Writing constructively without repudiating
I was emailing about a friend about a tension I am finding in my DMin project and I thought I'd blog about it.
I am in an interesting position with this project. I had to choose a ministry setting to write about. I chose Calvin Crest both because I have served there longer than I have anywhere else, and also because I still really care about its ministry. We are required to write a project like this to put feet on the ministry ideas we have studied. I have to identify ministry challenges, write about them biblically and theologically and propose solutions to those challenges. The tension for me is that I want to be successful in writing the project, and at the same time not appear to be criticizing the present ministry or future direction of Calvin Crest.
I haven't been on the Calvin Crest staff for eleven years. I'm not actively doing the daily work of ministry there. I am confident that the staff are faithfully adapting the ministry to the changes in culture that we face. Still, my task, as an at-home dad living in Iowa, is to apply the ideas I've studied from folks writing about ministry amidst postmodern changes to the Calvin Crest setting. My hope is that my project would not be perceived by anyone outside my project committee as an argument that Calvin Crest needs to change any particular practice or head in any particular direction. Rather, if it is of any benefit to folks related to camp, I hope it might be an interesting point of discussion about possibilities that might not otherwise have been considered.
I am not sure yet how I will accomplish those competing interests, but I am going to keep trying.
I am in an interesting position with this project. I had to choose a ministry setting to write about. I chose Calvin Crest both because I have served there longer than I have anywhere else, and also because I still really care about its ministry. We are required to write a project like this to put feet on the ministry ideas we have studied. I have to identify ministry challenges, write about them biblically and theologically and propose solutions to those challenges. The tension for me is that I want to be successful in writing the project, and at the same time not appear to be criticizing the present ministry or future direction of Calvin Crest.
I haven't been on the Calvin Crest staff for eleven years. I'm not actively doing the daily work of ministry there. I am confident that the staff are faithfully adapting the ministry to the changes in culture that we face. Still, my task, as an at-home dad living in Iowa, is to apply the ideas I've studied from folks writing about ministry amidst postmodern changes to the Calvin Crest setting. My hope is that my project would not be perceived by anyone outside my project committee as an argument that Calvin Crest needs to change any particular practice or head in any particular direction. Rather, if it is of any benefit to folks related to camp, I hope it might be an interesting point of discussion about possibilities that might not otherwise have been considered.
I am not sure yet how I will accomplish those competing interests, but I am going to keep trying.
