate.  The interdisciplinary teams were composed of colleagues from the graduate programs in business, law, public health, development practices, theology, medicine, and nursing as well as the college of arts and sciences .  I was randomly assigned to a team in my first competition and was part of a intentionally formed team in my second go round.  In each competition we received the case and background information on a Monday and had until Saturday morning to research, brainstorm, and put together a professional proposal.  On Saturday morning the teams competed against each other with expert judges deciding on the best presentation and navigation of questions following.

In this experience I had my global perspective broadened.  I was able to think about and research how faith based organizations around the world were addressing the issues of people living on the margins.  As a theology student on the team it was often my role to consider people’s responses to programs based on their faith commitments and the overall ethical foundations of our proposed solutions.  Even more importantly I learned how to better communicate with people who have different ways of seeing and interpreting the world.  We all had a different way of talking about justice and health and had to either find a common language or learn each other’s languages in order to effectively communicate our ideas to one another.  I believe this will be an amazing tool for me in the local church as a pastor who believes we should be engaged with community health issues.  Empowering a congregation full of doctors, lawyers, nurses, business women and men, etc. will require knowing how to effectively translate theological themes that inform our involvement, effectively hear what other disciplines have to offer, and then translating that for other members of the congregation who have different vocations all together.

Candler is fertile ground to grow as a student of life and especially as a pastor.  The Global Health Case competition will be one of the things I miss the most about my time at Candler.  There are many other ways to get involved in community health at Candler.  One could do a dual degree with the public health or development programs, go on a trip half way around the world with organizations like International Relief and Development, take courses that introduce the intersection of faith and health, get involved with the Religion and Public Health Collaborative or Interfaith Health Program, or make friends with like minded people from one of the other 6 graduate schools at Emory.  If you are interested in how the church can be involved with community health, then Candler is the school for you.

- Patrick McLaughlin

Patrick is a third year United Methodist MDiv student from Kansas, a member of the Candler Singers, and a Student Ambassador.

As graduation quickly approaches, I find myself reflecting fondly on my time spent at this wonderful institution that I have called home for nearly three years now.  While graduations are always exciting, I find myself feeling particularly bitter sweet about this one.  It is difficult to narrow all of the reasons down to only a few paragraphs, but I will do my best to keep it brief.  Below are the reasons why I am forever grateful that I chose Candler and that Candler chose me:

ONE: The Community.  I began my career at Candler with a bit of anxiety – I was three years out of college, and was unsure how I would fit into the mix at Candler.   Immediately, however, I found my niche.  My fears were relieved within the first month as I settled into classes and began developing relationships with my ConEd group.  Again, those in the Admissions Office warmly welcomed me as I began working with the Student Ambassadors each week and was invited on a retreat as a small group leader.  I was amazed with the sense of community that existed within Candler, both among the students, staff, and faculty.

TWO: The Curriculum.  Since I had been removed from school and had not practiced good study habits for a few years, I was very intimidated by the coursework at Candler and feared that I would struggle in maintaining good grades at such a prestigious institution with such renowned scholars as my professors.  Yet again, I was pleasantly surprised with the willingness of the professors to help and even build relationships with the students.  Furthermore, the variety of coursework offered at Candler is truly remarkable.  Classes such as Old and New Testament, History of Christian Thought, and Systematic Theology could challenge my theology.  And I was able to develop practical skills and lifelong knowledge through courses such as Pastoral Care, Empowering Youth for Global Citizenship, and Vocational Discernment.

THREE: The Contextual Education Program.  This internship program, in my opinion, is Candler’s biggest selling point! I was able to cater my ConEd experience both my first and second year to my vocational goal, which involves youth ministry.  My first year, I did ConEd at the United Methodist Children’s Home (UMCH) in Decatur.  So I worked four hours each week with the youth who were living in this group home, sharing meals with them and leading them in Bible studies.  I would then bring my experiences back to my small group, all of who were also doing ConEd at the UMCH, during class each week.  My second year, I chose to work eight hours each week with a large youth group at a UMC in Decatur.  This experience helped to clarify my calling and even offered me a paid job for my third year of seminary.  God is good!  But having these “internship” experiences fulfilled during the academic year, alongside my other coursework, enabled me to apply the things I was learning in the classroom to my ministry.

