The Lifelong Learning Office of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary publishes this blog to create and nurture a community of lifelong learners for leadership that transforms the church and the world, to invite members of that community to participate in the Lifelong Learning Programs sponsored by LPTS, to encourage formation of smaller learning communities and study groups, and to alert members to learning experiences available at other venues.
“Hospitality” is strange and risky. Periodically, I stop to remember that the linguistic root for “hospitality,” as well as “host,” “hospital,” and “hospice,” was the Indo-European word ghosti. The contemporary words “ghost” and even “hostile” come from the same root because ghosti also referred to “stranger” as well as “guest” and even a “host of enemies” (Helen Luke, “The Stranger Within,” Parabola, Winter, 1990, p. 17). Deep within the word “hospitality” is a hint of fear and danger, slipping back and forth between comfort and risk. The encounter Abraham and Sarah had with the three strangers by the Oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18) describes this slippery and risky phenomenon. Desert rules required that hospitality be extended to strangers who approached the tents of a nomad. Note how the language of the passage shifts: first Abraham and Sarah are the hosts offering comfort and blessings and then almost instantly they become God’s guests and recipients of a challenge, a call to a new realm and a blessing. Henri Nouwen, in his book Here and Now, describes hospitality as creating a space for the guest to explore and develop in her own unique way. In a seminary that means the teachers and administrators start out by playing hosts, providing a safe and welcoming environment conducive to personal and intellectual exploration, and providing stimulating resources such as readings, lectures, discussions, assignments. If the faculty and staff insist that their own familiar agendas for the students take precedence over the students’ own unique and sometimes strange personal, spiritual and intellectual development, they diminish hospitality and miss the blessing. In a truly safe and open space guests and hosts trade places and the learners also teach and guide faculty and staff into new challenges, new realms, and new blessings. The more “strange” the students are, the more the seminary needs to extend risky hospitality and thereby unknowingly entertain angels (Hebrews 12:2).
In case you were thinking about applying for the Doctor of Ministry Degree at Louisville Seminary, this is a nudge to move your discernment along a little bit. We have already admitted eight excellent ministers to the next Learning Group which will meet January 7-18, 2008, and we have at least that many applications in process. We aim for a Learning Group of 15 to allow time for individual attention from faculty and group colleagues. The published deadline for admission for January 2008 is October 1. I'm thinking that we may be closing admissions for that group by early September this year (for the first time). Go to our website www.lpts.edu, click on Lifelong Learning and go to the D. Min. page for the full description of the program and the application forms. I always welcome e-mails or phone calls for conversations about how the LPTS D. Min. program would meet your needs for structured Lifelong Learning. We have tracks in Interim Ministry, Pastoral Care and Counseling and the Advanced Practice of Ministry. Within that Advanced Practice Track is flexibility to concentrate in any of the key practices of ministry, including, but not limited to, preaching and worship, Christian Education, Leadership and Administration, Evangelism and Church Development, and Governing Body Executive Leadership.
