Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore?

Short post today. We are back to that Tuesday again. LONG day ahead with a Greek quiz at 5:45. I believe I know the material, we will see. We have another required orientation seminar at 1:00pm today, the topic is Alcohol Awareness and the Church. I have never really experienced anyone with that problem in the Church but it makes sense that it could become a problem.


Jason and I did Chapel yesterday and we didn’t do such a hot job. As many times as we have both been up front at church we were both nervous. Our Worship Practicum professor was watching to let us know what could be improved, and we were in front of our colleagues that we see every day. This really surprised both of us. We have a chance to redeem ourselves in December.

Please pray for Deb. She is working the second day of her two day test run at a job as they get to know her and she gets to know them and the job. I guess tomorrow or later this week they will decide if they want to offer her the job. This one has a lot of positives; it just doesn’t have healthcare benefits. She has another job that seems pretty promising also; this one has the healthcare benefits. Thank God healthcare is still going strong and that is her field. One of the reasons healthcare benefits are such a deal with us is that the healthcare offered here at school is less than adequate for older students. I am sure it is great for the twenty something’s, but all of the plans offered, of which there are three, have either no prescription benefit or it is capped at $3000 per year. Those of you that are older know that $3000 per year for prescriptions coverage is pretty poor. You need to be pretty healthy for that to be enough coverage.  I need to find out who is responsible for putting these plans together for us and talk to them about offering a plan with better coverage. I know it will be more expensive, but the alternative will break us. As it is, we have COBRA for this year, but that is over $1000 per month for the family.  I know that this healthcare issue is very explosive, but the way insurance companies can pick and choose to cover you and at what cost is something that has got to be fixed in this country. If you have anything wrong you have to get coverage through a group plan at work. If you have anything wrong and you want to buy a personal plan outside of a group plan forget it. They don’t cover people with anything wrong. Remember the old saying the only banks will lend you money is if you can prove you don’t need it? Same deal.

At this point the big deal here is homework and reading. We have many things due these next two weeks culminating in a test in History of Christianity. Keeping it all straight and what is due when is a little challenging and since I have not been in school for so long it took me a while to develop a system to keep track of it. It’s a little different than business. As deadlines approach in business you are usually talking about them as most times they require more than just your work. Here, the assignments fly parallel and outside of the class work, so you don’t necessarily know that an assignment is coming up. If you keep your ear to the ground, and I do, you can usually catch someone saying something about the assignment and that triggers in your mind that dreadful reaction, “Oh no!”. Since we are in the incoming class I think teachers realize that some of us are just getting back into school and have been pretty good about mentioning the outside of the class assignments.

I hope to have some energy left at the end of the day. If so, I’ll hit the treadmill! Maybe this ended up not being so short after all.

As Randy Pausch says in his "Last Lecture", and I paraphrase; In life you can choose to be a Tigger or an Eeyore.  Choose to be a Tigger!
The most wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things.  There tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs.  Their bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy fun fun fun fun fun.  But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one. OH I'M THE ONLY ONE!  Not so fast, Tigger.  I am one too!

Homework

Sorry to have missed a couple of days. OK, this homework is kicking my tail. I think I am going to have to get less “perfect” on my papers. I do three and four revisions to get to the one that I want to submit. I might be over thinking them a little. They are however, putting a big push on writing skills. They don’t feel that the seminary is producing people with the writing skills on par with a graduate level theological school. I have always been complimented on my writing but it was not an academic type of writing, so I am really scrutinizing my papers. Probably too much, but all the Professors are talking about this so I am sure it is high on everyone’s priority list.


I have only had one class since Wednesday and yet things seem to fall into the void and fill the day up so that the checklist of homework and reading doesn’t get accomplished. The way our class schedule is set we pretty much need to have our homework for the week done by Monday morning. That is not a bad thing since I would prefer to have it done anyway. We just don’t really have time on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday morning to do any homework. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are definitely the homework days. We have a class syllabus for each class so we know what is due and when so it all comes together. I had to skip a social outing with my field education church this afternoon to keep on the homework. We have a Clinical Pastoral Education application that we need to fill out. The answer to the second question was 10 pages long. Overall I ended up with 15 pages. It is due on the 8th of October so I am getting it together ahead of schedule which is just where I want to be on all of my work. This is the application for the 400 hours of clinical work. I am hopeful to get Tampa General Hospital. It is the closest to the house that I know of, plus I think it will be a great place for this. I anticipate this 400 hours to be a very emotion filled 10 weeks. However, I will come out the better for it. Better able to minister to people.