FOUR: Summer Opportunities.  Since my ministry internships were completed during the academic year, my summers were free to experience other transformational opportunities.  Among these summer opportunities is the Middle East Travel Seminar (METS), which I applied for and was accepted.  This gave me the opportunity to travel the lands of the Bible with other seminarians for three weeks.  The experiences and relationships that this trip was able to offer me forever changed my life.  My vocational dreams and my personal priorities were made clear and I was able to come home a better person.  Had I chosen a different seminary, I could have missed this once in a lifetime experience.

Ultimately, I could not have found a better match for my three years in seminary.  My life was transformed in my time at Candler and I will forever be grateful for the relationships, courses, and practical ministry experience that I encountered in and through this place.

- Mia Northington

Mia is a 3rd Year MDiv student from Tennessee and a Student Ambassador.

pil·grim/ˈpilgrəm/

Noun: a person who journeys, especially a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of  religious devotion.

(Note: not a person who wore a funny hat and traveled on the Mayflower.)

Almost three weeks ago, I walked a prayer labyrinth in Nazareth. I was trying to figure out what it meant to be more than just a tourist, more than just a traveler collecting memories for the scrapbook.

I knew how to be on a trip, but what I didn’t know was how to be on a pilgrimage.

I had joked with people before my trip to Israel with the WMEI[1] and 23 other seminarians that I was going to look for stones that Jesus had walked on, but in reality, I didn’t know if I would see any.

You see, seminarians can be a tad bit skeptical. We tend to question most everything we hear. I wanted to hear archaeological evidence on every sight. I wanted proof at every place that this was in fact the place where Jesus had been.

But then our tour guide, Wisam, a Palestinian Christian, spoke to us outside the Church of the Annunciation as we huddled together in the wind:

“It’s not that Jesus might have been here that makes this place holy. Jesus did not come to make stones holy. It’s the people who came here to worship over the centuries that makes this place holy. It’s the people. It’s the worship of God that turns this space into holy ground.”

Pilgrims for centuries had come searching for God in these places. And God had met them here. God had been meeting people here for thousands of years, and that made these places sacred ground.
And as I saw people crowded around the altar at the Garden of Gethsemane or taking the Eucharist in a church in Emmaus, I realized that it wasn’t about whether or not, it was this garden or the next garden over that Jesus physically prayed in or if it was that tomb or another tomb where they laid Jesus, it didn’t matter.

Because ultimately, Jesus wasn’t there anymore; he wasn’t in any of them. He is alive, meeting people on the long road home and in cold crowded churches, making them holy.

And so I went and walked in places where Jesus walked and maybe in some places where he didn’t. I walked around Israeli malls and refugee camps, past border fences and into the Dead Sea, along the Via Delarosa and the Sea of Galilee.

And I wondered what it meant to realize the reality of the resurrection and the gospel of Christ in a place that still knows so much hate and brokenness.

And as I walked around that prayer labyrinth, I realized that above all else,  no matter where following these footsteps led, I wanted to always walk in the places where Jesus walked, whether it be at a Palestinian refugee camp or back here among the halls of the CST[2].

And through all that, somehow I became a pilgrim.

A note from someone who only three years ago was anxious even applying to seminary and will celebrate completing the MDiv program feeling enabled and affirmed for ministry in the church in the world. 

I was completely unsure if I was what seminary was looking for.  I even had an application in for a nursing program thinking I could partially put my biology degree to use and be guaranteed a job upon completion.  Then I got a phone call from the Candler admissions office, the only place I had applied for seminary.  I knew this must be good news as they surely would just send a letter to tell me no.  My intuition was correct; apparently the feeling about my fit at Candler was mutual as they even offered me a generous scholarship from the Sherman foundation.  I figured I would just put on hold my vocational calling into a health field while I discerned what Candler and I had to offer each other.  Little did I know these weren’t two separate vocational callings but just parts of a calling that would be complemented by biblical, theological, historical, and justice courses.  As someone who doesn’t consider themselves a great student, I am living proof that a hard worker with a willingness to learn can be transformed and be successful.  It has not been easy but has by far been the best investment I’ve ever made.

While at Candler I have been inspired by Old and New Testament instructors;  they are intent on making scripture real for students of the word.  Issues of racism and sexuality were common in our small group conversations in addition to learning how to read difficult passages, how to offer pastoral care through scripture, and how to offer a prophetic word to communities for justice.  My history instructors, in real and creative ways, helped me to understand the foundations of the complex paradigm in which we live today.  Finally, my justice oriented classes have prepared me to be a better pastor by giving me assessment tools, a better vocabulary for theological community engagement, and helped me focus on a root cause issue that is relevant to the church.  A consistent quality of instructors at Candler has been that they are focused on preparing future pastors.  Many of them admit that the reason they believe in Candler is because of its mission to prepare pastors.  Instructors also take great care of students who study in our other programs. Although coursework has been a very hard thing for me to find life in, I know that I have been very blessed to have taken so many courses that are of interest to me, even some at Emory outside of Candler.

