an opportunity?

[cellio]

I received a (physical) flyer in the mail today from my rabbi, sans context, for the UAHC Sh'liach K'hilah program, a program to train lay leaders for (apparently) significant congregational roles: "Participants who successfully complete the Sh'liach K'hilah program will be able to serve their congregation either by assisting an ordained/invested clergy with the sacred work of the synagogue or, in those congregations without clergy, by serving as a synagogue leader."

The FAQ says that one of the responsibilities of the sponsoring rabbi is "to verify that the congregation will have an appropriate role for the applicant should s/he be accepted to the program and that the applicant is suited to serve the congregation".

Now I've heard about this program before and ogled it from afar, but I hadn't seen very much information. (The last time I visited the web site there wasn't much to it, but that's changed. Either Mozilla or Acrobat is choking on their PDFs, so I can't actually read some of the materials yet.) And that ogling has been more of a "gee, that would be neat, though it's not like I'd have a chance to actually apply any of it in my congregation". But -- a condition of being accepted to the program would be having an opportunity to apply what I learn, according to them. That's significant.

Some of the information is vague (like the curriculum), and some is inaccessible (at least for me right now). And maybe my rabbi just sent this to me because he had to find a home for it and the worship chair makes sense -- or maybe it's a suggestion/offer. I won't be able to ask him before tomorrow, so it's premature to write this, but... wow, that sure would be neat, and if he does have that degree of confidence in me, well that's awfully flattering.

This would be about as close to formal quasi-rabbinic training as I'm ever likely to get -- emphasis on the "quasi", as the program is measured in weeks rather than years and I know better than to be presumptuous. But the real thing is pretty unlikely to ever happen, and this is something I could actually do, and benefit from personally, and (apparently) benefit from congregationally. So it's worth investigating!

Comments

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Sounds neat. I wish they had something like that for Conservative. (They probably do and I just don't know about it.)

[goljerp]

I dunno if they do. There are programs, like the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, or on-line courses that you can take at JTS, but I'm not aware of a formal program.

The problem, of course, is that (depending upon the shul) there may already be people who have those skills. Another is that this sort of program could theoretically be abused by shuls looking to avoid the expense of hiring a Rabbi, or an assistant Rabbi. That's probably why they have restrictions on how a "Sh'liach Kehilah" can serve a congregation:

Can a Sh’liach Kehilah/Synagogue Associate serve a congregation other than the one in which s/he is a member?
Yes, but only if the local UAHC Regional Director and the SK/SA Program Director determine that a particular congregation is in need of such services. Then a local SK/SA may be asked to assist that congregation.

[cellio]

I don't see anything quite like this on the USCJ web site, but you could always ask. It could be that Conservative has a larger "installed base" of qualified lay people and they don't need to promote this as much (or, alternatively, they do it as more like an apprenticeship).

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I don't think they have anything formal like this in place, though supposedly they have various lay programs. (USCJ's site is frustrating to load -- at least I find it so -- so I haven't noodled around too much.) What I like about what you're doing is the quasi-official status. Of course I already function as something close to the rabbi at our shul anyway, but it would be nice to have something sort of official about that!