Climbing Trees

Periplum is a limited-run podcast series where we explore the world of Christian Formation in the church, and then plot together where we are all headed.

Music by BoDleasons via Pixabay.

Our brilliant mind this week is our very own Rev. Patrick Hunnicutt, Associate Pastor here at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Patrick discusses what has shaped him as "Patrick the person, the Christian, and the pastor": his childhood growing up near the passionate, loyal city of Philadelphia and in a home in which the church and servanthood were central; following in his father's footsteps to Duke University and the ecumenical, diverse environment he encountered at McCormick Seminary; and the energizing work he does with people here at WPC and in the National Capital Presbytery.

Patrick also previews his Adult Formation class, "Toward a Theology of Mission," where we will begin to explore together how we might live out our faith in the world.

Our brilliant mind this week is the Rev. Dr. Emily Peck, Professor of Christian Formation and Young Adult Ministry, Co-Director of the Certificate in Children and Youth Ministry and Advocacy, and Co-Director of the Wesley Innovation Hub at Wesley Theological Seminary.

She and Jacob discuss the broad implications of Christian Formation: how we are formed not only in what we know but in who we *are* and in what we *do*, and the role of grace and community and change in the formation process. She traces her spiritual and academic journey, and how she was formed to care deeply about both the world and the church. She also relates how a certain fairy tale inspires her to honor our own childhoods and the children who are entrusted with us.

Our brilliant mind this week is Westminster's own Christine Hershey, Director of Seniors Ministries. Christine shares the contrast in learning styles of her East Coast and West Coast academic experiences, and the challenges and joys of attending a liberal, intellectual seminary coming from a evangelical, charismatic Christian background. She and Jacob explore her time in clinical pastoral experiences - in churches, hospitals, and hospices - where she learned both about herself and to hold people's stories while listening and being present. She also previews her Adult Formation class on "Aging with Grace and Grit."

Our brilliant mind this week is international scholar, professor, and pastor Dr. Mario Hood, associate pastor at Church on the Living Edge in Orlando, Florida.

A good friend of Jacob's from seminary, Mario didn't grown up as a Christian - or as a person who expected to get a doctoral degree - but he ended up at a Christian college where his spiritual and academic journey began. He shares with us the philosophy of "paracletic leadership" - or sprit-filled, relational leadership - and his belief that theology done well is very practical. This understanding, especially as it relates to doing ministry with Gen Z and the next generation, has been influenced by his professors, by the people he does ministry with, and by his students today.

You can follow Dr. Hood @mariohood on Twitter and Instagram, or at https://linktr.ee/mariohood.

Our brilliant mind this week is Dr. Paul Cho, professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He shares how an interest in the relationship between language and reality - how language gives you access to different realities, and how it can shape your experience of reality - has shaped his life, from being a second-grade Korean immigrant to the US and through his academic and professional career.

He previews his upcoming class on Job, shares the profound impact his mother has had on his love of text and love of the Bible, and relates how his students' questions remind him that scholarship - and the life of faith - is best done in community and conversation.

Our brilliant mind this week is Rev. Dr. Josiah Young, Professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.

Growing up in the United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, his journey to seminary first took a detour through the world of dance! He relates how seeing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral service on television influenced him to attend Morehouse College, and the very rich experience it was to be at a campus with leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, and how that drive to serve his community led to attending Union Seminary. He shares how his parents made his home life a haven, and how we should cherish the resources and the voices that help us all become more humane and loving persons.

Our brilliant mind this week is the Rev. Dr. Alice Bellis. Born and raised in conservative 1950s North Carolina, Alice shares how her experiences in college and graduate school - from Mount Holyoke and Duke to Howard and Catholic universities in DC - were major cultural adjustments that ended up being providentially and spiritually formative. She and Jacob talk about the challenges and richness of pastoring a congregation while doing academic work, and the advisors and scholars that shaped her in the past and today.

Rev. Dr. Bellis is an ordained Presbyterian minister, author, and Professor of Hebrew Bible at Howard University School of Divinity. Join or watch her Sunday morning Adult Formation class at Westminster at https://wpc-alex.org/adult.

Our brilliant mind this week is Ellen Hamilton, author of A Scottish Migration to Alexandria, which chronicles the histories of Scotland and Alexandria through the story of William Gregory’s 1807 migration to our city.

Ellen shares how Westminster’s gift of a world trip to her grandparents may have been the reason she spent a large part of her childhood in Germany. She and Jacob discuss the creative process that went into the writing of her book, which began as a documentary film; and how being from a family of writers and her training in graphic arts contributed to the project and her love of making it.

Ellen is owner of Yellow Dot Designs, publisher of Faith and Race: One Church's Response to the Civil Rights Movement, and granddaughter of Westminster’s second pastor, the Rev. Dr. Cliff Johnson. You can see art and video from her book project at https://scottishmigration-film.com/. Her Sunday morning class can be attended or heard at https://wpc-alex.org/adult/. 

Our brilliant mind this week is Rev. Scott Planting, Westminster's current Sunday Morning Adult Formation host, former President of the Maine Seacoast Mission and honorably retired Presbyterian pastor. Scott shares with us how a summer job serving rural churches in Maine turned into 35 years of parish ministry, and the impact the director of that first program had on his life. He relates the struggles facing those communities in Maine, but also how the women of the churches that he served showed him how to "be there:" how to care for one another as a skill and a habit.

Watch Rev. Planting's Adult Formation class, "Hope in a Time of Crisis," at https://youtu.be/1k_Ryne_pAo.