Worship and Spiritual Formation
The Vanderbilt Divinity School community gathers each week as a theological community engaged in ecumenical and interfaith worship. We affirm community worship as a practice that affirms the religious traditions that nurture faith and practice and that support curiosity and doubt. Our worship practices and our understanding of spiritual formation compliment theological education as aspects of the methods by which we understand transformation.
When we articulate that the "Divinity School is committed to the faith that brought the church into being" we are committed to the idea that the study of the faith does not produce easy answers, but the process of study and its struggle to understand-- to critically and openly engage traditions is not merely the act of study, but it is the reflexive act of transformation through community, in worship and other spaces, over time.
To be spiritually formed is not to be indoctrinated by the creeds and polity of the church, but to engage their meaning and observe their contradiction and possibility for what is life sustaining. Spiritual formation is not just the work of the licensed director, though these expert practitioners are a good resource for the deeper and more targeted work of individuals. Spiritual formation is the process of engagement that occurs in a regimented, but not rigid program designed to form people into religious leadership and its multilayer work in the world. Come and join us on the journey!
Worship Committee
Jaco Hamman, Faculty Chair
jaco.hamman@vanderbilt.edu Juan Floyd-Thomas, Faculty Member
j.floyd-thomas@vanderbilt.edu
Amy E. Steele, Assistant Dean for Student Life
amy.e.steele@vanderbilt.edu
2016 Spring Schedule
Community Worship begins at 10:10 a.m. in VDS All Faith Chapel. All are welcome.
February 3 Speaker: Kyle Brooks
Theme: Love
February 10 Speaker: Megan Black T
heme: Confrontation
February 17 Speaker: Zach Fisher
Theme: Forgiveness
February 24 Speaker: Rev. Yolanda Norton
Theme: Transformation
March 2 Speaker: Shantell Hinton
Theme: Womanist Worship
March 16 Speaker: Dane Van Eys
Theme: Grief
March 23 Speaker: Rev. Gretchen Person
Theme: Stations of the Cross
March 30 Speaker: Christie Blackshear
Theme: Care
April 6 Speaker: Rev. Allie Lutz
Theme: TBA
April 13 Speaker: Sara Green
Theme: Solidarity
April 20
May 12
Speakers are subject to change.
Related links
Vanderbilt University Chaplain's Office - http://www.vanderbilt.edu/religiouslife/