Episcopal seminarians gather at ETSS

Photos of Gathering

Seminarian participants

Quotes from participants

Living Church article by
the Rev. Catherine Tyndall Boyd ETSS '06

Carissa Baldwin ETSS '07 sermon

Meditation on St. Patrick's Breastplate by
the Rev. Catherine Tyndall Boyd ETSS '06
Meditation One
Meditation Two

Meditation -- It is all about Relationship by
Ken Malcolm ETSS '07

Students from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest hosted the annual Seminarian Leadership Conference September 14-17.

The event drew student leaders from the Episcopal seminaries and divinity schools to Austin, said Ken Malcolm, a senior at the Seminary of the Southwest from the Diocese of Virginia. Malcolm and Donald Smith, a fellow senior seminarian from the Diocese of West Tennessee, who planned and coordinated the event.

Supported by a generous grant from the Evangelical Education Society of the Episcopal Church, the leadership conference’s theme this year was – “It is all about relationship.”

Malcolm notes that “the very core of our existence is relationship – with God, with each other, and with one’s self.” Seminarians shared liturgy, prayer, fellowship, and food during their stay on the Austin campus. “What does it mean to say it is all about relationship,” Malcolm asks, “in a church and a world that struggles with the very idea?” Malcolm adds, “To be a member of the Anglican Communion is, by definition, relational. We can’t begin to express what that means for our church without first exploring our relationships with Christ and each other.”

Seminarians explored what it means to say – “It is all about relationship” – through biblical, theological, educational, communal and mission perspectives.

Speaking on the conference theme, Smith said “The essence of communion as Christ demonstrated time and time again was to gather the people, give thanks to God and break bread. The future of not only the Episcopal Church in the United States, but also the Anglican Communion, depends upon how we as Christians respond to Communion.”

“We Anglicans must re-learn the love that communion with one another and in Christ requires of us. Communion is relational and we in the Episcopal Church in the US must nurture and cherish our relationship in communion with one another if we are even to attempt to approach the Great Commission of Christ,” said Smith, who returned from mission work in Kenya before the conference.