[Oe List ...] An Answer to Herman Greene

[MJDOVE at aol.com]

Herman,
 
I, too, am most grateful for your reflection on the question of what was  
most important and life-changing to our faith-journey.  I didn't run into  
the Ecumenical Institute until Marge Emig asked me to attend a "recruitment  
talk" by a member of the Order concerning an RS-1 that would be taught in  
the Cincinnati area in late 1968.  I was so intrigued that I asked Bob and  
Joan Knudson's to attend and to make suggestions about how this training might 
 be helpful to our congregation.
 
    After that week-end I visited with them and they  told me they really 
wanted to talk about the event, but that I needed to attend  the up-coming 
PLC course so that I would better understand the impact it had on  them.  I 
went only after they kept holding me accountable to my assuring  them I would 
attend.
 
    I was so impacted that I told Jenelle that she was  going to the next 
RS-1.  She attended the 2nd one that came.
 
    Up until the beginning of our journey with the  Institute, I would have 
gladly left the ministry in the Methodist Church,  because I knew I had no 
clue as to what was really needed to transform the  church experience from 
what I saw as sterile and, at the deepest level,  relatively unimportant to 
most parishioner.  The only reason I hadn't left  was the fear that I was 
unprepared to do anything else.
 
    After those initial years of taking more courses;  becoming part of 
those trained and available for teaching courses; and  realizing what negative 
feelings were held by my Bishop and much of the  hierarchy of my Annual 
Conference, I was ready the join the Order.  Jenelle  affirmed my decision but 
let me know that she would be waiting for me when I  came back, but that she 
could not go with me.
 
    It was during this struggle that you visited  Jenelle, and although she 
never shared any details about that visit, I do know  that she was in tears 
before that visit ended.  It has only been in the  past year that she had 
been able to articulate what was at the root of her  decision.  I had thought 
it might be her concern about the structures which  had been created for 
children and youth.  She did admit that she had some  misgivings over what she 
had seen, but that if she could have gone to Chicago  she could have felt 
comfortable being part of the teaching team working with the  5th City 
pre-school.  Her biggest block was that her experiences with the  Order had "made 
her feel dumb and inadequate" in ways she had never felt  before.
 
    As things turned out, I am both deeply indebted to  the content, 
discipline and relationships formed during those years of working  with EI/ICA.  
During the next 25 years of ministry in the United Methodist  Church, I made 
no world-shaking changes to my denomination, but I know I  impacted numerous 
individuals and congregations as I incorporated the wisdom  learned with 
the Institute.
 
    I still remember with appreciation and awe, the PLC  taught by you, 
Larry Ward and me.  I am grateful that our paths crossed and  many of the same 
issues facing individuals, communities and the whole of  creation still 
informs the use of the time, energy and commitment that energizes  us.  Grace 
and peace, Mark Dove
 
 
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