I understand we were doing much better on football picks today than last week. I have pretty much given up watching the games at this point. Timing is good, I don’t have a team of all the teams that I root for that is going to even be .500 this year. What good timing!

Jason and I are responsible for Chapel in the morning. First time wearing the collar. I am sure it will go fine. I pray that all is going well in your lives. Thanks for looking in on me and thanks for telling Debbie over the weekend at the Church garage sale that you keep up with me. It is great to know or all of the people riding along on the journey.

Something to think about; If we know WHO we are, do we know WHOSE we are? That is a big topic around here. Who we are and whose we are. It is important to know both.

Blessings, Steve

No classes today and yet I still did not get done what I needed to. It would be easy to assume that I just wasted the day away, but the reality is that I was busy from 8:30 this morning until 8:30 tonight. Seems like every time we have a day with an opening, a vacuum is created and it sucks a day full of things into it. We have several papers and a quiz over the next week, so got to get on it. My goal is to take Sunday off, doesn’t look good at this point, but I don’t know what He will help me accomplish between now and then.


Had a good lunch with the Pastor at my field education church, Pastor Eric. He and I are going to get along very well. We have the same type of demeanor and approach to things. A very good match by the Holy Spirit! My shirts and Alb should be here next week. I actually have a little thing about wearing the collar before I graduate, but I am told that once you are here the church looks at you as a Pastor in training and as such you will look the part as you are acting the part in congregation and community. Yes Sue, they are even calling us that up here. You had it right!

Tomorrow I only have a workshop in Pastoral Care. Mental note, I have to hand in a paper in that class. Yes, that means I still need to do it. Just pick three favorite topics to work on a video that we have to do. No big deal, but it needs to be done and handed in. 90 degrees here today with higher humidity reminded me of Florida. Supposed to be cooler on Saturday. All for tonight.

May the Lord bless you and keep you; calm you and provide for you the strength to accomplish all of the things you need to do. May he keep you safe and give you opportunity to deepen your faith in Him. Steve

Spirituality

Even though it is tough to have our seminars on Tuesday since that day is filled with classes we had a good one today. It was on Spirituality. It gets to our spirituality being like a reservoir rather than a canal. Water that flows into a canal flows right out. Water only flows out of a reservoir if the reservoir is full. Our job/duty is to keep our reservoir filled with water so we have water to give to others.


When I came here I realized that many of the things that fill my reservoir are gone. My spiritual mentor, a spiritual advisor that I regard highly, several good friends that have the same type of spiritual thinking that I do, my time driving (I am one of those people that often drive with the radio off so that I can listen to God), my family, and my worship with a congregation that I consider more family than fellow parishioners. All of these are gone from my life right now. These things are how I kept my reservoir full.

What I also didn’t realize is that there are things here that have taken some over as reservoir filling. Since I have not built any deep relationships yet, the one filling me the most right now is daily chapel. I am building relationships with people that are like minded; I am in an incredibly nurturing environment, and I still have my contemporary Christian music that I listen to (they have a good station here, WMHK 89.7 you should try it……no just kidding). None of these things came to me consciously as a place for me to get my spirituality refilled. I guess you go into the wilderness (remember change), and you find things that fill you spiritually. As we learned in Pastoral Care, God ALWAYS finds us in the wilderness!  Every time I go someplace else I will have to go through the same thing. After this I will at least realize that I have lost my spiritual fulfillment and I need to find new places to get filled up.

Right now my reservoir is maybe 2/3-3/4 full. I am being careful to not over commit myself to things because I know that the classes will get more and more overwhelming as we get closer to the end. They are starting to become more overwhelming mostly due to not knowing what to expect from each professor for tests or for expectations of papers. We also have two classes that are fact intensive. History of Christianity and Intro to Bible. You could fill archives with the facts in these classes, (I know, they do fill archives with these facts :) ). Which ones will we need to know, because there is no way to know all of them. There are also many other things that get scheduled to fill our days even if we are light on classes. I find solace in knowing that God did not bring me here to fail. 

I will continue to keep to the things that I have found to fill my reservoir and look for others. As relationships develop I never know which one will become spiritually fulfilling. I hope you have places to get your spiritual reservoir filled. If not, please pray about that and ask God to help you see where you can get your spiritual fulfillment. It is a long and lonely day without it. Don’t walk alone when you don’t have to, I don't.

