Nora Boerner on 'Choosing Ministry, Choosing Community'

The Rev. Nora Boerner '22 is a CDSP alum from the Diocese of Iowa and serves as associate rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in Iowa City. Her interview with Crossings Conversations is the first in a series with students who worked full-time in ministry positions while completing the Hybrid Program. She spoke to us about showing up for her classmates, her distinctive internship experience with Beloved Community Initiative, and putting her seminary learning into action "every single day."

Transcript

Kyle: This is Kyle Oliver from Church Divinity School of the Pacific and I'm here with the Reverend Nora Boerner, a 2022 graduate of the CDSP, what we now call the Hybrid Program, was the low-res program. She is associate rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in Iowa City, Iowa. Nora, welcome to Crossings Conversations. 

Nora: Thank you so much. 

Kyle: Before we dive into today's topic, which is all about this rich experience of being formed for ministry while doing ministry, I wonder if you might set it up for us by just telling us a little bit about what drew you to the CDSP Hybrid Program in the first place. 

Nora: I, like many people, my call to ordained ministry was a bit of an inconvenient truth that I moved away from for a long time or conceived of in a different way. My family and I moved for me to take a position in formation here in Iowa City, and I thought that was it. I thought, "Okay, finally, God is going to stop bothering me," but those labor pains that so many people talk about when they're called into different ministry just continued and got stronger and stronger. 

The more time went by the more rooted my family was in this location. I had lots of conversations with my bishop at the time and with all the different options out there and I started to wonder, actually, if seminary wasn't going to be possible for me because moving wasn't a possibility for my family. Then I found out about CDSP and I looked at just the rigor of the academic program. It just felt like the right fit. My family relied on my income, I was able to still work full time for the church, my kids could stay at school and I could have an academically rigorous and transformative seminary education at the same time. It was a no-brainer to say yes. 

Kyle: Do I have right that the context in which you're serving now is that same context where you were serving first in formation?  

Nora: Yes, the same church, and then I have a second position as well. I'm three-quarter time here at the church and then in the last year, I've taken on a quarter-time position on the bishop’s staff. I'm the interim missioner for Beloved Community for the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, which we can talk about because part of that position stems from my time at CDSP and my ability to be contextual and stay in ministry while I was in seminary. 

Kyle: Oh, great. Let's definitely talk about that. Let's start at the church and I'm wondering, you mentioned this is a formation position that brought you to Iowa City. Can you tell us what your role there looked like before you started and then what your role looked like while you were studying? 

Nora: I was in charge of all the formation programs. We had a robust formation program and communication. They ended up titling my position, the parish life coordinator, which is a catch-all position. I did a lot of different things, a lot of administration and just helping keep things running with keeping an emphasis on discipleship and formation for all ages. I was very busy organizing volunteers and making meals for people and facilitating worship. That didn't change actually too much when I was in seminary. 

One thing is that when I was made a postulant, I started preaching and just had a lot more active role in actual liturgy action. Whereas before I would have been an occasional chalice bearer or filling in a lot of times on Sundays. Instead of doing children's chapel every single Sunday, then I started preaching more often. In hindsight, I wish I had intentionally taken some things off of my plate, but instead throughout seminary, I just kept adding. I just added things to the list. 

Kyle: Got it. You're in this formation role. You are studying in the hybrid program. You are taking on some new leadership practices in the midst of things. Then your program ends, you graduate. What did the transition to this new thing look like for you? 

Nora: I would say there was multiple pieces of it, of course. The weirdest thing for me was to have free time in the evenings. I did not know what to do with myself because I was just so used to working all day and then studying in the evening. When I walked across that stage and I thought, "What am I going to do now?" I had accepted a curacy position before I graduated, but I just felt like there was-- I was able to live into my role in a different way once I graduated. 

I was ordained to the priesthood just a couple of months after graduation and noticing that my role became more pastoral, obviously, and the church started to anticipate a transition as well. I think a lot of the work that I had done in the church and at seminary just all of a sudden came to a head for me. It was like, on the ground, here we go, bringing all those things into fruition. 

