This year’s Ministers Week has been deemed a successful annual exercise in challenging congregational perspectives, said Lisa Barnett, a Brite Divinity School student.

According to the Brite Divinity School website, TCU and Brite cosponsored Ministers Week  that ran from Feb. 6-9.

The purpose of Ministers Week  is to offer guidance to clergy by some of the most highly respected scholars in religious education, Eilene Theilig, director of lay and continuing education at Brite, said.

“It is a way of recapturing the core of one’s call to the ministry,” Theilig said.

Brite and TCU have cosponsored 79 consecutive annual conventions  of Ministers Week  since its revival in 1933, Theilig said.

Worships, workshops and lectures made up the majority of the sessions during the week, Theilig said. One lecture gave reinterpretations of the Old Testament and is an example that these lectures set out to introduce new perspectives rather than reinforce the beliefs of those attending, she said.

The workshops offered education and discussion on subjects like the role of technology’s integration with society, Theilig said.

Brite  students get the week off during the convention and although student participation was not mandatory, several students took advantage of the opportunity to listen to the many different scholars from around the country, Barnett said.

Theilig  said that 500 people  attended the opening worship and she was very pleased by the response.

Barnett  said Ministers Week also reinforces the bonds between TCU and Brite  as it helps us remember the history the two institutions share.

“At the TCU luncheon we always end (minister’s week) by singing the TCU Alma Mater,” Barnett said. “There is that connection and continuity that purple runs through,” she said.