A sigh of relief

The process is complete. Yesterday, after a 2-hour interview I was unanimously approved by my candidacy committee.

It was an interesting conversation. It was a reminder to me that much of theolgoy is about semantics. Language is everything.

The committee was made up of:

• 1 urban pastor.
• 1 suburban pastor.
• 1 elementary school principal.
• 1 hospital chaplain/cpe supervisor.

Each person had their own agenda and their own language to describe it.

Yes, I know that the end result of the suffering is the resurrection, both for Christ and for the people of God.

Yes, I know that grace always comes first in the equation of God's forgiveness, and that the action of suffering, death and resurrection are not necessarily linear events in God's timeline.

But it's more about how the question is asked than anything else. At moments I wanted to shout "what answers do you want from me?"

But overall it went very well. The difficult questions were minor in the scheme of things.

I am thankful