Education for Ministry
Want to go deeper in your understanding of Scripture and theology and how to apply them to your life and ministry? Education for Ministry (EfM) is a unique four-year distance learning certificate program in theological education based upon small-group study and practice. Held annually at St. Martin’s from September through mid-June, the weekly course helps the faithful encounter the breadth and depth of the Christian tradition and bring it into conversation with their experiences of the world as they study, worship, and engage in theological reflection together.
The course, developed by the University of the South in Sewanee, covers a four-year curriculum. Learners enroll for one academic cycle at a time, with new participants beginning with the first lesson of year one. While learners study their individual year’s topics and readings on their own, students from all the levels meet together in a weekly seminar to discuss their individual learning and engage in theological reflection.
The Rev. Anne Thatcher
Former Associate Rector
Anne is a native Westerner, having spent her childhood years in Oregon and Colorado. She follows in the footsteps of her great-grandfather from Wales who was an Anglican priest and her uncle who was an Episcopal priest. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Whitman College, a M.Ed. from Western Washington University, a graduate certificate in Leadership and Camp Ministry from Wheaton College (IL), a diploma in Anglican Studies from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and an M.Div. from the Yale Divinity School.
An experienced ropes course facilitator and wilderness trip leader and trained to work with traumatized communities, Anne believes in the power of conflict resolution and peace making through mediation. She has recently spent time with a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation to Israel/Palestine and attended a human rights training with Cristosal in El Salvador.
Anne currently serves as the secretary of the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Clergy Compensation and Benefits Commission, the Chair of the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Central American Refugee Commission and Chaplain to both the Welsh Society of Philadelphia and the St. George’s Society.