Alberta Bound!

Summer is *finally* upon me. Exams were last week, I went to graduation last Saturday, cleaned up the end of year clutter from my apartment and got into a nearly-full car to drive home yesterday. I've set up camp in my parent's dining room, downloading music and sermons and organizing my life because. . .

On Sunday, I and my friend Amy are going to cram into an entirely-full car and begin the trek West for the summer. Why, you ask? Because your dear friend, Meg, is going to be serving Emmanuel CRC as a real-live, fake pastor this summer. Stop by if you're in town! With their pastor on Sabbatical, I'll be responsible for two sermons a Sunday, basic pastoral care and administrative meetings. I'm eagerly looking forward to the job. I'm excited about preaching to faces that will become increasingly familiar and dear. I'm intrigued by trying on all the rhythms and patterns of the pastoral life. Speaking of pastoral, the fact that the Canadian Rockies will only be an hour away does sweeten the pot more than a bit.

More than anything, though, I'm honored to have been invited by this church to serve in this capacity. Out of 35 available internships, only 5 were gutsy enough to extend the invitation to female seminarians. (sidebar: this is definately something that our denomination needs to work on - putting her money where her mouth is. As Nathan alluded to and, in the interest of full disclosure, more of my opinions [just what everyone wants, I'm sure] can be found here. Bottom line: You can say you are in favor of women in ministerial office. You can even write overtures to Synod and you should do these things. BUT, if your church or a neighboring church is vacant, or you need pulpit supply or an intern and you are not willing to consider a woman for the job, don't kid yourselves. You're not in favor of women in office.) So I'm eager to serve in a church that has, already, won my heart simply by living out their theology and inviting me to come.

The internship does raise some interesting questions for this blog, however. I have been lurking and snooping on the blogs of "lady preachers" for awhile. Really, anyone who keeps a blog and wants to keep their job in ministry walks a fine line. Of course, I've always delighted in walking fine lines but I want to do so in such a way that neither my ministry over the world wide web nor my ministry over the coffee table and pulpit are compromised. I'm certain that trying my hand at new things in ministry will provide much fodder for spiritual reflection. I hope that I will be able to share many of those reflections with you. But this is uncharted territory here so, please, don't hold me to anything.

But, in the meantime, I continue to sit at the dining room table, installing Libronix Bible Software on my laptop so that I'll have what I need when I get to Calgary. Also, in the meantime, I'm practicing setting up my tent in the backyard so that, as I drive West, I won't be wasting precious time in National Parks wrestling with grommets and stakes.

Please pray with me as I learn to embrace a little something we in the industry like to call "a pastoral identity." Step one: come to the place where funny things stop happening in my tummy when I think about the words "Pastor Meg."