The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV

Field Church

I went to my field education church today, Mt. Hermon.  Yes, I spelled it correctly, Google it and learn.  They have a contemporary service at 8:15 and a traditional service at 10:30.  I plan to be there for both each Sunday as I have in the past and will be from now on anyway.  I sat in on one of the adult Sunday School classes and had a good class.  They have a large Sunday School curiculum, larger than any of the churches I have been with.  I am meeting with Pastor to go over specific duties on Thursday.  Afterward church, I was taken to lunch.  That was a good time to get to know some of my fellow congregation and on a seminarians budget was a blessing.  Thank you Trudy and Perry, what nice people as are everyone that I have met.  This is a good church, I am blessed to be doing my field education here.  BTW, I have to get my clergy shirts this week as Pastor wants me to wear them at church and on visitations so Jason and I are going over to Cokesbury tomorrow at lunch to get those and order an Alb. 

Got a good hard workout in this afternoon as I try to get back into shape enough to look at a tennis court without having a coronary.  Watched some football, did horrible on picks today, did some homework and will hopefully hit the sack early tonight as it was an early morning.  Pray for Deb please as she has a two day working trial run starting tomorrow for a job that she is excited about.  We can only hope and pray. 

All for tonight.  Have a blessed week. 
The Spirit of the Lord rest on you, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord; and the blessing of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.  Amen.

Change

One of the books we have to read for Pastoral Care is When You Are Facing Change by Daniel Lester. It is one of the books on how to adapt to change. Both the change we are going through and the change that so many of those we will minister to will go through. Remember the Wilderness I talked about being change, trouble, anything that we go through that upsets our status quo. This can be a change for the good; it doesn’t have to be bad to cause us stress. I loved this part of what I read today:


“Risk is involved whenever we hear God’s call. We are asked to give up something, to experience an ending, and we may be called to move into an unknown future. Even Abraham, with a clear call from God, did not know the details or what was going to happen or where he was going. Our response to God’s call requires taking one step at a time. (Those in my home congregation of Faith might remember my last sermon about taking the changes we are led to one step at a time.) Through our risking one step, God gives light for the next. When responding to God’s call, we find ourselves supplied with the gifts and abilities with which to accomplish the work.

The point is that when we respond to God’s call. It always involves an ending. Before moving on, we first have to say goodbye to the place where we have been. If we refuse to listen and respond to God’s call, we shrink back from challenge and growth. We draw the circle of our life smaller, and we live on the human level without consideration for the vertical dimension of faith.

I am convinced that as we grow older it becomes increasingly important to be attentive to God’s call. It is easy to settle for what we have, to give up our dreams and hopes, to blot out our sense of vision for life and what it can be. At that point, we begin to die emotionally and spiritually.”

I believe we are learning so much about this so that when God calls us to do something a certain way or go to a certain place we don’t get hung up on our comfort level and prediposed tendencies. When God calls us we have to be comfortable with the change that His will might/will require. If we are inflexible we are not able to follow His will for us as easily. The more flexible we are the more open we are to hearing His word and following His will.

BTW, we had some great fellowship this afternoon with the 5 of us that stay over the weekend. We watched the Gator football game and had some pizza and chili and don’t tell anyone (beer). Only 1! It is not cheap, so it is consumed sparingly. :) Have a great and blessed rest of the weekend.  I leave you with:

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly. Richard Bach from Timeless Wisdom

Ok, I said I would talk about Facebook. I talked to a lot of people before I started the blog. Since I had not done either, I needed input. Here is a summation of what I believe they told me. On Facebook there would be a lot of interaction, OR people would be expecting a lot of interaction and people would be posting messages much more frequently and maybe more colorfully and on random subjects. I think they told me that a blog was more for posting what was going on without much of the interaction or expected interaction and there was much less chance someone was going to post a colorful comment. That is why I decided to go with a blog vs. Facebook, I just don’t have time to be on reacting to comments as much as I see Deb, Sam, or Danielle. I also have people of all ages that I hope will be following me. At some point maybe all of this will change but right now I have only one job; pass this semester and be open to my spiritual growth in this loving community environment. My reality right now is that passing this semester means lots of homework and doing all extra workshops and study groups that I can because I don’t really know what it takes to succeed at graduate school since I have never done it. In fact, I have not succeeded at school of any kind for almost 30 years.  So, for those Facebook fans I am excited for you. For me, I hope you keep reading my blog as this is my best opportunity to let you know what is going on in my life at seminary.


