{"id":5907,"date":"2016-05-31T14:24:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T19:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/?p=5907"},"modified":"2016-06-06T10:21:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T15:21:24","slug":"i-could-very-well-have-dreamed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/2016\/i-could-very-well-have-dreamed\/","title":{"rendered":"I could very well have dreamed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Annual discernment retreat reshapes the way students inquire about vocation<\/em><\/h3>\n

I<\/span>t sounds like something out of\u00a0Harry Potter: The Office of Ministry\u00a0Inquiry. In reality the Office consists\u00a0of two CMU Biblical & Theological\u00a0Studies professors whose passion is to\u00a0coordinate efforts at CMU to identify\u00a0ministerial aptitudes\/vocation within\u00a0individual students, to help those\u00a0students\u2019 discern the call of God in their\u00a0lives, and to nurture their first-fruits.<\/p>\n

\"Beth<\/a>
Beth Downey Sawatzky on Mission Quest: “Together, we air many dreams: dreams of the church, dreams of home, dreams of things not at all like church but fueled by the same convictions.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Currently, Irma Fast-Dueck,\u00a0Associate Professor of Practical\u00a0Theology, and Andrew Dyck, Assistant\u00a0Professor of Ministry Studies head up\u00a0the team.<\/p>\n

One of the key ways the Office fulfills\u00a0its duties is by organizing a biennial\u00a0discernment retreat\u2014Ministry Quest,\u00a0they call it\u2014for students who have\u00a0either come forward on their own with\u00a0questions to sort through, or have been\u00a0encouraged by the promptings of peers,\u00a0staff, faculty, or other mentors.<\/p>\n

This year the retreat was held at\u00a0St. Benedict\u2019s Monastery & Retreat\u00a0Centre, just north of Winnipeg. As\u00a0they do every year, each of our crew\u00a0arrived on site carrying a tousle of\u00a0emotions inside: hope, fear, questions,\u00a0assumptions, misgiving, enthusiasm,\u00a0excitement, doubt. The balance is\u00a0different for everyone.<\/p>\n

Many students fit the imaginable profile of a \u201cquesting\u201d young person\u00a0with a desire to be useful. Others show up, as I did, protesting.<\/p>\n

The Office and other retreat leaders\u00a0deserve points for effective leadership,\u00a0because everyone gets real pretty\u00a0quickly. Generally speaking, a lot of\u00a0the questions, hopes, and fears turn\u00a0out to be pretty similar at bottom,\u00a0and most everything is on the table\u00a0within 24\u00a0hours. At the\u00a0heart of it, most of our objections are\u00a0pretty predictable: Me? Couldn\u2019t be.\u00a0I\u2019m ordinary, flawed, really not half so\u00a0spiritual as I like to pretend… Blas\u00e9,\u00a0maybe, but honest. This really is what\u00a0worries us.<\/p>\n

Between large group sessions\u00a0involving very creative ice-breakers\u00a0and raw testimonies from the leaders,\u00a0plenty of alone time for reflection, and\u00a0piercing small-group gatherings for\u00a0collective sharing and discernment, it\u2019s an intensive, surprisingly productive\u00a0two days. Together, we air many\u00a0dreams: dreams of the church, dreams of home, dreams of things not at all\u00a0like church but fueled by the same\u00a0convictions. Most students agree, the retreat provides perspective more than\u00a0answers, but really, that\u2019s all we need.<\/p>\n

Everyone walks away with some new\u00a0insight to consider, or the sense that\u00a0they\u2019ve gained a new way of feeling for things. We\u2019re each headed in different\u00a0directions, but the work we are doing is\u00a0much the same. We\u2019re listening. We are\u00a0listening deep into ourselves, unsure\u00a0of what we want or expect to hear, but\u00a0genuinely desiring to hear something,\u00a0even if we say we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

If the retreat leaders\u2019 stories are\u00a0anything to go on, we\u2019re all doomed\u00a0in the end; but process is as or more\u00a0important than product. The monastery\u00a0air seems thick with that truth, the pace\u00a0of the place resounds with it\u2014a holy hesitance, peaceful and calm. Taking\u00a0some of that spirit with us, we leave\u00a0slowly, quietly.<\/p>\n

written by Beth Downey Sawatzky<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annual discernment retreat reshapes the way students inquire about vocation It sounds like something out of\u00a0Harry Potter: The Office of Ministry\u00a0Inquiry. In reality the Office consists\u00a0of two CMU Biblical & Theological\u00a0Studies professors whose passion is to\u00a0coordinate efforts at CMU to identify\u00a0ministerial aptitudes\/vocation within\u00a0individual students, to help those\u00a0students\u2019 discern the call of God in their\u00a0lives, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[771,198,774,773],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5907"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5941,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions\/5941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}