Last summer, we detailed the final year of our long ordination process in The United Methodist Church (for more of the story, see posts categorized by Ordination). In that post, we mentioned that January 13, 2011 was the deadline for our work in preparation for interviews with the Board of Ordained Ministry. Well, today is that big day. And we made it!
In Our Journey Toward Ordination, we tell a bit of our long story, which includes the fact that we’ve been in the UMC since 1998 (13 years). What we didn’t say there is that we both (separately, because we didn’t know each other at the time) responded to God’s call to ministry/leadership in the late 1980s — more than half of our lives ago. So, to one degree or another, we’ve both been working toward this destination for at least 23 years (13 in the UMC when the clock was reset).
We laugh, at times, as we recall leaders in the UMC in 1998 thinking they could get us on the “fast track” toward ordination. Some thought we could be ordained in as few as two years or so (one person estimated as few as two and, worse case scenario, ten). However, we’ve discovered there is no fast track in the UMC’s ordination process! š
While we’re not quite there yet, today marks a huge day in what has been an incredible journey (God has been our Sustainer!). We have a few events to attend, but the only real significant event is our interviews with the Board of Ordained Ministry in mid-March (if we pass those, we’ll be set for ordination on June 11, 2011 — 150 days from today!). While the interviews are a big deal, they’re based on work we’ve submitted in the last several days.
That’s why today marks a monumental milestone. The work is (almost) complete; now we must defend!
Thanks be to God!