The summer internships offered to me through Candler were formative.  A summer in Memphis and a summer back in my home conference, which I’d been away from for nearly a decade, offered me intensive opportunities to put into context the pastoral training I had received to that point. Furthermore I was able to flesh out how to raise questions of justice with parties invested in the issues from a multitude of complex angles.  These experiences offered me new insights into the proceeding semester’s classes.  Being able to say in class “this is how this scripture is being read by people on the margins” or, “I saw this particular theme, borne in some ancient thought, alive in the community” makes the theological education I received at Candler very real.

Engaging with student organizations Emory wide and as the president of one has enabled me to learn from other students perspectives and to enable other students to make their theological educations real.   I have been able to think theologically and respond pastorally to issues around global health, the Israel Palestine conflict, homelessness, immigration, and food security.  All of these opportunities have contextualized my education and will make me a better pastor after graduation.

And now here I am, sprinting towards home plate where they will hand me a diploma!  I’m on the road to ordination in the Kansas West Conference of the United Methodist Church where I look forward to one day being a pastor.  I started this journey not knowing anyone and am leaving with lifetime partners in ministry.  I am very thankful that I did not let my anxiety get between me and this amazing experience.

- Patrick McLaughlin

Patrick is a third year United Methodist MDiv student from Kansas, a member of the Candler Singers, and a Student Ambassador.

I have now spent four months as a part of the Candler community.  My first impression of Candler has now been confirmed several times over – it is warm here.

My first encounter with Candler was two days removed from a February day in Chicago that refused to climb above seventeen degrees below zero; the sixty-degree weather I encountered in Atlanta seemed downright tropical. That balmy day left an impression – of that you can be certain – but it is not the warmth which left the strongest impression upon my mind. The warmth of which I am speaking characterized the encounters and conversations I enjoyed with many faculty members and several students. I flew back home with the strong impression that Candler is one of the few places I have encountered where people successfully combine the academic study of theology and religion and a commitment to live out their understanding by caring for each other.

This initial impression was strengthened during the summer months as my family and I prepared for our move to Georgia. Two weeks before the moving truck arrived at our door, a routine physical suggested my wife had a serious cardiac condition. Dean Love and several members of our faculty and staff arranged for a temporary place for us to stay and connected us with a desperately needed physician. We are grateful that the feared prognosis was overturned, and while we can’t say we enjoyed going through that experience, we are grateful that those stressful days were the occasion for continued insight into the people who make Candler what it is.

The many formal and informal conversations and meals shared with colleagues and students during the course of the Fall semester repeatedly confirmed my first impression. Candler is a special place. Not primarily because of the ecumenical vision which permits the coexistence of differing theological perspectives, or because of the commitment to influence society through Christian convictions, or for many of the many other values espoused at Candler, but rather because of the very people who hold those perspectives. It is the people who make a community, it is the people who make it warm and welcoming, and I am pleased to be a member of this one.

For those of you whom I have not yet had the opportunity to meet, I suspect it might be helpful for me to briefly discuss my professional role in our community.  My particular contribution to understanding the Christian faith lies in my focus on early Christian life and thought. I hope that my presence at Candler will enable the members of our community to better grasp the earliest ways that those who followed Christ understood and lived out their beliefs.

It is my conviction that having a thorough understanding of the differences and similarities that exist between today’s church and the church of the past will enable a better understanding of one’s own theological commitments, as well as a better understanding of the variegated nature of our churches and those throughout the world. To be specific, I believe that studying the early church should improve your comprehension of today’s Christianity  and your own faith in at least three ways. First, most contemporary theological constructs engage in some way with those of the early church (even if simply to stand in opposition to them). Studying early Christianity should enable you to better understand your own theological commitments and other theological positions advocated today. Secondly, the social, economic, racial, and theological diversity that exists in our churches today is not new. Studying early Christianity should enable you to better understand the people you encounter in your churches today, for you will learn that diversity of thought has always been a part of the Christian tradition, and you will discover that many traditions of thought that exist today have their roots in the earliest church. Finally, one of the primary goals of a theological education is to learn how to interpret and understand Scripture. Studying early Christianity should enable you to approach Scripture with a more nuanced perspective, for the theological debates of the early church brought to light many possibilities surrounding the interpretation of Scripture.

