Dear Fellow Episcopalians – Are you looking to enrich your spiritual life and expand your understanding of the fundamentals of our faith? Would you like to be more deeply involved in lay ministry? Do you hunger for a more serious Bible study than the short dip most of us get in Adult forums or Bible study? Then EfM – Education for [Lay] Ministry may be for you.
This seminar-style program meets once a week (usually in the evening) in a number of locations around our diocese. The curriculum – developed by the University of the South at Sewanee – is a four-year program to which you commit only one year at a time. Participants from all four years meet together to discuss their readings and to engage in theological reflection. Each EfM group has a mentor and meets weekly for about 2-1/2 hours.
I’ve just completed my fourth and final year, and I would like to tell you how personally important and transformative it was for me. Not only was I guided through the Old and New Testaments, but I also had the opportunity to discuss all of this with others – often with very different thoughts and reactions than I had – which made my studies all the richer.
EfM is challenging, inspiring, and thought-provoking – a wonderful context in which to deepen your faith and to learn about the Old and New Testaments, church history, and theology. Our seminars were full of conversation, debate, listening, laughing, and wrestling with ideas.
If you’d like to learn more about the program or where the nearest EfM group meets, please contact the Rev. Mark Waldon, EfM Coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, at 973 595-1128 or teach.efm@me.com. Click on this link to learn more: efm.dioceseofnewark.org. And feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions.
Faithfully,
Paul Shackford
Member, St. Andrew’s Church in Harrington Park
