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Going deeper:
Education for Ministry at St. Michael's, Mission

By Melodie Woerman
Editor, The Harvest

Education for Ministry has been an important tool of adult education in parishes across the diocese, but few places have embraced it as thoroughly as St. Michael’s, Mission.

There have been EFM groups in the parish since the program’s earliest days in the mid-1970s, spurred on by then rector (and later Bishop of Kansas) Richard Grein’s emphasis on adult Christian formation.

And participants stick with it, too. The four-year program is rigorous, with weekly small group meetings and homework between sessions.

But according to one EFM group leader there, Larry Bingham, the number of current students plus graduates in the parish now number more than 70 people. Add in others who have moved away, and the number is even greater.

Education for Ministry students at St. Michael's, Mission, gather with group leader Larry Bingham (right).

Involved and committed

It’s not just the numbers that are impressive, though. Those EFMers are involved. Bingham said he can identify these key ministries among them:

- 28 have served as vestry members;
- 8 have been wardens;
- 5 were members of the recent rector search committee;
- 4 have been members of the diocesan Council of Trustees; and
- 2 became clergy – one priest and one deacon.

That involvement extends to financial support, too. While EFM students and grads count for 13 percent of the parish, they represent 25 percent of the money pledged, Bingham said. They also give nearly twice the parish average — $5,023 a year compared to $2,529.

Among current students, 18 are enrolled in the first year of study, split among two groups. Each group is headed by a trained and experienced mentor, and Bingham said St. Michael’s has developed a unique rotating group schedule that allows each student to study with each mentor and to be in group time with every other student sometime during the academic year.

Can’ t stop meeting

In addition to the students, 25 people who have completed the course still keep meeting. These three alumni groups provide a structure for study, worship and the theological reflection that is a hallmark of the EFM process.

In reflecting on the parish’s large number of EFM participants, Bingham said that in the case of St. Michael’s, interest begets interest. “The more participants we have, the more advocates we have to spread the word to potential participants,” he said.

Of course, being the biggest parish in the diocese give them a large applicant base from which to draw, he admitted.

In the Diocese of Kansas there currently are 128 students studying in 20 groups.

Since it was started in 1975, EFM has had more than 70,000 participants and more than 22,000 graduates. In 2006, the enrollment was more than 6,000 people.

EFM, which is operated through the School of Theology of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., provides in-depth theological education in a parish-based setting through a four-year course of study of the Old and New Testaments, church history, and theology and doctrine.

Theological reflection asks students to explore the relationship between the material studied and their own beliefs, helping them see how they more effectively can minister in the world.