We had a spiritual development presentation today about the way Martin Luther suggested to his barber, that he had known for 18 years, how to pray. His barber had asked him if he could tell him how to pray so Martin Luther being Martin Luther he wrote a long paper of about 34 pages on the way that he prays. It was interesting to listen to the thoughts that went through his mind. He was probably one of the most impactful people of the last 1000 years. He changed history while he was still alive. Not many are able to do this. Most of his prayer time focused on his Small Catechism. The best line was that he considered a sermon from the spirit worth 1000 of his prayers. He said in a sermon from the spirit he could learn more than reading and contemplating for many days. Of course a sermon from the spirit is God speaking to us when we are able to be quiet in our prayer time. I need to work on this part of my prayer life. I think I do well in my prayers, but it is mostly about me speaking to God about what I think is important. There goes that I word again. Sometimes I am sure God just looks at me and says “shut up, I have something to tell you”. I make Him work overtime on me when He could be helping someone else. This is one thing that my good friend SueAnn does better than anyone I have ever met. I aspire to listen to God as she does. Of course it is not surprising that He speaks to her as she is so open to what He has to say. I would like to think I am open to what He has to say, I just need to shut up so He can say it. Maybe it is time to take my own advice and shut this down for tonight.

I have not seen any favorite Bible verses yet.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:26 NIV

I ended today with much more energy. What a better feeling! Two classes and work, not too bad. Throw in homework and it starts to get interesting. :) Sam asked about my getting a Facebook page. I will talk about that tomorrow. This one got a little long on me. (Comment added last.)


Not a lot new happening today. Trying to keep up with homework. I know that falling behind will present real challenges so I am working hard to keep caught up. Classes today were History of Christianity, which is a real interesting class. The story of how we got to where we are today is captivating. You know that God had His hand in it because it could have gone so wrong at so many places. In fact, in about the first 300 years it is amazing it survived at all. When you have emperors looking to kill you as an enemy of the state and anything that is bad anywhere gets blamed on you, life could be pretty challenging. There we certainly a lot of disincentives to Christianity in the early times. Of course all of that was completely overcome by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The other class is Pastoral Care. One might ask are we caring for others or ourselves? Good question, both will need care in our ministry. The big point right now in class is that when we find ourselves in the Wilderness (code word for change, anxiety, hurt, pain, life changes, anything that takes us out of our comfort zone) God always finds us. It may not be quickly and it will probably require discernment, but He always finds us and He leads us to His will. We may not choose to go, but that is on us. It’s that whole free will thing we seem to have so much trouble with. He will continue to lead us to His will and love us just as much the tenth/hundredth/thousandth/millionth time we go back as the first time. It is very good stuff! We have to bring our favorite bible verse to class with us on Friday and be ready to talk about how it impacted our call to seminary and how it impacts our life. I am not going to tell you mine now. I want to hear from some of you what your favorite verse is. I will post mine with my Friday post.

Our History Professor asked us if we are talking about the Churchwide Synod Assembly votes on campus (http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Secretary/ELCA-Governance/Churchwide-Assembly/Actions.aspx ). Please click on this link to see more information on these votes; click on links: “Social Statement..” at the top and Recommendation on Ministry Policies a little below the Social Statement to read what these votes were about. Back to the program….The answer is we are not at this point. Of course there is a lot to still be worked out in November when they try to develop the details about how they are going to implement the changes. It has kind of been the big white elephant sitting in the room so far. Nobody really wants to talk about it in fear of hurting feelings and building walls. Of course, we need to be able to talk about it without building walls and still be family when the discussion is over. In talking with Pastor here we apparently have the ability through class meetings to request a campus wide talk if something is of interest to us. We have a class meeting on the 24th. I think it would be a great time to request that we have a campus wide discussion about this. Of course, the higher classes have already had a campus wide discussion about this as they requested the same thing. I have looked forward to coming to a place of higher learning TO discuss this. I look forward to some very persuasive discussions in a very civil manner. Of course the decision has already been made. That might change the manner of the discussions. The HUGE thing that has not been determined is how everyone will react to this vote. These actions will come as individual, congregational, and maybe even synodical in nature. I know that emotions are very high right now but I hope everyone gives this some discernment before decisions are made and very drastic actions with long term ramifications are taken. I pray for active hearts and minds and slow actions.  I leave you with this:
Beg for knowledge; plead for insight. Look for it as hard as you would for silver or some hidden treasure. If you do, you will know what it means to fear the Lord and you will succeed in learning about God. It is the Lord who gives wisdom; from Him come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2:3-6 GNB (Good News Bible)

I know that at least someone is wondering about my picture.  This picture was taken at the ruins in Ephesus, Turkey during our recent Mediterranean cruise. 

