In just a few moments I will begin my 8th semester of classes at the seminary. I can't believe that Becca and I have lived in Phoenix for almost 2 1/2 years now. It's so strange - this is home but so much of my mind still lives in Ohio, particularly on the 4th block of N. Main Street in Bowling Green. Perhaps going home and seeing family & friends for Christmas has made me more nostalgic; perhaps the fact that I have been listening to Michael's excellent Family Album alot lately isn't helping, but I sure miss the fellowship and conversations we used to share. Even though I'm about as awful as ever at maintaining meaningful communication over the 2,000 miles or so between(and in fact worse now that I don't have a cell phone to use during the evening commute) , you are all still in my thoughts.
This semester I am continuing my Hebrew classes, taking a Public Communication class and doing my second internship. My internship this semester will look a lot like what I did last semester: occasionally teaching or leading worship on Sunday mornings with our church, teaching a class on the epistles Wednesday nights with the Phoenix Bible Institute, and hopefully getting to teach another portion of a class at the seminary. I am also going to get to help the elders and other pastors with visitations which will be very cool.
On New Year's Eve I got to give a message at church that was built on one I'd taught at 519 a few years back. I think it went fairly well: if you're interested you can download it from www.newdaybible.org. Let me know what you think - it was really cool getting feedback from Brian on my message on prayer last October.
6 comments:
Shouldn't that be semester VIII?
Yes it should. But I think VII looks less cool than IIX, and since IIX looks cooler than IIIIIIII I decided to just go with IIX.
I'm dying to know how you rank VIII vs. IIIIIIII ---> it was the one comparison you left out!
I listened through the prayer message. I don't know if the servers are slow, or what, but I can only listen, and when I try to right-click and download, it times out every time.
Anyway, I miss your speaking. You're very good at it, and even in simply an audio representation, it's effective.
I've been reading Frederich Buechner sermons lately, in a book I got a few months ago.
Oh, and on the topic of prayer, have you listened to Sufjan Stevens' song Casimir Pulaski Day? It's heartbreaking and beautiful in its display of human suffering and drama combined with an enduring affirmation of God's sovereignty.
And my last comment (spam) of your blog post:
I wholeheartedly agree with the end of your prayer sermon where you ask people to share answered prayers with other people.
In things I have struggled with I have found tangible/concrete/honest testimony from others can be unbelievably powerful. I think this is why people like Mike Yaconelli believed in the church being as diverse as possible, getting old and young together, letting people learn from each other.
Water-ed down, fake, and forced "testimony" can be almost equally disheartening or off-turning as good testimony is uplifting, I have noticed as well.
Maybe it's just my personality, but if someone gets lost in metaphoric language or "Christianese" --- and fails to ground testimony in tangible things too, it's really hard for me to gain much from it. I'm not saying there is a divide between physical/spiritual life, because all life is spiritual and all things not spiritual are dead. Neither would I say that the changes we encounter in trying to follow Jesus can all be explained, or perhaps that even any can be explained completely.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling, you can tell I have become somewhat obsessed with the idea of change, and I was blessed by a song played at a church I went to once in michigan that had as its final line "And those that follow will not stay the same." I think it is a message that will never stop being important to me.
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