New principal at Kootenay School of Ministry

All Saints’ Anglican Church in Vernon, B.C, was the venue for the July 31 installation of the Rev. Dr. William Harrison as principal of Kootenay School of Ministry in Kelowna.

Dr. Harrison, ministry development officer for the diocese of Kootenay, previously served in the parish of Lumby, near Vernon. Before then he had been a professor of theology and Anglican studies at the College of Emmanuel & St. Chad in Saskatoon. Before entering divinity school, he studied political science and worked on Parliament Hill as, in his words, “a partisan political hack” for a federal cabinet minister.

In Dr. Harrison’s view, the Kootenay school exists because God calls all people to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2). In his vision statement for the school, he wrote: “We believe that today’s complex world needs Christians who are able to speak intelligently about their faith and find in it a basis for wise action. Our courses are designed to provide a strong theoretical and practical basis for ministry in our time.”

The school offer courses to a broad range of students: laypeople, licensed lay ministers, aspirants to ordination as deacons or locally trained priests, and experienced clergy. “Our goal is to provide an accessible learning environment, suitable to anyone who has completed high school, while ensuring that the content is at seminary level,” he wrote.

In the sermon he preached at his installation, Dr. Harrison said that all Christians are called to embrace a task. “Our task is to participate in God’s creative work throughout the cosmos…. In baptism, we have committed to serve the reign of God, wherever we may find it. We have taken upon ourselves the shared task of looking for and becoming those moments of God’s transformative love at work.”