Mark Lampley.
Photo by Fred E. Staley, Jr.“The ties that bind us in Christ”
Minister’s rich and varied experience on the Educator Certification Council evokes “the communion of saints”
by Emily Enders Odom
Associate, Mission Communications
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Knoxville, Tenn., March 10, 2009 – As an accomplished graduate of one the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s finest theological institutions for Christian education — Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia — the Rev. Mark Lampley little realized that his own education and transformation were only just beginning.
The unexpected source of his spiritual growth was his service on a General Assembly level committee.
“How in the world did I get chosen to do such a special thing,” Lampley wondered. “It really was a privilege.”
It was while serving as associate pastor for Christian Education at First Presbyterian Church in Charleston, West Virginia, that Lampley received a personal visit in 2000 from several members of the PC(USA)’s Educator Certification Council (ECC), who were seeking to persuade him to fill a vacancy on the council. The ECC certifies Christian educators on behalf of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC).
Although honored and humbled by this first invitation to serve at the General Assembly level, which he readily accepted, Lampley confessed that he began his work with the ECC the following year with only a partial understanding of the nature and scope of the council’s mandate. In accordance with the Book of Order, the ECC establishes and administers the standards of the educator certification process in the PC(USA), including the oversight of required coursework and the evaluation of certification examinations.
“When I joined the council, I was only moderately aware of the work that they did,” Lampley said. “As a new member, I aimed to get more involved in the process, starting with my own commitment to become certified as a Christian educator.”
Upon verifying academic work required to prepare for his examination, Lampley was granted certification by the council in 2003 while serving as one of its active members. In working toward certifying Lampley, the ECC — which maintains the highest standards of confidentiality and impartiality in the reading and grading of examinations — took care that he was not assigned to be a reader of his own exam. Following the approval of his examination, however, council members were both joyful and quick to reveal that the anonymous code number on the graded exam belonged to none other than their own colleague.
“Serving on the council I realized how important it was to be as good an educator as I could be,” Lampley said. “I knew that completing the requirements would improve my ability to do educational ministry in the local church, which it certainly has.”
Lampley also freely acknowledges that going through the certification process himself not only made him more sensitive to the educators’ experience, but also more knowledgeable about and willing to recommend where the process needed to be corrected or improved.
“Since I had freshly gone through the certification process, I was able to approach the tasks at hand with greater understanding and sensitivity, while at the same time keeping expectations realistic,” he said. “I found that I could critique the process more effectively because I had just been enrolled in it and was therefore better able to understand what the council needed to do moving forward in order to achieve excellence in educational ministry.”
Among the growing edges for the ECC that Lampley helped to identify during his six years of service on the council was the need to be sensitive to differences of culture and language, engaging interpreters and translating candidates’ examinations as necessary to ensure educational excellence across the whole church.
A native of western North Carolina, Lampley now serves as the associate pastor for Young Adult Ministries at the Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church here. He considers it to have been a rare gift to have served on the ECC with distinguished church educators, seminary professors and lifetime achievement honorees recognized by the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE). “It was certainly a privilege for me to work with educators at that high a level of understanding,” he said. “When you feel like you’re working with the country’s best, it raised the bar for me, bringing into sharper focus what I intended to do.”
When teaching his young children the Study Catechism recently, Lampley found himself searching for examples that would lend these fledgling seekers a deeper understanding of what Presbyterians mean by the “communion of saints.”
As their questions persisted — “Why do we say this, Dad?” — a picture emerged in Lampley’s mind, along with an answer for both them and himself. Lampley immediately recalled the work, witness and community of the ECC as perfectly embodying that theological concept.
“What this council is about,” said Lampley, “is the ties that bind us in Christ. Serving on the council gave new meaning to 1 Corinthians 12, helping me to see that we are that body in many parts. We rejoiced with educators who did well, while feeling the pain of those who struggled and felt alone. We were tied to one another.”
Those ties became even more significant — and deeply personal — to Lampley as he found himself facing a family member’s health crisis during his term of service. “My father called me halfway through one of our meetings to tell me that he had been diagnosed with cancer,” he said. “I came back into the meeting and requested a point of personal privilege. I told the group, ‘I have shocking news and I need you to be church to me right now.’ When each educator around that table from different parts of the country responded to me with an outpouring of prayers for hope, healing, and patience, I had an epiphany of what the church ought to be.”
The council members, who Lampley says continue to be for him a “family of faith,” supported, encouraged, and prayed for him throughout his father’s journey through treatment and full remission.
“It was for me completely unexpected at a national level to have them asking and caring about my dad,” he said. “It made me so aware of the Spirit’s work in this group, drawing us closer together as we all shared our stories and our history.”
Although he completed his service on the ECC in 2007, Lampley said he would do it all over again. “The work was fun and fulfilling, especially reading the exams and seeing how excellent our educational leadership is across the denomination. But it was about more than just the work. On a personal level, we bonded,” he said.
“I learned that we share not just the work of the church, but we also share the story which Jesus and the disciples began so long ago.”
Through the General Assembly nominations process, the church has the benefit of selecting, from the varied gifts and services of Presbyterians, the most qualified persons to serve on General Assembly level entities, including the Educator Certification Council. To learn more and/or to recommend an educator to serve on the ECC, go to the General Assembly Nominating Committee Web site for a complete description and application. |