I’m happy to be a part of a community interested in both understanding and living out the Christian faith. I’ve enjoyed getting to know some of you during this past semester, and I hope to get to know many more of you in the upcoming months and years. I particularly look forward to thinking through the Christian tradition with those of you I find in my classes.

I wish you a blessed Advent season,

- Anthony Briggman

Dr. Briggman is Assistant Professor of the History of Early Christianity.  His research interests focus on binitarian and early Trinitarian theology in the Apologists, especially  Irenaeus of Lyons and Justin Martyr, with special attention to the influence of contemporaneous Jewish thought on their theologies.  Briggman’s book entitled The Theology of the Holy Spirit According to Irenaeus of Lyons is now in press (Oxford University Press).

It’s the other way around, isn’t it? A school of theology should teach the aspiring biblical scholar how to read the parables of Jesus with the correct exegetical tools and provide the necessary skills for aptitude in interpretation. While this has been the case for me via a number of exegesis courses at Candler School of Theology, I would also like to use this space to illustrate in broad strokes how my experience with New Testament parabolic literature has trained me to read (perceive, examine, and indeed, exegete) the form, function, and nature of my seminary/theological training.

If the reader will forgive some generalizations, I’ll begin by commenting on a few things that characterize Jesus’ parables before demonstrating their application to my experience at CST. I have gleaned much of this from Steven Kraftchick’s Parables of Jesus course during this semester. First of all, parables are perhaps the best locus for seeing one of the foundational elements of language, namely metaphor. As is indicated in the term itself, a parable casts one (imagined or innovated) reality alongside another. In the case of Jesus’ parables, metaphoricity creates, via fictive (and often extended) analogy, another way of seeing a present reality like the Kingdom of God. Parables also often take the form of a narrative. A story is constructed with particular narrative dynamics, grounded in modes of being and thinking not unfamiliar to the intended audience, and with certain parameters that act to focus attention on one thing or another. An effective parable will meet the requisite cognitive and affective conditions so that the reader/hearer will at first find herself comfortable in the world constructed by the narrative analogy. It will then, either in the body or conclusion, shift typical cultural evaluations of meaning, most often by proffering unanticipated behavior by one or several of the parable’s characters. This shift allows (or perhaps forces) the audience to rethink their present reality in light of the slanted perspective of the parable. This is similar to Kierkegaard’s notion of “wounding from behind.”

The aforementioned characteristics of Jesus’ parables and my meditation on them in and outside of Dr. Kraftchick’s course have helped me to rethink precisely what I am doing and, more importantly, what is happening to me at CST. I have come to see that my training here is more than a 2-year data acquisition program. My relationships here, the coursework, the reading assignments, the papers and projects all cast alongside my vision of life an alternative and fictive account of reality. Furthermore, it is cast in the structure of a narrative. I don’t think in binary. Rather, I recount and contemplate my experiences in the form of story. My participation in Timothy Jackson’s Christian Ethics course begins with a relative feeling of ease concerning my certainty about morality, the ethics of war, Christian character, etc. But it is not long before I find myself “thinking it slant,” being cognitively coerced into reformulating the ethical boundaries of the Christian life. The conversations I have with friends after a day of class take me to the liminal spaces of my theological imagination and I am given a glimpse of an alternative world, wherein the life-destroying and oppressive systems of violent domination have lost their dominion. In short, reading parables has taught me how to read my time at Candler School of Theology and, for that, I am indeed grateful.

- Justin Rose

Justin is a 2nd year MTS student from Florida and a Student Ambassador.

On November 11 I attended Exploration 2011 as a representative for Candler. The conference, sponsored by The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church, is designed to help 18-26 year olds discern their call into ministry, specifically ordained ministry. Over 600 people responded to this opportunity as participants in the event (not counting seminary and General Agency reps and the event planning team). It was an amazing experience to see so many people actively searching out God and the call God has placed on their life. It was also wonderful to learn more about the state of young clergy in the church. One of the speakers shared the statistic that The United Methodist Church, and other denominations, desperately need young clergy; the UMC only has 950 clergy under the age of 35 out of 30,000 total clergy. The church desperately needs young adults who are actively seeking out God in their lives and who are able to help people discern God in their life.

