Ordination @ Redeemer: Our Ordinands!
This is part two of a series on ordination at Redeemer. The first post introduces the work which Fr. Benjamin Wall does as he walks alongside ordinands through the Center for Pastoral Formation and as the Director for Leadership Development in our diocese (Christ Our Hope).
On average, our diocese (Christ Our Hope) has about 50 men and women pursuing ordination at any given time. Currently, Redeemer has 5 people in the middle of the ordination process! Because the process itself happens a bit more behind the scenes than the actual culmination in a visible ordination service, not everyone might know who at Redeemer is currently going through the process. So, we wanted to let our ordinands share with you about their calls to ordination, what they’ve been learning throughout the process, and what they’re looking forward to about being ordained.
Why did you decide to pursue ordination?
Melissa Lewkowicz: It was a long process for me to actually realize that that's what God was calling me to. At the time that I first began to sense the Lord ‘s calling into ministry, I was a teenager. And at that point in my life, I struggled to only see my identity based on a man, or in marriage. And therefore, I now realize that I was thinking of my calling as only being defined by what my future husband’s call would be, rather than seeing it as my own calling. It doesn’t negate the call of being a wife and mother, simply doesn’t revolve around another person, even as close as my husband. Instead, the call to ministry centers only around the person of Christ, and Him dwelling in us, and therefore having a specific call to each of us, individually. When I began to understand that the Lord was calling me into vocational ministry, I knew that I needed to submit to His call. I had thought for a long time that I would be able to serve in ministry as a lay person, and was happy to do that for my whole life! However, in the most loving of ways, He gradually had several people speak into my life, at different times, confirming the call to Ordination. Finally, I had a moment of realization, when I felt His spirit surrounding me, and it was as if He was taking my face in His hands, and saying "My sweet daughter, you need to say yes to me. You need to surrender." I raised my hand in obedience and quietly said, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Ok, I hear you, and I'm saying yes."
Buddy Hocutt: A few people that I highly respect and who have a lot of spiritual authority in my life encouraged me towards it. They saw different skills and giftings in me that I wasn't fully aware of, and it put me in positions to figure them out. A couple of years ago I was working with those people (Alan Hawkins, Dan Alger, Tripp Graziano, to name a few), and especially working my way into the church world. I learned after the fact that they had been thinking, “I think Buddy should pursue ordination.” Meanwhile, I kind of came around to it on my own. So when I approached Alan to ask what he thought about it, his answer was, “Well, I've been waiting for a year for you to come ask me about this.” But it very much was other people calling it out in me. And then throughout these two years of the process I’ve had it affirmed and reaffirmed.
Lena Van Wyk: I went to seminary, not thinking I was going to pursue ordination. I wanted to do a PhD in creation theology. I also wasn't raised in a denomination or setting where I saw many women pastors. But at Divinity School I saw more and more female pastors. And I think what actually convinced me that I could do it was that I surprisingly loved to write sermons and preach, which I hadn't expected to like. And I loved my preaching class. I had a great female instructor (who is also one of Judson’s and my really good friends) who really helped me find my preaching voice. Judson and I also went to a place called Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Charleston, for a five day Silent Retreat. I had a radical experience with the Holy Spirit out by the river at the monastery, calling me away from PhD work into creating a place of hospitality for human and non-human creatures. And I wouldn't say it was like He told me to be ordained, but it was a sort of moment of “You’re to work for my church.” And I'm still discerning, because I could do this work without being ordained. But I do feel called particularly to the role. Traditionally, the role of deacons was a care and food ministry in particular, and since I'm called to this work of food ministry, it seems to work really well with the diaconate role.
Judson Van Wyk: When I was 16, my life changed dramatically because of the news that God’s love for me was unconditional and stronger even than death in Jesus Christ. I immediately felt a desire to tell others about God’s love for them, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. In college, I wrestled with whether to pursue a calling in vocational ministry or law, but it quickly became clear that I couldn’t see myself doing anything other than some kind of vocational ministry. I was and am totally passionate about sharing this good news with others, especially skeptics and seekers, forming communities that embody God’s love in their context, teaching God’s word, and walking with people in their own journeys. As I got older and was able to test out this calling in various contexts (pastoral apprenticeships, college ministry and church planting, overseas missions), enough people seemed to affirm that call in me that I decided to follow the road wherever it led. To jump over a lot of other parts of my story, I eventually landed in the Anglican Church during divinity school, partly BECAUSE of their process of ordination. I had seen too many self-appointed church leaders crash and burn because they were not tested and had no accountability.
