Seabury is NOT dying, but it is changing.  This academic year of 2008-2009, our 151st year of instruction, will not be our last, but it will be the last one which will look and feel like all of the years that have preceded it.  As you probably know, Seabury’s Board of Trustees has taken the bold step of declaring that we are no longer in the business of residential theological education.  To many people, that sounds like we’re closing because residential theological education has been the dominant model for ministry preparation for at least two centuries.  But it’s not the only one out there, and after taking a good hard look at our resources and our options, we’ve all decided that the most faithful stewardship of our seminary’s heritage and resources will be to reposition it to meet the educational needs of tomorrow’s, not yesterday’s, church.

As ennobling and energizing an endeavor as that is, it comes at a good deal of cost.  It means disrupting the careers of faculty, students, and staff.  It means losing a set of practices that have served us well. And it means that we risk losing touch with the stories and traditions which have given Seabury its unique texture over the years.

This is why we have chosen to center this year’s annual Bread for the Journey conference “Bread for the Journey: Coming Home” as an ingathering or homecoming rather than as an issue-oriented conference.  Because this year life will go on at Seabury pretty much as usual, we thought it would be a good idea to ask everyone who knows and loves this place to come back, reconnect with each other, and share the stories and values which began in this place and have shaped their lives and ministries.

So I’m writing to ask you to be part of this year’s Bread for the Journey.  It will be a wonderful time of both thinking back and looking ahead.  We’ll have time to think about what Seabury has been and to dream about what it can be.  But we can only do that if you are here to bring what is uniquely yours to the experience. I’m not one much given to exhortation, but in this case I’ll indulge.  It’s really important to you, to your classmates, to the school, and to me that you come. 
I look forward to seeing you in September.

Sincerely,
Gary R. Hall
Dean and President

As Seabury charts a new course Jeff Lee, Seabury Trustee and Bishop of Chicago, has been enthusiastic and vocal about the possibilities of what a collaboration between the seminary and the diocese might do to reinvigorate clergy education, ministry development, and ongoing learning for laity and clergy in Chicago and beyond.  At this year’s Bread for the Journey, Bishop Lee will join Seabury’s Dean the Very Rev. Gary Hall in leading a reflective conversation about the changing needs of the church and the new ways in which seminaries, diocesan groups, and congregations might collaborate to address those needs.  A combination of presentations, dialogue, and discussion, this event will be a place for all to think together about how Christian communities will do ministry in the next decades and how a seminary can, in partnership, help prepare lay and ordained leaders for that mission.

Given the major changes in theological education and the church today, our new Board Chair, Dr. Robert G. Bottoms, and new Board Secretary, the Rev. Gwynne Wright, will speak to Seabury’s particular past, present and future as it stands today.   Bob and Gwynne will facilitate a discussion about thoughts and dreams that our alums have for the future of Seabury.  Bob is the Director of the Ethics Institute at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana and recently retired as DePauw’s president. Having served on the board for six years, he was elected Chair along with a new slate of officers this spring. Gwynne is a 2004 Seabury graduate and is a part of that new slate as well as the current Alumni/ae President.  Seabury is uniquely poised to lead the way into some exciting new possibilities, and this conversation with Bob and Gwynne will explore where we are in that process.  Coming together to share our dreams and yours just might offer new and better ways of doing theological education in the Episcopal Church.  We’re counting on the ideas and experience of our alums to help inform us in this process. 

As graduates of Seabury, many of us serve the Episcopal Church in parish ministry. We step out in faith to lead and to pastor our sisters and brothers in Christ by preaching, teaching, and spreading the Good News of God's Reign here on earth. Under most conditions, parish ministry is satisfying and routine. But, what happens when disaster strikes?  In August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina totally destroyed St. Patrick’s Church, Long Beach, Mississippi and changed the life of that community forever. The parish still meets at Camp Coast Care, the disaster relief center in the area, and is looking to rebuild a house of worship and prayer for St. Patrick’s. The Rev. J. David Knight, a 2002 Seabury graduate and rector of St. Patrick's, will share his experience about Katrina and the wisdom he has gleaned about the work of disaster preparedness.

Click Here for the article written by Bruce Colville, a friend of The Rev. J. David Knight, about his time at St. Patrick's Church.

Musician, composer, and liturgist Isaac Everett will be leading our morning Eucharist and a meditative evening prayer, as well as an afternoon workshop on ritual theory, theology of worship, and liturgical trends in the Emergent Church.  Along with his band, Die Dreaming, Isaac has brought his unique blend of progressive rock and traditional liturgical music to rock clubs, music halls, churches, and cathedrals across the country.  He has released two albums on Proost, a British Record Label: Rotation, an album of ancient liturgical melodies reimagined as rock, pop, trip hop, and acid jazz, and Transmission, a collection of rock songs which follow the ordo of the mass while simultaneously reflecting his experiences as a young Christian in New York City.  When not touring with his band, Isaac is the co-leader of Transmission, an underground emergent church in New York City, the artist-in-residence at the Church of the Epiphany, Manhattan, and a company member of Storahtelling: Jewish Ritual Theater Revived.  Isaac is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary.
http://www.isaaceverett.com