Last night I attended a Baccalaureate service at Plodding Theological Seminary. A few friends of mine are graduating from PTS this year, and so I was invited to attend. Today is the graduation ceremony, but first there is an awards brunch, to which I was also invited.
I have to say that I'm going to miss the friends who are graduating. While I didn't attend there, I got to know many of them through a close friend of mine who attends Stodgy Presbyterian, and is a graduating senior at PTS. This also means that I will have fewer contacts at PTS, as we pray that many of the graduates are called to pulpits very soon.
Anyway, last night's Baccalaureate was fantastic. The service was great, as many of the graduating seniors were readers, and a couple assisted with Communion. The Sermon was outstanding!! If anyone remembers reading the Presbyterian Outlook in the mid-90's, you will remember the columns by Dr. Charles Partee as witty and funny. He does love his puns, and he had us in stitches last night. His beginning was punctuated by laughter from the assembled graduates, faculty and family members in attendance. Each pun built up the next, however, do not think it was all humor, as he approached the last half of the sermon, he was very serious and gave a charge to the graduates that I know they will remember.
As Dr. Carl said in his welcome, this was Dr. Partee's final, official act as a member of the faculty; he retires this year after 31 years of service to PTS, and over 50 years as pastor/teacher/professor/theologian to the Presbyterian Church.
So, today the graduating class of 2009 will receive their diplomas. I'm not sure of the total count of degrees being bestowed, I seem to remember it was over 70 or so. I'll update later once I find out for sure. However, considering PTS has 1/3 the campus (and probably a lot less faculty) than some other PCUSA seminaries, that's not bad at all !!
Then again, I'm biased!!
... and so it goes !!
Update: it was a total of 69 MDiv and DMin degrees.
Congratulations to all of the grads! Graduating from seminary is quite an accomplishment. Glad that you're able to share in the celebrations. I hope to get to that PTS one of these days - I've heard Craig Barnes speak and preach a couple of times and I really like him.
ReplyDeleteDave graduated from Dubuque, and I think he may have had an even smaller graduating class.
What I found interesting is that Plodding TS gave out more MDivs than SFTS !!
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