Then actually one month after I was ordained in September, in October, we had a new bishop and she approached me about this position and asked me if I would consider taking a job on her staff in addition to my role here at Trinity. I had a little bit of time where I wondered what I would do with all my free time and then I was very quickly filling that with this other really fruitful, wonderful job. 

Kyle: I'm curious, what if anything did you need? What if anything did the congregation need in order to navigate these evolving roles for you? What did that evolution look like? Did that get challenging? Was that natural? 

Nora: It was so organic. I was a little surprised by that and how that worked. I attribute some of that to the fact that I was in a pastoral staff already separate role from the congregation from the get-go, that I wasn't a member of the congregation really. I was already separated out in a different way. For a number of different reasons had been providing pastoral care to some of the congregation already, parents of young children, parents of teenagers, walking them through the confirmation process. 

My role really did evolve to me being in charge of, like I said, formation and discipleship across all ages and across the lifespan. People were used to me in a leadership role in some ways. To me, the transition into ordained ministry, I don't know why I can't explain this. It was the most natural thing, truly. It was so organic and easy and the congregation was completely adaptive. It didn't even feel like something to notice for me. 

I think we had good communication about it and good care and good boundaries that really helped that process. Then the church going through transition we actually have an interim rector starting in a couple of days here, called me to continue to serve during that interim time. Our evolution just continues. 

Kyle: I'm wondering, can you tell me about a moment or if you can think of one where something from your studies and something from your day-to-day ministry practice came together in a powerful way? Were there aha moments along the way where you were making these connections and seeing the full benefit of having these two experiences working alongside each other? 

Nora: I know this will sound like hyperbole or something, but every single day. Every single day that happened because everything I was learning, I was able to draw into actual real-life ministerial experience. That moment or that week, it would change the sermon that I preached the next Sunday. As I learned more about different theologies, how that informed the discipleship booklets that I mailed out during COVID. Everything, it informed all of that. 

Sometimes I found it to be affirming, "Oh, that instinct I had and that program I put together." "Oh, that did line up with current pedagogy or different things like that." Then other times it would really challenge me and I would make changes adaptively on the ground as we went. I think that that strengthened programs at the church. I also think that it made a big difference even within the life of my diocese because I was able to share things right away and be more theologically adaptive. 

Every single post, I was able to bring that in or group discussion for sure. I think it had a huge part in the depth and the breadth of my formation. 

Kyle: I'm intrigued by the notion of like, well, yes. A lot of times that was affirming. Then in a few cases, it really gave me pause. Is there a moment that you remember of having that reflection? 

Nora: It probably happened the most in some theology classes with Dr. Scott McDougal. I took one of his courses about body, and embodiment, and sexuality. Some of my own embedded theology and way of understanding the world that was relied on platonic dualism. I didn't even know how embedded that was in my thinking and how I approached spirituality. I remember the very first book he had us read, it just upended that completely for me. 

That was a time for me when I really wrestled. I remember this moment in class because I was actually asynchronous and that was the only class I was able to take synchronously because it was online and Zoom. I remember the moment when I felt the tension in my body relax. I settled into it and I realized that I had been changed and that I had a completely different understanding of God and incarnation. I felt free and it was beautiful. 

Kyle: Wow, thank you for sharing that. You mentioned earlier the connections between the work you did at CDSP and the genesis I think I heard you saying of your new role at the diocese. I wonder if you might tell us a little bit more about how all that has unfolded. 

Nora: This might be one of the most transformational things that happened because I was steeped in ministry and attending seminary at the same time. Because I had such extensive congregational experience and knowledge already. My current bishop at the time really was like "I don't need you to go into a traditional internship. That's not something that's going to benefit you." 

It was something that I was really on my heart and I didn't even know that there would be another option because I first started really wondering about it with the practicalities, how am I going to be at my job on Sunday and go to another church and really deeply commit myself to that? I can't do my internship where I work, I already know what's happening here. I had conversations with the now Canon to the Ordinary in the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, Canon Meg Wagner. She had commitments to racial justice. 

