Hit the Streets, See the World

Editorial for the Hyde Park Seminarian:
Registering for Next Year?
Hit the Streets, See the World

I believe that no one should graduate from a seminary today without a used passport or an arrest record for nonviolent civil disobedience. As of this spring, I have a growing rap sheet for the latter. And, although on an extremely limited budget, I’m on my second passport.

Some of us may be studying in Chicago because of family or other life constraints. Others of us though, I believe, came here because we wanted to learn about ministry in the city. We wanted to learn how to work with people from other cultures and who speak different languages and who have backgrounds different from us. We wanted to learn not just to preach and teach, but to begin to address some of the biggest challenges in our nation and our planet. We wanted to be where the rubber hits the road, and we weren’t afraid to work.

However, I believe for many of us, something happens once we come to seminary. We get insulated in our own campus or neighborhood bubble; the daily grind clouds the vision we arrived with, and we start just doing what it takes to graduate, or what was most comfortable and familiar, forget-ting the bigger picture.

Don’t let this chance go by. It goes too quickly, and it’s hard to take the time once we’re loaded down with a regular job and even more people who depend on us—not to mention when we’re making payments on our student loans.

I’ve been told CTU requires study abroad for all its students, which I think makes incredible sense for ministry in our world today. LSTC and McCormick regularly offer a few J-Term programs in cross-cultural settings. McCormick has also had semester-long exchange programs in Korea and Lebanon, although these may be in danger due to an unfortunate change in administrative priorities. I’m sad to admit my own seminary, CTS, rarely engages the wider world despite our stated commitments to global sensitivity and its many other good pro-grams. [I was unable to get information for Mead-ville and the Div School, but would welcome their perspectives in a future edition of this paper]. It’s also important for each of the seminaries to help students find sources of financial aid that exist for these studies.

Still, if your own seminary does not offer the opportunities you seek, there’s the possibility of cross-registration for these courses as well. And don’t forget SCUPE or ACTS Urban CPE, which both offer ways of encountering the city beyond Hyde Park.

Finally, if you are concerned about the wider world but simply can’t find a way to afford the cost or time away from other responsibilities, don’t let that stop you from participating in the free opportunities that exist on our campuses. The pages of the Seminarian are full of notices for speakers and chances to interact with students from other back-grounds on issues that matter.

Here are some websites to help you get started. Or, write in and ask, and I’ll help you get started.

For cross-cultural, sudy abroad, and ACTS Urban CPE: http://www.northpark.edu/acts/catalog2006/cat02.html

Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Educa-tion: http://www.scupe.org/

peace,
Le Anne