Bloy House News
The Episcopal Theological School at Claremont
Greetings!

Greetings from Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, where the fall term is well under way. Thank you for considering Bloy House/ETSC for theological coursework and continuing education alike. For information, phone 909.621.2419 or email [email protected].

Faithfully in Christ, 
(The Very Rev.) Sylvia Sweeney, Ph.D.
Bloy House Dean and President

  What's New
Bloy House joins in National Coming Out Day Celebrations on Saturday, Oct. 5
All are invited to join four distinguished academics from Bloy House for a special panel discussion from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. Luke's, Long Beach titled "Gender and Leadership: What Difference Does It Make?"  

What is gender?  Is it biological, sociological, psychological, or all of the above?  How does gender impact leadership, or does it? How does gender impact perceptions of leaders?  Are there unique issues in leadership for members of the LGBT community? 

Dr. Peter Carlson, former professor of Church History at Bloy House and assistant professor at Cal-Lutheran University; the Rev. Dr. Ron David, M.D., professor of pastoral care at Bloy House and chaplain at Good Samaritan Hospital; the Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, professor of Anglicanism and religious education at Bloy House and academic dean of Claremont School of Theology; and the Rev. Dr. Jim Lee, 2012 graduate of Bloy House and chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at UC Irvine, will explore the complex question of gender and leadership, examining existing paradigms of gender identity and how gender identity issues impact the leadership styles of individuals.

The discussion will be moderated by Dean Sylvia Sweeney, and will include ample time for questions and conversation between participants and the panel.  A light lunch will follow. 

ESC logo
Dean Sweeney to Speak at
Episcopal Urban Internship Gathering

The Episcopal Urban Intern Program (EUIP), Los Angeles, is a year-long service learning project of the Jubilee Consortium, a group of inner city Episcopal parishes in LA working together to effect meaningful social change within their communities. Each fall, EUIP gathers a new class of young adults from across the United States to live in Christian community, develop meaningful relationships within local Episcopal and Lutheran congregations, and work for change by serving in some of L.A. County's most innovative and effective social service agencies.
 
EUIP's mission is to raise up a new generation of change leaders for the church and the world who will spend their whole lives working to expand God's reign of peace and justice for all people. EUIP prepares young adults to become such leaders.

Interns serve full-time with agencies working for social change within the greater Los Angeles area. EUIP volunteer interns are placed within agencies that provide interns with meaningful engagement opportunities exploring problems and solutions of social injustice. EUIP currently partners with agencies committed to addressing: homelessness; immigration and refugee services; high quality preschool opportunities; children who have been abused or are emotionally disturbed; disparities in urban education and access to college preparatory coursework; college counseling in urban high schools; providing high-quality special education services within full-inclusion public school settings; unemployment; at-risk youth; disparities in food sustenance; college chaplaincy; health justice and medical/legal advocacy; access to quality after school care for school age children.

The group meets monthly for Second Sunday Gatherings where together they explore a variety of topics related to mission and ministry.  The topic for October is "Education: Teaching and Learning" and Dean Sweeney will be a guest presenter at that gathering.  More about EUIP is here.

'Introduction to Lay Preaching:
Writing the Sermon' on Saturday Oct. 19

Over the course of the last year Dean Sweeney began a new series of workshops titled "An Introduction to Lay Preaching." The next in that series will be titled "An Introduction to Lay Preaching: Writing the Sermon" and will take place on Saturday, October 19, 2 - 5 p.m.

This workshop is designed for lay persons who through their Eucharistic ministries, pastoral ministries, or stewardship ministries find themselves preaching on occasion in their churches, local elder residences or other institutions served by their faith community. The workshop will focus specifically on the processes one can use to get from a sermon idea and thesis to a 5 to 10 minute preachable homily.  It will include aspects such as story development, creating evocative imagery, finding one's prophetic voice, and using analogical imagination. Attendance at previous workshops is helpful but not necessary. Cost of the workshop is $30. To register, mail your check to Bloy House 1325 College Ave. Claremont, CA 91711.

 More news
Bloy House joins St. Philip's Church
in support of a refugee family

Catherine Wagar, deacon at St. Philip's, Los Angeles, and alumna of Bloy House, has shared with us a particular need that those of us in the greater Bloy House community might help meet.  At our September 21 Eucharist, the offering went to help Didier Lusumbu's family. We invite any of you who might be interested in helping to read about the Lusumbu family.

