Ordination Vows

I got ordained on Sunday by a whole crowd of wonderful and strange people.

The whole service was awesome. I don't know what else to say about it.

Here are the vows that I made, drawn from a wide variety of traditions and colleagues.

---Ordination Vows

We will begin with a reaffirmation of the vows made for you at your baptism and made by you at confirmation:

On behalf of the whole church, I ask you:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?

DW: I do.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms the present themselves?

DW: I do.

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

DW: I do.

And continuing with new vows:

Do you believe that you are truly called to the work of the pastor as your vocation and ministry in this season?

DW: I do, God being my help.

Will you be faithful in prayer and devotion, in reading of the scripture and in examining of your own heart?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you invite others into the holy work of God, into the proclamation of the Gospel, into the movement for the coming Kindom of God? Will you seek to empower everyone you encounter in their own vocations, their own ministries and calls?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you refuse to follow the biases of the world, and seek to follow only the biases of God?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you be faithful in preaching and teaching the Gospel, administering the ordinances and rites of the church, in exorcising demons and in exercising pastoral care and leadership? Will you bear faithful witness to the history and practice of your Baptist tradition?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you endeavor to seek, always, the further edge of possibility? Will you bring a radical hope to mundane moments, a radical joy to terrifying moments, and a radical love to difficult moments?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you endeavor to know, always, the nearer shores of comfort- the solace of God's own embrace, through prayer, fellowship, rest, and play? Will you maintain friendships, interests, and intimacies outside the congregation of your service, as a commitment to your own full living?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you endeavor to release your grasping, to cede that which is not yours to control? Will you uphold your calling as a sign and agent of God's saving work in the world, remembering that you are no savior, but only the teller of salvation's story?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you care for all of God's creation, in its radical diversity, both in its present Now and its future Not-Yet, including your own self and body?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you be brave and honest, loving and clear, in understanding that people will sometimes look to you as a way of looking for themselves, the lost truth of the Divine Within, and in helping them in that search?

DW: I will, God being my help.

As an agent of truth, will you love the dishonest? As an agent of justice, will you love the unjust? As an agent of reconciliation, will you love the divisive? As an agent of kindness, will you love the cruel?

DW: I will, God being my help.

Will you relentlessly serve the cause of Jesus in the world until you cease to draw breath or until justice is won and we all feast together at the Great Welcome Table?

DW: I will, God being my help.


And now, after those 3 and 12 vows for the ordinand, there is just one for you:

Will you the gathered community support David Weasley in the ministry of Christ? (If so, say, "We will.")

The People: We will.