Leah Wall: Although I know I took steps in this ordination process – it feels less like a decision and more like being swept into a current. Since I was little I have known the fellowship of God and the church and as I have come to grow in the fellowship here at Redeemer a more clear and distinct desire to serve – like Miriam watching over Moses in the basket. Being a deacon is what that calling is named in the Anglican tradition and it has been affirmed by numerous people. As I began to step in that direction, it seems to have risen up all around me and has continued to rise to this time.
What have you learned about God through this process?
Buddy: God Himself functions in community. He is Trinity—three in one. And then that just trickles down into the rest of the church and the church world. And the amazing thing is that God Himself is already perfectly in community right now. He doesn't actually need us for anything, yet out of his great love He created us and he wants us to be with him, though he doesn't need us to be.
Leah: It’s easy to get discouraged when the light shines brighter in the dark parts of the soul. It’s easy to wonder whether you are good enough, pious enough, strong enough. It’s just really easy for all of us to wonder why God chose us and called us and so difficult to rest in the trust that it’s just because God is so good. It’s just because God is love. It’s just because. I think that this place of true trust that, “yes, God loves even me” has been intensified in my life this last year. When faced with this process, and the spiritual preparation of prayer and meditation, it seems that all the darkest parts are being illuminated. I am often discouraged – but then I consider how trustworthy our shepherd is. I know God will find me if I’m lost. God will carry me if I can’t walk. And in the end, we will all celebrate together. How persistently the Good Shepherd calls my name and I will follow. The children learn a simple song in the atrium, “The Lord is my shepherd, I’ll follow Him always”—it has become a deep rhythm of my heart.
Melissa: I think it’s really a gift that we are allowed to be co-creators and co-workmen with his work that he's really designed for us to do, called us to do, and equips us to do. So being able to partner with him in that work is really beautiful. Also, being able to see holiness as how he has called us all to different work--seeing that whatever we are doing, whether it's admin, pastoral care, or creating videos, or really any parts of our jobs that he really does call it a holy work when we are offering it up to him. It's not just holy when it's sitting down, praying with people, but actually all of it is seen as holy when we're committing it to him and asking him to work in and through us. It’s been really neat to think more, learn more, and really see the beauty of the call on all of us.
What have you learned about the Church through this process?
Judson: I have learned that Christ’s church is not something that we create, or really even something we join. It is something we are joined to in Christ, whether we like it or not. Our culture thinks that sounds horrific, like a straitjacket or oppression. But I have found that being stuck to other people is—while often difficult—where I have found the most joy and freedom.
Melissa: I’ve loved learning more about the gifts of the body of Christ--how the Lord has allowed us all to have these different types of gifts and callings, but how all together it works beautifully for the rest of the church body. He hasn't called everyone to be teachers, but he has called some, and he hasn't called everyone to be pastors, or to have the gift of mercy or hospitality. But with the shaping of the fullness of the body of Christ, he's given each of us different gifts and callings, and that represents his entire self in the body of Christ being made up of all of us and working together to fulfill the call of bringing the world to know him.
What have you learned about yourself through this process?
Lena: I’m a kind of project addict in ministry, and it's one of the things that I will need to put at the feet of Jesus in the ordination process. It's very easy for project-minded kind of clergy to just get all about programming and forget to be rooted in the deep spiritual practices of slowness--the sort of monastic end of an ordained person's life. I was having a conversation with my mom, because I'm pregnant, and I said, “This spring, I'm not gonna say ‘yes’ to any new projects while getting ready for maternity leave.” My mom then counted up the amount of new projects I've started this spring: three, despite my vows not to start any. I've learned I think it's my Enneagram 7 need for novelty. Any time you're in leadership you learn a lot about your own idiosyncratic tendencies, and your self-destructive ones too. And it's not like God doesn't use all of those things, but we have to have limits.
