Every one of us is called to ministry. The Education for Ministry (EfM) program provides people with the education to carry out that ministry. We start in September and meet once a week until May. As lay people we face the challenging task of interpreting the richness of the church’s faith in a complex and confusing world. We need a theological education that supports our faith and teaches us to express our faith in day-to-day events. The EfM program is preparation for the ministry to which we all are called. EfM is a four-year program: Old Testament, New Testament, History, and Theology.
We are now recruiting for the Fall where we will do bot Zoom and In-person meetings (we hope for in person!). For more information, please contact one of our mentors:
Adele Sadiq (410-924-3313), Bluette Blinoff (610-212-6366), Ann Sieracki (302-547-5692), or Connie Clark (502-235-9674).
About EfM
The seminar group is the nucleus of the Education for Ministry program. A group consists of six to twelve participants and a trained mentor who meet weekly over the course of a nine-month academic year. These meetings are usually from two and a half to three hours in length. Through study, prayer, and reflection, we move toward a new understanding of the fullness of God’s kingdom that adds meaning to our lives. We have resource guides and assignments based on the year we are in. We all set our own learning goals and we spend between two and four hours in study and preparation each week. By examining their own beliefs and their relationship to our culture and the tradition of our Christian faith, participants can learn what it means to be effective ministers in the world. In coming to terms with the notion that everything we do has potential for manifesting the love of Christ, we discover that our ministry is at hand wherever we turn.
Seminar groups work under the leadership of mentors who are trained to guide us through the materials. We are not teachers. We are trained lay people who understand the materials and the program. We administer the materials and course developed by the School of Theology at Swanae University. The program content sweeps the Christian tradition from the earliest period to the present. We learn the disciplines of reading scripture, interpretation, theology, church history, ethics, and liturgy.
The Education for Ministry (EfM) program provides us with the education to carry out our ministry. It is that vocation for which we pray at the end of the Eucharist: “And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.”
