By Mike Shea
As of just a few weeks ago, we do. My name is Mike Shea and I have been teaching Hebrew here at Urbana Seminary since 2001. I also pastor the Community Evangelical Free Church in Champaign. What is a chaplain? I had to look it up myself. A chaplain is “a member of the clergy serving a group of people who are not organized as a mission or church.” Hopefully you already have a pastor and are serving and being served in a local church. But now you have another member of the clergy at your service. So if you would ever like to talk to or pray with someone designated for ministry to seminarians, drop me a note at mshea@urbanaseminary.org. [Editor’s note: Mike is no longer at the seminary but we would be happy to talk to you if you want to contact us at office@urbanatheologicalseminary.org]
One of the first things I’d like to try as chaplain to the seminary is this blog. We are a young school. We have an office, a growing library, classrooms in various area churches, but we still lack any sort of a campus gathering place where a sense of community can grow among the students, staff and faculty. And even if such a place existed, it might not meet the needs of many of our students who commute some distance to classes. So perhaps we can begin with a virtual community. Here on this blog, about once a week, professors and adjunct faculty and staff will contribute posts and you are invited to comment. I invite you to comment even on this introductory post. You could share ideas of how this blog could serve our community, request topics for future posts, or just introduce yourself and let us know we have some readers.