I knew that she was starting this Beloved Community Initiative. We'd had conversations even when I started seminary, about how could I plug in, what could this look like? When I attended my first class over interim, beginning the idea of field ed with Caroline McCall and what can this look like? I just asked, can I not do it at a church? I don't know, maybe. It was pretty rare at that time that that would be something that happened. 

There had been precedent for students to do that within the context of chaplaincies or different ministries, but that looked a little bit more like pastoral care. I'm really grateful for Mark Hearn as well just helping me bring this to fruition. I ended up doing my seminary internship at Beloved Community Initiative, which is a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa that is centered on racial justice. It was built with seed grants from the Episcopal Church. 

Leading dismantling racism trainings and doing book groups, and attending school board meetings, advocating for issues of equity. A local school needed someone to show up and welcome kids because there were racism issues within the school. I got to show up three times a week and greet kids and welcome them to school, which was beautiful. I got to live out my faith and my own commitments. My own commitment since I was young to racial justice and dismantling white supremacy. 

I got to do that through my internship. Then as part of the internship work, was able to help discern and bring a Eucharistic community to Beloved Community Initiative. It was a real natural next step when Bishop needed Meg Wagner to do something else for them to pull me in as the interim leader of that mission. I had a few months off from when my internship ended, and then was able to continue that work and doing community organizing and educating people, and leading webinars. 

I am still doing it. I still love it. I probably, I'm only going to be serving it during an interim period that will end sometime next year. I was able to present at, It's All About Love in Baltimore and teach other people about what we're doing here in Iowa and how they can contextualize it in their own environments. It's really been this beautiful extension of my ministry and looking at the world in a new way. 

Kyle: I wonder if you could say a bit about, writ large, your experience of community during your studies. That might mean community in your context and community with your CDSP classmates.  

Nora: The community within the cohort that I had at CDSP carried me and continues to carry me to this day. They're my go-to people, my three best friends in every way. When I was doing that final piece of discernment, am I actually going to go to seminary? Am I actually going to do this? I met with a priest, a beloved priest, and asked her, "I have one more question." She said, "Okay." 

I said, "Well, if I'm ordained, will I be more lonely than I already am?" She paused and she said "Yes." I just needed to know that.  

Ministry can be so isolating. That intentional community is everything, is sustaining. When we first arrived all together, that summer camp-like experience in June. The friendships that were forged there were the seeds of us continuing to connect and learn together. The time that we had in person allowed me to humanize people. If you're going to be doing this online work together. We just got more and more bonded and kept in contact through, we initially had a Facebook group for our cohort, and then those friendships obviously distilled in different ways as people went different directions. We've traveled to one another's ordinations. 

We have a Marco Polo chat with the four of us, and we know each other's kids and partners. Truly that community of Brett, Jenna, and Mandy, I could just get choked up talking about it. They're witnesses of Christ for me in my life. If we're having a ministry question, even something as small as, how do you abbreviate this? This is what I asked them this last week, they are right there for me. It has just been really beautiful. 

Kyle: I think I heard in your reflection the power of that first in-person gathering and the power of I think I'm hearing just continuing asynchronous discourse in the way that how many of us keep up with many of our communities in this day and age. 

Are there other aspects either of the program in a formal way or in your relationships that you think have really helped to solidify those bonds? What else if anything, was it that drew you so closely together? 

Nora: I feel this is such an overused word in the church and in ministry, but intentionality. As with anything, we always have a choice. You have a choice how you're going to approach and be in class with one another. I think I had a unique perspective and my desire for community among classmates was because I'd had that conversation and I already had that insight knowing I was going to be lonely. I already was lonely. That open hunger for people. 

