This site and related activities were started by and for clergy related to American Baptist Churches USA. If you are part of a clergy couple (our working definition is a couple where both partners have discerned a call to professional Christian ministry) but relate to another denomination or religious organization write to us. If there is enough interest outside the ABC we may want to expand our network. Who knows how God may lead us to grow as a network.
The following is a copy of the initial email that was sent out as a beginning point for this network. Mailed in March, 2006, it may give you a sense of our history and purpose. If you didn't receive that initial email, please consider this your invitation to join the network. Information on how to do so can be found below.
Alan Selig
postmaster@priscillaandaquila.net
Greetings fellow American Baptist clergy:
This email is coming to you because you have identified yourself in one setting or another as part of a clergy couple, spouses who are both professional ministers. I am also part of a clergy couple. My wife, Karen, and I have been co-pastors at First Baptist Church, Manhattan, Kansas, since 1992.
For the last several biennials folks have talked about how to create connections between ABC clergy couples. It is great to get together for breakfast during the biennial, but one hour every two years isn’t enough. We have a rich resource of folks who are answering God’s call together, whether they are serving in the same church, in nearby churches, in chaplaincy positions, as pastoral counselors, educators, missionaries or denominational staff or any of the amazingly varied forms that clergy couples take.
At the Denver breakfast I volunteered to see if we could create an online network of clergy couples. The goal is to establish an Internet presence where clergy can go to share with one another their unique situations, to develop resources that will help us effectively serve in the calls we have received from God, and to support one another.
Under the new name of “The Priscilla and Aquila Network,” we have the beginnings of a website – www.priscillaandaquila.net (still under construction). I also have about 150 names of people who might be interested in being part of this developing network.
I hope we can develop a mutually beneficial website and discussion forum, where all participants share themselves, encourage one another, offer resources, ideas and counsel that has worked in their context. If there is interest we could even invite into our network some outside resource persons for seminar experiences – MMBB or ABPS staff, a faculty member from one of our seminaries, BIM or BNM personnel, etc.
I hope the above description has caught your interest and that you would like to be part of this network. If you would here are some things you can do--
-- You can email back to me and tell me you are interested. That way I will know and will also know your email address is current.
-- You can also let me know what you would like to see as content on the website.
-- If you enjoy website development you are very welcome to help me build the site.
-- And you can let other clergy couples in your area/region/etc. about this network and invite them to contact me. Or send email addresses to me and I will extend the invitation to them.
If you aren’t interested in being part of the Priscilla and Aquila Network, or if this email has reached you by mistake and you aren’t part of a clergy couple, just let me know and I will take your name off the mailing list.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Alan Selig
postmaster@priscillaandaquila.net