Didier Lusumbu is a 43-year old physician from the Democratic Republic of Congo.  In 2008, he treated victims of an attack by government forces and local police on a peaceful demonstration. After being arrested and tortured for disclosing details of the attack to investigators from Human Rights Watch, he fled to the U.S., and requested political asylum. His request was granted, but the U.S. government appealed the decision. On Sept. 27, after a two-year delay, the case was resolved in his favor.

Lusumbu's wife and two children were left behind in the Congo; after his flight, his wife was arrested, interrogated about his whereabouts, and tortured because she refused to provide information.  She and the children fled to Benin, where they have lived for the past several years.
 
Two years ago, the Lusumbus' son Didierson, now 10 years old, began to show symptoms of a brain tumor, which in March 2013 was confirmed by a CT scan. In addition, he suffers from severe asthma and chronic pneumonia. Because he was at risk of dying without appropriate medical treatment, Didier's attorney requested that the family be admitted to the U.S. on "humanitarian parole" while Didier's asylum case is still pending.  Finally, two weeks ago, humanitarian parole was granted, and the State Department quickly produced the travel documents to make it possible for the family to travel to LAX, where the boy will receive treatment and the family will be reunited. Last Thursday, we made flight reservations for the family.  Because of the need to travel directly and quickly to L.A., the cost of flights is nearly $8,200.
 
We are delighted to report that Bishop Bruno has committed half the funds to cover the family's travel.  We are reaching out to other concerned people to ask for help in covering the other half.  To date, we have commitments of $1,700, so we still need another $2,400. If the Bloy House community would like to contribute to help us match Bishop Bruno's gift, we would be very grateful. Certainly, it will make a very profound difference in the lives of Dr. Lusumbu and his family, and it may, indeed, help save the life of a precious young boy.

To donate send checks to St. Philip's and put Deacon's Discretionary Fund: Lusumbu in the memo line.  Checks can be mailed to 16821 Hartland Street,  Van Nuys, CA 91406

  Bloy House people 
Seminarian Leadership Conference 2013
Nathan Biornstad 2013 Seminarian Leadership Conference
This year's Episcopal Church Seminarian Leadership Conference was held at Nashotah House in Wisconsin and Bloy House was represented at that event by Nathan Biornstad, seminarian from Holy Trinity, Covina. The conference is an annual event that allows seminary representatives from across the country to gather together, to network, to build leadership skills, and to cross-pollinate theological education by sharing ideas between the seminaries of the Episcopal Church. Some of Nathan's reflections on his experience at this year's event are here.

  From the Dean
Dean Sylvia Sweeney
Leadership

By Sylvia Sweeney

As I sit to write this article I have a swirl of events flashing in my head that somehow seem connected to one another.  I am celebrating the extraordinary opportunity we will all have to participate in one of the most important topics of our day when we gather for the Gender and Leadership Panel at St. Luke's, Long Beach.  We have managed for that panel to put together a group of deeply wise and informed scholars who have in their various professional and personal settings had rich opportunity to ponder the issue of gender and leadership.  In a brief 90 minutes we'll have the chance to glean from their hours of thinking, processing, and writing on this important subject - a subject that has much to do with how we understand power and leadership in our current age. 

At the same time, I have the image of Michelle Woodhouse and her deep wisdom regarding leadership in the civil rights era, and what we learned from those experiences that we can readily apply in our own day. I think of Nancy Bryan from Church Publishing, who came to meet person-to-person with faculty and students to learn what resources we believe will be important for us in leading the church into its future. I think of Angela Bauer-Levesque, the current dean of Episcopal Divinity School, and Harvey Guthrie, esteemed former dean of EDS, and the many ways in which they and that seminary have helped broker a wider more expansive table for those seeking to lead and govern in the church.  What strong and inspiring leaders they are, and how very much we can all learn from them!

In the early years of my ordained ministry, there was much talk about the need for "strong" leadership in churches.  In truth that was code for a particular kind of leadership, leadership from the top down, leadership that was uncompromising, determined, authoritarian, and muscular.  Words like consensus, collaboration, inclusion, flexibility, openness, and adaptability were not used in that marketplace. Indeed, people who were committed to those values were often moved to the edges of the church and described as too weak to lead.  In this world of "strong" leaders, leaders usually barked orders, took names, and kicked butt, as the saying went.  They did not have time or perceive need for dialog and exchange. They saw their work as shoring up what was weak or vulnerable in a community and squelching the troublemakers in their midst rather than searching for the gifts and strengths among the most vulnerable.