To me, in many ways, when you have relationships across the country, it requires some of the same intentionality that any important relationship does. That idea within my marriage of choosing each other every day and you're going to have ebbs and flows in the intensity and frequency of your communication, but I made a decision, and I'm pretty sure that they did as well, to choose each other. There's been different times when we've each shifted into different times, someone graduates earlier or isn't in the same program. 

No, we are showing up and I don't care what the weather is like, I'm flying across the country and I'm showing up for you in every way possible. Right now we've reached a new phase where we're all ordained, we're all in our ministry contexts, and how do we sustain that knowing that there isn't another ordination on the map? We're talking about what other ways can we get together in person and make that happen? 

I've had other outside that intense cohort, another one of my close friends who came out of the same church I did, and now lives in California, Betsy McElroy, she went to, It's All About Love, and we roomed together. That's another choice. You have to continually make those choices. There was a CDSP community there. I was able to hug people I hadn't seen in a long time. The post gets shared on Facebook and you have professors from CDSP loving it and saying, I love all these people together. 

I think to me you can offer opportunities for the community. Having that in-person connection and then continuing it and fostering it online. When you have people who are choosing ministry, I think you also have people who are choosing community. I have no concerns about the community continuing on at CDSP. 

Kyle: This is just a hypothesis of mine. You had those skills for sustaining these long-distance friendships as a piece of the program itself. Do you think it's fair to say that that was a formative experience of itself in the program? 

Nora: Completely. It was like baby muscles. How do I keep in contact with people I care about when we're in literally sometimes four different time zones? What does that look like? Oh, it helps if you text each other or whatever that might be. Definitely, I think the program set us up to have successful friendships afterward. This is no small thing, but I also really credit the Holy Spirit. 

Kyle: Amen. 

Nora: I believe with all my heart that those people were placed in my life at that time on purpose to help me grow as a Christian, to help me be a better priest, help me be a better parent, help me be a better person. That is no small thing to know that the Holy Spirit drew us together and we said yes to that drawing in. 

Kyle: Wow. Thank you. As we come in for a landing here, I wonder if there is a piece of advice you might share for others who are navigating this journey of full-time ministry in the midst of hybrid seminary formation. What would you want them to carry with them into this experience? 

Nora: I have so much. I guess I'll start with positives and weave my way around here. If I can do it, and I mean this, you can do this. I had a full-time job, four children, a major health crisis that stopped me in my tracks, a global pandemic. I graduated on time. I was transformed. I am a priest today. If I can do it, [chuckles] anyone can do it. That being said there were some hard lessons I learned along the way. 

One thing that a wise friend told me before I started the program is, "If you're going to do this, you have to realize every choice you make, you're going to be letting someone down, or it's going to feel like that." There were days that I had to finish my paper and shut the door of my room, and my kids were upset and my spouse was frustrated. I had to choose seminary in that moment. 

My greatest learning from seminary was the release of perfectionism, the release of the lie of perfectionism, and the release of the idea that I can be all things to all people. You can't succeed in this program if you believe that. If you're willing to show up and use discernment to choose who you're going to serve that day, or what serves you that day, you'll succeed. Because there are times when I didn't read every single word of every single article for my blog post. I couldn't, I was holding a sick baby. 

There are photos of me I took, that's the other thing I would say, take photos of all the places you study. 

Kyle: Oh, I love it 

Nora: Because I started out breastfeeding. There's photos of me breastfeeding and studying, and there's photos of me in a doctor's office when my kid has an appointment and I'm reading on an airplane, all these different ways. I guess that also leads me to the point that if you do this program and you take it into heart, it will make you a lifelong learner. Because you have to learn how to learn in all different places in all different ways, at all different times. 

That idea that you have to let something go is really important. You can't be a good priest and a good minister unless you learn how to have good boundaries and say no. 

Kyle: Well, Nora, this has been a real privilege. I am so grateful for everything you've shared with us for this insight into the experience and to being a minister, being a Christian human being. All of it. I am really profoundly grateful for this time. Thank you so much for sharing with our community today. 

Nora: What an honor. Thank you so much, Kyle. Love to everyone.