Although many seminary degrees require three years of classroom study, curricula learned in a classroom is only the beginning of a pastor’s education. How do you plan and oversee a healthy church budget? What do you say when someone calls the church asking for prayer? How can churches full of disparate opinions survive a fraught political season? How do you find time to write a sermon with two hundred committee meetings a week? These on-the-ground questions can only be learned in practice.
This summer, we were fortunate to host Duke Divinity School student, Erica Jackson, as Erica explored these questions and more through her summer ministerial internship. Duke requires its Master of Divinity students to complete two pastoral internships, and we won big when our church was matched as a host congregation for Erica! Erica has been deeply engaged with the Summer Sunday School series on lovingkindness, organizing the material, teachers and logistics behind the scenes. She has made hospital and home visits with the pastoral care staff, learned about funeral care, planned worship services, learned your stories around your dinner tables, participated in children’s, youth and adult education events, and unpeeled the administrative layers of a large, institutional church.
We were the grateful beneficiaries of Erica’s many gifts for ministry, particularly her enthusiasm for God’s people, her curiosity about the reasoning for and history behind church decisions (She has a natural instinct for seeing the systems behind the decision!), and the thoughtfulness through which she engages the responsibilities of ministry. It has been a joy to see her grow over the summer. My heart is also filled with pride and affection for this congregation and your gifts of hospitality and investment in new ministers. Thank you for being a generous, warm place to land for anyone discerning a call to pastoral ministry. This is a special church!
As Erica wraps up her summer with FBG, I hope you will join me in thanking her for her ministry and wish her well in her final year of seminary. Erica will serve with us through Sunday, August 4. If you would like to write Erica a note, she can be reached at intern@firstbaptistgreenville.com or in person in the “fishbowl” office next to mine. Thank you, Erica, for sharing your gifts with us this summer! Know that your First Baptist family will be cheering you on as you explore God’s calling, and that you always have a home in Greenville!
—CAMILLE LOOMIS REHNBORG,
MINISTER OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION & OUTREACH