But the world is changing and the church is changing. (I intentionally write changing - not changed.)  Now we know there are times when this kind of autocratic leadership is not effective and can even backfire.  Now we know that if we allow people who have often been left at the margins to enter the circle of power, they may bring with them a different paradigm of leadership. Leaders who have not been formed in a world of economic and social privilege, leaders whose life experience includes oppression and marginalization are often interested in listening more than persuading, discovering more than engineering, empowering more than acquiring power. These leaders know that it is not enough to be who we have been, or even who we have dreamed of being.  We must also build a pathway that allows us to dream new dreams, create new roads, cultivate new visions.

If the old strong leaders of the church were harvesters of the best fruit plowing the fields on their giant combines, there is also now room for a new kind of leader, a patient community gardener who is nurturing tiny shoots and tendrils so that one day they may become  new lush vines.  When you think of what you are looking for in a leader, what qualities come to mind?  What makes a leader of today's church a good leader for this day and time in your own mind?  And when you think of yourself as a leader - and we are all through our baptism called to be leaders in a broken and troubled world - what qualities do you want to cultivate in yourself? Learn to be the best leader you can be. Plant your garden and tend it well, because together through our shared vision and our shared efforts, we can feed the world.

  Book talk with the dean 
The Liturgy Explained cover The Liturgy Explained
By James Farwell

Have you ever been asked, "Why do Episcopalians worship the way they do. I don't understand all that ritual stuff you do.  What purpose does it serve? Couldn't you pray more simply?"...Or "I love the beauty of the ritual of the church.  I have no idea what any of it means, but it looks beautiful."  If either of these describes you or people you come in contact with then you may be interested in reading the new edition of The Liturgy Explained by James Farwell.  This very brief, very accessible, and very affordable book was designed to explain our Episcopal Eucharistic liturgy to those who do not yet understand it.  The book guides the reader through all the parts of the service, the meaning of each part, and the way the parts all fit together to form a unified experience of both blessing God and being blessed by God in a cycle of gift (God's gift first) and response.  Farwell also takes us through the geography of the service from font to ambo to table and explains why it is we stand, sit, and kneel when we do and why some of us genuflect or cross ourselves at points in the service.  If your congregation is looking for a useful gift to give visitors, this might be one of the best gifts you could offer them.

 Book TAlk 
Your support is appreciated
Financial contributions to support the work of Bloy House are appreciated year-round. Thank you for your consideration and generosity. Gifts may be mailed to Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, 1325 N. College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711.
In this issue: Please scroll down for more on fall courses and student, faculty activities.

Join Our Mailing List

Fall Schedule

Fall 2013 Teaching Weekends, Academic Calendar 

August 23-24
September 6-7
September 20-21
September 27-28*
October 11-12
October 18-19*
November 1-2
November 15-16
November 22-23*
December 13-14

 

*The weekends printed in bold are the second of back-to-back weekends. 

 

  Sermons
Commemoration of Jonathan Myrick Daniels at Bloy House
Michelle Woodhouse On Sept. 7 the community of Bloy House was blessed to have as our guest preacher and presider the Rev. Dr. Michelle Woodhouse who led us through our commemoration of Jonathan Myrick Daniels. We asked Michelle to be with us on this day to share her personal remembrances of Jonathan and to give us a glimpse into the processes that led him to make the ultimate sacrifice for his faith and his neighbor. The beautiful sermon she preached on that occasion is here.

 Announcements
Bloy Bling

Students at Bloy House having been asking for "Bloy Bling" and through the hard work and help of the Bloy House Board of Trustees we are happy to announce that beginning in October Bloy House polo shirts will be available through the Bloy House office.  The shirts are 100% cotton polo shirts of a good quality in a medium blue and include the Bloy House seal on the shirt.  They are available in men's and women's sizes small, medium, large, and extra-large, and the cost is $27.

More Bloy Bling:
Bloy House tippet seals
available again

For alumni who have been asking about the availability of Bloy House tippet seals; we have a new order of tippet seals available and we will also have them at the Bloy House booth at Diocesan Convention this year.  The cost of each seal is $20 plus shipping.  Contact [email protected] to order a seal.
subscribe
Subscribe to
Bloy House News...

To add your name to our email list, please click here or send an email note to