Internship Reflection

The experience of the internship has confirmed and supported my call to the Diaconate far beyond my expectations. I felt confident about the call when I approached my Rector at Christ Church in early 2023 to begin the official discernment process. This was the result of several years of personal reflection and discernment. The discussions with my Rector, Associate Rectors at Christ Church, my Parish Discernment Committee, and the Christ Church Vestry confirmed my personal discernment work. I came into the internship feeling confident about the journey, ready to learn, and open to how God wanted to use me and teach me at St. Martin’s. 

How has the internship supported their call to the diaconate as he/she understands it? 

I understand my call to the diaconate as God’s desire for me to serve the Episcopal Church in a unique way. While we are all called to ministry, I am answering a call to serve God’s people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely. How this ministry manifests in the future will be a combination of my gifts and the needs of the parish I serve. 

The internship provided the opportunity to experience the diaconate in a real way. To try it on and see how it fits. 

Liturgically, I saw this through serving at both services each Sunday in various lay ministry roles: lector, intercessor, eucharistic minister. The Sunday experience is certainly different when it requires preparation of readings and prayers, even if just as a backup in case another layperson is unavailable. 

Related to the diaconate, I spent time exploring the outreach areas of St. Martin’s, of which there are many, and meeting with the Outreach Task Force. I preached on two occasions (October 22 & December 17) and taught a two-part series on the Ordination Rites of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. I was eager to experience as much as possible, and St. Martin’s was equally eager to provide the opportunities. 

How has that understanding changed during the internship? 

Between 2017 - 2020, I spent a lot of time meeting deacons and learning about their ministries. I understood that no two deacons’ ministries are exactly alike, and they are as diverse as the group of deacons themselves. However, the chance to see this through the lens of the two deacons (Russ Settles assigned to St. Martin’s and Rebecca Yarbrough assigned to the Chapel of Christ the King) at St. Martin’s enhanced my understanding even further. This really opened my eyes to how a deacon’s ministry evolves over time. 

If I’m ordained deacon in 2026 and serve until turning 72 in 2051. That’s 25 years of ministry. And it won’t look the same across that period. For a portion, I’ll still be working full time. Eventually, I’ll retire from my secular work. Right now, we have three, school aged children at home. Eventually, we’ll have an empty nest. Any of those changes could precipitate a shift in ministry, and this doesn’t take into account what is identified in the world that needs to be responded to. 

How has the intern seen God at work in them?

When I met with Josh the first time, he warned me that things were moving pretty quickly. We would forego a gentle welcome and dive right into what’s happening. He casually rattled off a list of things he wanted me to accomplish during my time. The last two were teaching and preaching. I suspect that I kept my composure well enough in his office, but on the inside I was nervous. It wasn’t the speaking part. Through my work, I’ve given thousands of presentations to groups of all sizes. I’ve read scripture as a lector. It wasn’t the delivery that scared me. It was the content. 

In getting acclimated to St. Martin’s, I immersed myself in their website. I read about their ministries, reviewed vestry reports, and listened to months of sermon podcasts. This is a parish of very intelligent people who have high expectations for their preachers. Josh boasted about a parish survey where 87% of the parish ranked preaching as the most important factor in why they come to St. Martin’s. 

Preaching those two sermons was a poignant example of God’s work in me. It started with prayerful reflection on the text. Moved to writing, rewriting, scrapping one sermon and starting over completely. I felt led by the Holy Spirit as I wrote the manuscript, but the true sense of God working in me was where I had felt the most comfortable, in the delivery. 

I remember praying throughout the Gospel reading, “Lord, let the words I speak - be the words you want spoken.” I repeated it over and over as I prepared to step up to the pulpit. As I started the sermon for Advent 3, I felt a peace about the words I had written. I found that sections of the sermon that I felt weren’t completely perfect flowed differently. On the fly, I removed an entire paragraph and created a link between two topics that I hadn’t thought of until I was in the moment. All while I was still preaching. This isn’t some public speaking superpower. This was God at work in me delivering the message that God wanted the people of St. Martin’s to hear.