As of 40 minutes ago we have had all classes at least once. We have not visited our field church yet, but we have seen all of the classes. I just got back from an hour of the fire alarm going off from a malfunction (so they say, if you here of a dorm fire in Columbia tomorrow you will know that you heard it here first). It was good to get Greek class behind us. Dean Barfield is teaching this class and has such a great teaching demeanor about her. I think we are going to make it. Well ok, I forgot to tell you about the two study sessions available each week. With those we will make it. We had a workshop today at 1:00 so we ended up in class except for one and a half hours from 10:40 am until 8:30 pm. That is a lot of brain drain. My brain is worn out. I was going to try and study, but just don’t have it in me. Tomorrow morning will have to do. I have my field church assignment (I went to the mail area while we were outside for the first fire alarm). I am assigned to Mt. Hermon Lutheran Church. Their website is http://www.mthlc.org/ if you want to see where I will be each Sunday morning. Hopefully I will get to talk to the Pastor tomorrow or Thursday. I am looking forward to it. According to their website they have a contemporary service at 8:15 and a traditional at 10:30.


It has been a long day. I am going to call it a night. It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Matthew 4:10 KJV

OK, some of these have been pretty long so I will give you a break today.  I leave you to ponder these two things.
1.  The possible is possible only at a price of what presently exists.
2.  Christ calls us to take the risk of letting go so God can work His will in us.

Have a great day, see you tomorrow.  God bless you,
Steve

One of the books we have to read for Pastoral Care is Pastor as Person by Gary Harbough. The short story is that this is a book about the stress that Pastors will encounter in their ministry and how to deal with some of it. It summarizes stress as “a pastor’s reaction to frustration, conflict, or pressure, at the heart of which lies the threat of life change and actual or anticipated loss”. It has some great insights into what it takes for us to be healthy emotionally. One of the concepts is that we are not healthy emotionally unless we are in a right relationship with ourselves, our community, and our God. I love the concept “Christians agree that the life-cycle task of integrity is fulfilled in true self-acceptance and we understand our self-acceptance in trust and hope of our already having been accepted by God”. That is some pretty powerful stuff. I don’t know how many people ever reach this point of true self-acceptance. I hope to some day. We should. It should be easy as we rely upon our acceptance by God to know that if God can accept us how can we not accept ourselves? I know we talk a lot about our acceptance and forgiveness that we receive by God through Jesus Christ. I just wonder how many of us believe it at our core and this is one of those things that if you don’t believe it at your core, you don’t really believe it. Enough for the book review.


We tried a new church this morning and were very welcomed by the congregation. Of course around here everyone knows the program of seminary students being assigned to the congregations better than we do. In fact, one of the Masters of Religion students was there. We were also treated to some of the most awesome piano playing that I have ever heard in person. The girl that played is only 15. She competes internationally. She was in a competition this summer in Spain and took third. She gave a concert yesterday and since the piano was set up she came back and played at service today. She played two pieces, “Sonata, Op 31 No. 2” III, Allegretto by Beethoven and “Sonata, Op 31 No. 2” II, Adagio by Beethoven. I added the titles for those of you that might know the pieces. They are not easy pieces and her fingers must have been flying. I would imagine she can write her own ticket to college.

We stopped on the way back for coffee and sat around outside down in the Five Points area. These are the times that coming to seminary will give us that we could not get any other way. We talked for about 45 minutes about life and God and seminary. I am sure the couple sitting next to us wasn’t so impressed but hey, maybe they needed to hear what we had to say, hear the good news. Great times! I look forward to many more of these times over the next four years.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. Genesis 32:26 KJV
Steve

What a week! I know it has started out light. We are yet to have two of our classes. Greek and Intro to Bible. I know that the Greek class is going to be very challenging for the almost 30 years out of school mind, but I am looking forward to it. To be able to translate original text of the New Testament is exciting to me. And of course the Bible is something that I need to learn more deeply anyway.


Between working out, class, working, and laundry yesterday just got away from me. Filled right up. I got a lot of studying done today as work was really slow and it is pretty dead in the dorms since half of our hall of 6 goes home on the weekends. Peter came in my room about 5:30 and enlightened me about the necessity of community as well as study. So Jason, Peter and I went out for pizza. The Lord led us to a good pizza place. I know you say, you are giving too much credit to this Lord thing, but I tell you we took a wrong turn from the GPS directions and as we were turning around right in front of us was this pizza place. We went with it and it turned out good! Of course I had asked the Lord to lead us to a good pizza place about 5 minutes prior to that. I guess that all falls under the faith thing. We came back and watched the South Carolina vs. Georgia football game for a while. You know, community! Wait a minute, I think Peter headed off to his room to do some reading in the midst of all that. We are all conscious of the amount of reading we have and try to be reading something that we need to whenever we have a spare 15 minutes.

