Ordinary Grace: Forming Clergy in a Fractured Church with Annette Brownlee

Oct 6, 2022

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Our guest today is the Rev. Dr. Annette Brownlee, chaplain, director of field education and professor of pastoral theology at Wycliffe College, a theological school that forms many Anglicans and Christians of other traditions, in Toronto, Ontario. And she is someone who has had a profound influence in many lives of clergy and clery in training, whether they're serving in the Episcopal Church or elsewhere. She is the person whose door, in her own words, people knock on and say, "Can I come talk to you?" She is someone I have wanted to talk to for some time, and I finally got a chance to get her on the other side of the mic to ask her what it takes to nurture and disciple people who will very soon be leaders in God's Church -- many of them in the beautiful and broken family we know as Anglican.

We talk together about how training young ministers to be effective means teaching them to be rooted and ecumenical. In a school where Episcopal and Catholic students learn Greek with Reformed ACNA and non-denom students, what happens in this kind of context? And how can the challenge and opportunity it presents be pressed into formation? So you're not into corporate prayer? Well you need it. Crack open that prayer book! And you? You're in love with the BCP, the liturgy? Reverent with your burses and veils? Great! Now go sing praise songs and help serve soup at that storefront church.

Much of what we talk about centers also on teaching seminarians early to value and know the power of the Holy Spirit in the quotidian and the small, because much of parish life -- and indeed our life given as creatures -- is made of exactly this small dailyness. And if moments of heroic decision or action come for any of us, they'll depend on what we did without being noticed. The de-centering of oneself and learning the art of humilty -- something we could all benefit from.

Before coming to Wycliffe Annette was in fulltime parish ministry for many years. She currently assists and preaches at St. Paul’s L’Amoreaux in Scarborough. Her research interests include the multiple implications of preaching Scripture as the church’s book, Augustine’s divine pedagogy as a rule of life for preachers, the sermons of André Trocmé, and a model of theological reflection based on the Spirit’s use of Scripture in the Church. She is married to Ephraim Radner and they have two children.

Strap on your knapsack. Zip up your anorak. We're going to Canada. We may even see a bit of what the future of Anglican formation looks like.

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