Taking License

Like most pastors I have a lot of pieces of paper framed and hanging on my wall.  A friend of mine calls such collections our “works righteousness” walls.  In one cluster there are my academic parchments – my college and seminary diplomas.  In another grouping are my ecclesiastical credentials.  These include the parchments recognizing my ordination as deacon and as elder (these date back to a time when elder’s ordination was a two-step process.  Elders and Deacons are separate orders in the United Methodist Church now).

But there is one more.  It is my License to Preach in the United Methodist Church (UMC).  This is a document that signifies that the church granted me limited authority to carry out certain pastoral acts while I served as a student pastor (a designation that no longer exists in the UMC).  The church appointed a student pastor to a church or charge, and the student could preach and do a few other things there.  

A student pastor visited in hospitals and sickrooms.  Student pastors could conduct funerals.  They could officiate at weddings in the churches where they preached.  The student pastor did limited administration within their own pastoral charge.  But the student pastor could not administer the sacraments.  If a Baptism was in order the student had to recruit an ordained elder to do that task.  An elder was also necessary for serving Communion.

The rules of the church are a little different now.  Local Pastors (who have a bit more training and who are examined a tad more closely before they receive a pastoral assignment) can now baptize and preside at the Communion table in their own appointment (although they cannot administer the sacraments beyond their own local congregation).

I spend this time because in the past week I have passed the 43rd anniversary of the issuing of my License to Preach.  I had been doing church work for a little over a year.  I went through the certifying process during that time.  Then, with the reception of that first certificate, I began a long journey of credentialing and ministry.

In those days a pastor went through a renewal of license process annually as long as s/he was preaching.  This held true until ordination as a deacon.  At that point the student preacher ceased to be under the supervision of the District Committee on Ordained Ministry (the entity that granted the License) and began a time of oversight by the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry.  When the candidate received Elders ordination s/he attained a status of being able to execute all duties of the pastoral office without restriction.

So, in practical ways, that License on my wall doesn’t reflect my current status at all.  The print is fading. The paper itself has begun to deteriorate. It contains the signatures of the folks on that long-ago committee who helped me get started.  Some of them are no longer alive.    It is a reminder of a time gone by.  But it is also a symbol to me of a beginning, of an attitude and an enthusiasm for my pastoral work that I had when I first started out.  It sometimes pushes me when I feel the occasional pressure of these tasks closing in on me.  

It’s not coming down.