Tomorrow we try a different church. The last Sunday we will have a choice about where we worship here in Columbia. We will get our Field Education church assignments next week. The church we are going to tomorrow has an 8:30 and an 11:15. The 11:15 is just a lot later than we are used to so we are going to the 8:30. That leaves a couple of guys out as they prefer to sleep in a little. From working before even during the week is sleeping in. As I understand it, Junior year seminarians focus on worship and visitation with their congregation. We will see what the Lord has in store for us.

It was good to get the first week, even though a partial behind us. So many unknowns that we as humans stress over are out of the way. We are underway and now the stress can be the homework, papers, and tests. We are humans and we have to stress about something. However, I must tell you that I am so convinced the Lord wants me here that some of the stress is removed. Those of you that know me know that I will take the work very seriously and give it my all. However, I really feel that God has my back on this and because of that this is doable. There are just so many things that fell into place for this to happen in the first place. Doors have closed on me for several things over the last 5 years and that was one of the things that convinced me that this was my path. In fact the instance where the doors were closing on something potentially life changing was the instance when I knew this was the path and because of that I was at peace that the other door closed. Very unlike me at the time. But the doors on this have miraculously opened at each step. If me, who didn’t even go to church 10 years ago can be led here with doors opening like they have imagine what else He can do in my life AND what He can do in your life!

Good night for now. May the peace that surpasses all understanding be with you as you bring our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the world.

Steve

The Power of the Holy Spirit Working in My Life

When I was in the diakonia program, one of my best friends, Sue (who was also in the diakonia program), and I used to talk during the drives back and forth to Sarasota about the high that we got being in class and going to church on the weekend. Then the slow drain we experienced as the week went on. Our thought was that if we could get rejuvenated during the middle of the week it would keep us from draining so low by the time the week was over. Well, the thought that rejuvenation during the week would help us get through the week was accurate, at least for me. I can’t remember anytime that I have come through the week with such great energy for the Lord. We go to chapel each day during the week. On Thursday it is in the evening and a little more formal with communion. Worship with that many enthusiastic people is still something I marvel at each time it happens. No the newness has not worn off, and I am glad for it. It is not only the chapel, but also the classes, the whole environment really. It all comes together to nurture us and move us closer to our Lord and Savior. I have no idea how many of you would even want to experience this if you could, but if you had any interest in it the feelings would just overwhelm you. As I went through the process to come here I never came close to envisioning what it actually feels like to be here. I knew that I sought to focus my life on the Lord and that I would feel better and more energized for Him, but it was nothing like this in my thoughts. I am going to try and discern why it is that I feel like this over the next months that we will be here this year. It might be just as easy as I have finally found where I am supposed to be, I don’t know. I will let you know what I come up with.


Class was good today, had a chance to fine tune my notes by listening to one of my Wednesday classes again (many of us record our classes so we can go back and get better notes from the class and hear it a second time). Work this afternoon and early evening followed by Chapel at 6:00. The new Dean, Dean Barfield was installed tonight. She is going to be a great Dean. We then had a meeting for Seminarian Partnership program that is offered. Back here about 8:30 and the TV was vacant. My thought was great I can watch the NFL game tonight that starts the season. Well after quickly reviewing everything I still need to do tonight, like still eat dinner, I decided I don’t really have time to watch that game after all. That is probably why the TV is not being watched in the first place.

As you can probably tell all is going well here, but then again that would be expected since we have not had any tests or been graded on anything yet! Thanks for following me. If even 1% of my energy for the Lord comes through this writing to you then it has to be a positive thing. I pray that your faith may deepen through your interaction with the rest of the world as we live the love of Christ to our neighbors. God bless you, Steve.

If you are reading with me, please go ahead and follow me.  Just click on Follow over to the right.  It's pretty easy.  The more followers I get the better.  The one with the most wins!  :)

This won't be too long since it is already almost 10:30 at night.  Classes today were great.  We actually pray as class starts.  We talk about Jesus, God, Love and nobody is there to arrest you or threaten a lawsuit or talk bad about on the radio.  They don't let the ACLU in our classes either.  I love this place!

We had Church History this morining and Pastoral Care this afternoon.  I like both of the teachers and I believe I am going to enjoy both of the classes.  We already have a bunch of reading to do.  We learned two new acronyms today; WIGIAT (Where is God in All This) and WTF get your mind out of the gutter!  This is a family blog!  (Wheres the Faith)  We seem to love acronyms. 

I worked my first shift in the computer lab.  Not much going on yet in that area, but I am getting familiarized with the computers, the printers, the scanner, and the supplies.  So far I have been able to answer the questions I have been asked, so far. 

