New Year, New Class

Well, 2010 is here and along with it I am just starting my 3rd class at Rockbridge Seminary. So far, I am really impressed with the classes and the level of interaction between the students. I have taken online courses through a few other colleges and for those most part have been disappointed at each one because of the poor interaction between students/students and students/professor. Rockbridge has been a breath of fresh air in this area – I have learned just as much,  if not more, from the interactions as from the actual reading and assignments. One of the reasons for this, I believe, is that all of the students have to be involved in ministry already. Because of this, we are all able to pull from each other’s experiences and learn from them.

The class I am taking now is call “The Theology & Practice of Ministry.”  The course competency is listed as:

Provides spiritual guidance in helping others analyze how God has shaped them for ministry through spiritual gifts, heart for ministry, abilities, personality, and experiences.

Now, if that’s not something to be excited about learning, I don’t know what is. Here’s to another great start of what looks to be a wonderful class!

Community

I am now in my second class at Rockbridge Seminary and am loving the experience. The class I am taking now is called The Theology and Practice of Fellowship. Its focus is on the reason for and the how-to of biblical community. In reading a book, called The Connecting Church: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community, I found a story that sounds so truly American that it hurts. It talks about a family that desires true relationship so bad, yet for all that they are involved with are unable to find it.

Then, I had a strange desire to watch Rent the other night with Ginger. While I have seen the Off-Broadway show and seen the movie already, something really struck me watching it this last time, curled up on the couch. What I was seeing in the lives of these friends was real community. One shared money they had.  Another shared what food (okay, and drink) they had. Sounding familiar yet? Not only did they share what they had, but they were there for each other in the good and the bad. In other words, it wasn’t a relationship of convenience.
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Mentors

This week in my Developing the Focused Life class at Rockbridge Seminary, I really had to do a lot of introspection. The week’s instruction dealt a lot with the need for mentors in our journey. To be quite honest, this is an area that I have been lacking. I have never actively sought out a mentor, or at least someone that I specifically keyed in on specifically for a mentor role. Yet the bible gives tons of examples of the mentor/mentoree relationship when God is calling someone to something.

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Newer Beginnings

Wow, has it really been that long since I have posted? So many things have happened since then, so let me bring everybody up to speed!

While taking my online courses through Denver Seminary, I became discouraged with how things were going. The classes were fine and the material was fantastic, but the interaction between the professor and the students and even the students/students just wasn’t really there. I got the idea that they were trying to take a physical classroom approach and force that into an online environment, which really doesn’t work well at all. It seemed kind of like trying to put a square peg into a round hole – doesn’t really work all that well, right? On top of that, realizing that the entire program was going to cost well over $45,000, I just felt convicted that I could be doing something much more substantial with the money that God was entrusting me with; especially given the fact that there are so many people in my area that need basics like food and clothes.

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Integrity

Well, the first week of classes is just about over. Yep, I’m still chugging along. One of the interesting things about this week was the realization that in one of my classes I only have an assignment to turn in on 5 of the 10 weeks. For the other 5 weeks, all I have to do is the weekly readings. Now here is where the integrity parts comes in. You see, at the end of the 10 weeks of class each one of us is responsible for submitting a reading report. This report basically says how much reading you actually did – 50%, 70%, 100%, etc. You write that in yourself each week, keeping track of how much you’ve actually read. In the end, the reading accounts for 20% of your whole grade.

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First Bite Complete

Question: How do you eat an elephant?
Answer: One bite at a time.

I’ve always loved that quote, though I’m not really sure where it comes from. What it means for me today is that I have completed my very first seminary assignment. That’s one down with about a million more to go. Okay, so I might be exaggerating a little bit on that one, but who knows. Either way, I’ve just finished my first bite. Now it’s on to the next bite.

Herme – What?

Hermeneutics. That’s the new word in my life. While I have heard this word before and thought I understood it’s meaning, the very first reading in my BI 501 course really blew me away. Why should it, though – it’s just a word, right? Not if you really think about it. You see, so many times we read the bible and take what is there at face value without any consideration of the time in which it was written, to whom it was written, by whom it was written, under what circumstances, etc. etc.

Is that the proper way to read the bible? I read a great article on this just yesterday on the Parchment and Pen blog (I am an avid reader of this blog). This article along with what I read for class yesterday has really challenged me. One of the quotes in the class I heard yesterday really puts this into perspective:

“Wonderful things in the Scripture I see. Most of them put there by you and by me.”

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New Beginnings

I start my first seminary classes this Monday. Did I just say that? Am I really in seminary? If you would have told me 5 years ago that I would be going to seminary, I probably would have laughed; yet that is exactly what I am now embarking upon. When God gets a hold of your life and leads you to where He is calling you, it might surprise you where you end up.

So I started this blog to communicate this spiritual and educational journey. So how did this all start? Well, I knew that I was being called by God to go to seminary. It was either I listened to that and act on it now, or choose to not do what God tells me and just keep on keepin’ on. But, didn’t Jonah do that? In the end, he ended up right where God told him to go, right? So, I am now registered with Denver Seminary and signed up for my first 2 classes.

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