Jon at Exploration 2011

However, what I saw was a lot of young adults who were looking exclusively into missionary work, chaplaincy, or youth/ children ministries. I spent the first 7 years living into my call to be a Military Chaplain, so this observation did not surprise me. It did scare me. We need clergy who will be in ministry to people who are sick, in prison, young, old, citizens who are foreign and domestic. While there is nothing wrong, and great value, with the specialized ministry of Chaplains, Missionaries, Youth/Children’s directors, etc. we need people to lead the local church. The church is the center that brings all of these people into community and dialogue. It is the organization that sends missionaries and chaplains forth, where the space is made for the young and old, and the one place people should be able to go and feel completely accepted.

The church does not always live up to this, and many pastors have become burned out trying to make the church the open, accepting, and welcoming ministry it should be. Young adults see this and turn away from the church, looking to minister in one area, to one population, free of the structures of the church. We as young people of Christ, need to take a hold of the promise that is given in Baptism and Confirmation. A promise that states we are full members of the church, with a full voice. We cannot abandon the church. It is the place where differences are reconciled, and different backgrounds are brought together. If the church is broken we must not run away, we must stand and fix it. We must claim the authority God has given us and lead.

Often I have heard clergy or lay members of the congregation tell young adults and youth that they are the “Future of the church.” At Exploration I saw people who were living that out; I wish they wouldn’t. We are the Present of the church! Along with the people who are leading the Church now we must insert ourselves into leadership. Be the present of the church; if you hear God’s call in your life don’t hold yourself back from finding the strength to acknowledge that call! Don’t run away from the church because of its human faults, plunge in, change what needs to be changed and lift up what is being done right. In order to have missionaries, youth/children’s directors, and chaplains there must be a church to send them. Do not be afraid to take your place, as a Local Pastor, Elder, Priest, or Preacher! Find a place to cultivate those gifts, dive in, be strong, and remember that God has called you and will be faithful.

- Jon Gaylord

Jon is a second year MDiv student from DeLand, Florida and a Student Ambassador.

During my last Thanksgiving at Candler and as I approach graduation in May, I couldn’t help but think of the diverse communities of friends that have touched me and shaped me during my time here.  My first year, I had the opportunity to travel to Dallas, Texas as a small group leader for Exploration 2009.  Through this trip, I became connected to all of the staff in the financial aid and registrar office, as well as some other student leaders within Candler.  Despite the fact that I knew no one on the trip prior to arriving at the airport, we were instant friends only a few hours into our weekend together.  We remained friends through the time that they graduated (as I was the youngest one on the trip), and still have lunch dates to this day!  Furthermore, I became involved with the Student Ambassador Program, which provided yet another community within which I found great friends and support.

Another community that fully embraced me in my first year was my Contextual Education (ConEd) community.  The group of seven of us who worked four hours each week at the United Methodist Children’s Home was pretty much inseparable.  We shared “brother/sister”-type relationships with one another and had an incredible chemistry.  By the end of our first year, we were truly family to one another – we laughed together, cried together, and supported one another free of judgment, no matter what the situation.  We truly carried one another through a year full of both trials and celebrations.

I was anxious entering second year, because I knew that the people in my ConEd group would change and I would not see those from my first year group as much as we had the year before.  What did I have to fear, though?  Yet again, I grew incredibly close to a whole new group of people, while maintaining my previous friendships.  That year, we worked eight hours each week in an ecclesial setting.  I began to really wrestle with whether or not I wanted to continue with ordination in the UMC.  Hesitant to share these doubts with many others, my ConEd group embraced me and provided a safe space for me to continue my discernment process.  They challenged me as to what I would have to lose should I not follow through in the process, as well as what the Church could lose if I were to give up.  Having help in thinking through some of these things was really beneficial for me, and formational in my ministry.

Finally, outside of the small groups I was placed in as a result of my coursework, I developed a strong friendship with a group of five girls that I have no doubt will be lifelong friends.  During the stresses of second year, we became close, realizing we shared a lot of things in common as well as a similar sense of humor.  We spend a lot of time together both inside and outside of classes.  I have truly been greeted with open arms by each and every group I came into contact with at Candler.  I firmly believe that there is a wonderful and affirming place for everyone within this community.  I have no doubt that each individual who passes through this special place is touched and transformed in a way that will positively impact the future of their ministry, whether it be inside or outside the church, and for that I am very thankful.

- Mia Northington

Mia is a 3rd Year MDiv student from Tennessee and a Student Ambassador.