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Written Examination
for Provisional Membership

Pastor Cody has been recommended by the District Committee on Ordained Ministry to interview with the Board of Ordained Ministry regarding provisional membership and commissioning in the Rio Texas Annual Conference. As part of interview preparation, he must answer and submit the following questions. 

Personal and Vocational

1. Please provide a brief statement introducing yourself. Include the formative experiences of your Christian life and a brief record of your service in the church. 

2. Reflect briefly on your call to ministry. Given your experience of ministry to this point, how do you presently conceive of your vocation as active minister?

  • Explain your own personal experience of God's grace in your ministry. When have you experienced God as a pardoning God? When have you had the assurance that you are a child of God? How is the grace of God currently at work in sanctifying you? 

  • How has the experience of ministry enriched your understanding of your vocation in the ministry to which you have been called? 

Theology

1. Describe your personal experience of God and the understanding of God you derive from biblical, theological, and historical sources. 

2. What is your understanding of evil as it exists in the world? 

3. What is your understanding of humanity and the human need for divine grace? 

4. How do you interpret the statement, "Jesus Christ is Lord." 

5. What is your conception of the activity of the Holy Spirit in personal faith, in the community of believers, and in responsible living in the world? 

6. What is your understanding of the following: 

  • The Kingdom of God

  • The Resurrection

  • Eternal Life

7. How do you intend to affirm, teach, and apply Part III of the Discipline (Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task) in your work in the ministry to which you have been called? 

8. The United Methodist Church holds that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason. What is your understanding of this theological position of the Church? 

9. Describe the nature and mission of the Church. What are its primary tasks today? 

10. Discuss your understanding of the primary characteristics of Unity Methodist polity. 

11. Explain the role and significance of the sacraments in the ministry to which you have been called.

Practice and Covenants of Ministry

1. How do you perceive yourself, your gifts, your motives, your role, and your commitment as a provisional member and commissioned minister in The United Methodist Church? 

2. Describe your understanding of diakonia, the servant ministry of the church, and the servant ministry of the provisional member. 

3. What is the meaning of ordination in the context of the general ministry of the Church? 

4. Describe your understanding of an inclusive church and ministry. 

5. You have agreed, for the sake of the mission of Jesus Christ in the world and the most effective witness of the Christian gospel, and in consideration of your influence as an ordained minister, to make a complete dedication of yourself to the highest ideals of the Christian life. To this end you have agreed to exercise responsible self-control by personal habits, mental and emotional maturity, intentional intellectual development, fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness, integrity in all personal relationships, social responsibility, and growth grace and the knowledge and love of God. 

  • What is your understanding of this agreements? 

  • In what areas, if any, do you continue to struggle to be faithful to your commitment? 

  • Do you, in seeking full membership in the Annual Conference and ordination as a deacon or an elder, reaffirm your complete dedication to this commitment? 

6. Provide evidence of your willingness to relate yourself in ministry to all persons without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, social status, gender, sexual orientation, age, economic condition, or disability. 
7. Will you regard all pastoral conversations of a confessional nature as a trust between the person concerned and God? 

8. Provide evidence of your experience in peace and justice ministries. 

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