I finallly got into the gym and got on the treadmill.  The area is just a couple of rooms together with some equipment in it, but it works for me.  Crank up the radio on contemporary christian music and get a good workout.  Safe too!

I had the meeting with the Professor that assigns us to our field education church this morning.  It looks like I will not be able to apply for the Synodical Deacon position here for a couple of reasons.  First, it will confuse the congregation as they will see me as a pastor even though I am not yet ordained and second because as far as I can tell they don't have Synodical Deacons in this synod.  So much for that track of thought. 

Only one class tomorrow.  I would imagine that I will do my shut in visits on Thursday or Friday.  We are required to do 2 of them per week in our new congregation as I understand things.

Weather is great.  About 85 and about half the humidity of Florida.  It feels great.

All for now, getting late.  Talk to you tomorrow, God bless and keep you safe.
Steve

Orientation Finally Here

Yes, it finally got here, Orientation. It was a great day of getting to know the staff and faculty. We had worship at 10:00 as we do each weekday morning except Thursday because we have Eucharist at Chapel at 6:00pm on Thursday evenings. We probably had 150 people in chapel, which by the way is beautiful with a grand looking pipe organ. Roger, pictures will be coming your way. The feeling in there when we sang and responded was incredible. It is the kind of thing that gives you goose bumps. To worship with 150 people who are so enthusiastic and projecting their voices, was amazing. The only other time I had an experience like this was worshipping at the Synod Meetings in Orlando and I think we had about 600 people there. This will be a great thing to go to everyday.


I finally met the IT Manager so I guess I am officially on the “geeky squad”. I guess I can’t use geek squad since Best Buy has that tied up. With some of the questions that were being asked about getting on their computers I think we will have plenty of work for the first week at least. But we are here to serve. The IT Manager is even helping Peter with his laptop since he is having some virus issues.

As a Junior we are also assigned to a mentor group. We met today and I think this is going to be a great thing. They used to have one on one mentor assignments, but they feel we will all get to know more people, more quickly by doing the group idea. You know the mega churches are very big on the small group concept and as I was visiting their churches I felt the small groups were one of the reasons they are as successful as they are. You are part of the bigger church, but you get your smaller more intimate feeling from the small groups. We went through getting to know each other and our faith stories. We will probably have to tell our faith stories thousands of times according to them. I will put mine up here one of these days.

With all that was thrown at us today it is real easy to over commit to things. I am very aware of that and am at the limit of my commitments at this point without backing something else out.

We already have received our first reading assignment and we have not even been in the class. We only have that class on Mon and Tues so we end up not starting it until next week. My academic advisor has asked the group of new students that we have to get together for lunch next Monday to get to know each other. Sounds like a good idea. She seems like a neat person with lots of energy. We will see what kind of academic advice she has. Our Dean is new in her position this year. She seems great also. Such a great demeanor and she is my Greek teacher. I think Greek and other subjects where you have a high chance of not getting it the first time through are very impacted by the teacher you have and their approach. I can already tell she has a great approach and that I am better off having come to Fall full year Greek than to have tried to cram it all into Summer Greek.

I have an appointment with my Field Education advisor tomorrow morning to find out what congregation I will be joining to worship and do field education with this year. We meet for 15 minutes or so with a questionnaire filled out and he assigns us over the next week or two. As I said before, I think there are already two seminary students at the congregations, one from each year of school. I am sure the Holy Spirit will be working to get me to the place I am supposed to be.

Well, time to get ready for bed and get a good night of sleep before classes tomorrow. Take care, God bless.

Steve

Only 12 More Hours!

This is a picture looking out our dorm building door towards the quad, which is where we will start orientation tomorrow.

This became a chill day for most of us.  I did get 3 hours of ironing in so I should be good for the next couple of weeks.  I went out and stocked up on some groceries.  I got to watch 3 NCIS shows, which can't be bad.  I made jambalaya with sausage for dinner tonight and it made enough for two more nights. Easy dinner and good. I love those Zatarain products.

Looking forward to orientation tomorrow. Starts at 8:30 and ends at 5:00 with a cookout. We are all ready for things to begin. We had a few people show up today. One was a female that moved in on our floor. We all just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. This floor is for the guys, which is no big deal either way, but the bathroom situation would be something that needed to be worked out. As it turned out somebody came by this evening checking on her and she ended up moving down to the floor below, which is where we were told the girls would be. Last year the girls had one-half of this floor and guys the other half. I guess we have a good junior class coming in this year, which would be great news for our church. Remember Junior, Middler, Intern, Senior.