Buddy: I'm an introvert, and so I'm very happy to be by myself. I'm happy to be in a group too, but my default is that I would much rather be by myself and figure things out on my own. But in the Christian life, it's impossible to do that. Well, it's not impossible, but it's very ineffective and you'll eventually fail. So I'm learning as much as the church needs whatever ministry I’m called to and doing, I need the church to help me do that ministry.
Do you have a favorite book you’ve read during the process?
Melissa: St. Gregory’s Rule! Because it helps to see that we are merely being used by Christ in His ministry, not our own - and it also emphasizes that we are not called to “do all the ministry ourselves” but rather to help teach and equip the body of Christ to minister alongside us together. It focuses the call back to the body of Christ, and not on ourselves.
Buddy: we've read a couple books on baptism—one was The Baptized Body by Peter Leithart and another was It Takes A Church to Baptize by Scott McKnight. With my two-year old daughter Lydia, infant baptism, kids and baptism, and just baptism in general are all questions that are at the forefront of our family’s thinking now. I grew up in the Baptist church with the understanding that believer’s baptism was the only valid form of baptism, but have swung around on that after some study. So my interest in that has gone beyond just the consent question and more towards what it means to be a part of the covenant community.
What are you most looking forward to about being ordained?
Leah: When I look at all of the gifts God has given me in my other callings—my calling to marriage and my calling to motherhood—it seems naïve to even imagine what the gift of ordination will bring! I am looking forward to finding out what good works He has prepared in advance for me to do and to the continued and growing fellowship within His church.
Judson: Lord willing, I am heading toward ordination to the priesthood. The thing that excites me most about the possibility of being a priest is the opportunity to unleash the priesthood of the rest of the church. We are all called to priesthood, to live a life of offering to God. Getting to shepherd and lead others deeper into that life of receiving and giving everything from God sounds pretty sweet to me.
Lena: I'm really looking forward to the blessing and prayer of the bishop and the church. I think what I'm looking forward to the most is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in the laying on of hands, in the sense of knowing how essential it is to have that empowerment in ministry. I’ve really appreciated the mentorship of other women in our diocese, because there's not too many Anglican women deacons. But there’s more and more and a fair amount of the female deacons coming up in our diocese are from Redeemer. Teresa Kincaid, who's like right up to Canada, in our diocese has been really good about calling me regularly. And also the companionship of Melissa and Leah, and just other women being ordained at Redeemer. Not because you also can't be mentored by men. But because there's particulars like, right now I'm in the ordination process and also about to have a baby, right? So even just pondering about how that's going to work. And I didn't grow up with a lot of models of pastors with an infant on their hip. Or even just the balancing of mom life and pastoral life—you've seen plenty of dads balance that, but there's particularities of being a mom. And so it's been helpful to be mentored by other women.
Melissa: I’m looking forward to the revelation of His presence, and also being able to do these things within the church as a deacon and feeling more equipped, or more able to care and shepherd without hesitation. I think having that order of “deacon” given feels like it will resonate with what the Lord has been doing for a long time, and it will be brought to a place of fulfillment. Of course there will be continued knowledge and growth—it’s not like it's done once and for all. But it will just feel like the Lord saying, “Yes, I have called you to be a shepherd of the people,” and I’ll be able to act in that way and have it actually feel like I'm not doing it just because it's just something fun to do, but because I've been called by the Lord to do this role.
Buddy: I’m very much looking forward to being able to bridge the gap between the general attender at Church of the Redeemer and the life and work of the diocese. I think the Anglican polity (the structure of the Archbishop, and then the diocese, the Bishop of each diocese, and then churches that make up the diocese and the congregations) is essential to the kind of life and growth of every individual. I think I have the ability to bridge the gap because as the Director of Communications for the diocese, I've developed relationships there, while at the same time I know people and I'm on the ground here at Redeemer. Some people here may just know that they really like our preaching and there’s really nice people in the church, and that we’re a part of a diocese with a Bishop with specific work that we're doing. I want to bridge the gap of understanding how those two intersect, and why it matters that we’re part of this church, this diocese, and this province that's part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