I finally got to walk tonight.  The legs must have recovered from move in.  It was so nice out. Probably 80 with a light breeze and not too bad humidity. Since I don’t know where I am going, I guess it is good that I found my way back. We are not in the best part of town, but from what I hear everyone pretty much leaves us alone. We do have security on campus, if I were smart enough to stay on campus for my walk. I might have to rethink that one.

Time to webcam with the family and hit the showers and bed. Talk with you tomorrow. God bless,

Steve

The Calm Before the Storm

Hey everyone!  I have added a picture of the dorm building and a picture of the view out my window. 

I did not get up early enough to make the 8:15 service so it was the 11:00 service at the church by campus.  It is a small church, maybe 60 worshiping,  but neat architecture and old style.  It was a good service.  It reminded me of why we switched to the whole service in the bulletin or some churches go to the whole service on the screens.  We had the booklet, an insert, and the hymnal.  We switched from one to the other the whole service.  I am sure once you go there for a while it is second nature, but for visitors it is a little challenging to keep up.  I understand we will have our field education church assignments in a week or so.  If I understand correctly the church of our assignment has a senior, a middler(2nd year), and a junior(first year).  I am sure there will be much more to learn about this in the coming weeks. 

I turned off my phone for church and when I turned it back on the unlock code did not work.  When I got back to my room I had to call Verizon CS to get it unlocked.  Talk about feeling foolish.  I guess I should just not turn my phone off?  JK, I have it figured out now.  New phones take a bit of getting used to.

I have learned the Greek alphabet for writing, saying and what English equivelant each letter holds.  I feel better going into class with this at least.  Of course our class is only once a week for three hours so what I have learned should last about the first half hour of the first class.  What's even more challenging in this class is that our first class isn't until next Tuesday since we start classes on Wednesday this week.  This is the one class that has me less than confident.  We will see.  I am sure He will have His hand on me and my brain for this class.

I believe we have two more students still to come in the dorms.  They should be here tomorrow.  It will be good to meet them for then we will have the whole group together.  We are planning to do a weekly dorm dinner, probably on Wednesday.  That should be fun and good fellowship.  Vince across the hall from my room is a middler.  He is going to be a TA for one of our junior classes.  He is already planning to have a study group for the class.  I hope all of our classes have this.  That would be great.  I am only here to learn and mature in my faith and my abilities.  The more study time we get the better.  After diakonia I am up for the group study at any time. 

I am missing the family.  I was traveling so much last year and this year that it was more like I was just out of town the last several days.  It will start to hit harder over the next few days since I usually wasn't out of town for more than 2-3 days at at time.  Sometimes longer, but not often.  The webcam does help in getting to see them on top of talking to them. 

Internet access here is great.  I am able to catch up on my favorite TV shows on Hulu without a problem!  With the community TV I figure I am better off just catching them on the internet after they air on TV.  Besides, I don't know that I will have much time to watch them during the semester.  I might have to watch all of the episodes while I am home at Christmas break. 

I really can't wait for classes to start.  I feel like a marathon runner that has prepared for a long marathon and his body is full of energy just waiting to start the race and he has to wait.  I am ready to start, bring it on!

It is getting to be my bedtime (my normal bedtime anyway) so I am going to say goodnight. God bless.

Steve

Saturday

As you can see above, the digs are pretty spacious considering this is a dorm area.  It works just fine for me.  It is nothing like having the family here would be, but for what it is it is great.

Got some studying in for Greek.  With most everyone else already having had a condensed version of the class I am afraid I am going to be way behind most everyone.  I will do this work to know the alphabet with upper and lower case how to write and say them and leave it to the Lord to help with the rest.  I won't be able to learn the whole language before Wednesday anyway. 

Four of us went out to dinner tonight.  Jason, Blake, Peter and I went to Carolina Wings.  Two of us had wings and two of us didn't.  I have been on a nacho tear lately so naturally I had . . . . nachos.  The place was dead.  Don't know if the weekend had anything to do with that or not, but it was not busy.  It was down in what they call the Five Points area.  Don't know of the significance of that yet, but I am sure before I leave here I will.  When we got back we went up on the roof of my dorm building.  The building is over 100 years old and the roof is a pretty steep pitch so I hung out in the roof access hole while the others were on the roof.  The architecture of these old buildings is so neat.  We had to access the roof through the attic.  Probably not a fun place at night with the lights out.  Although, it might be a great place for an EVP session.  Those of you that follow TAPS will know what I mean.  EVP is Electronic Voice Phenomenon.  They set up very sensitive digital recorders to capture any spirit voices or sounds in an area they are investigating.  Pretty interesting stuff.

I have a couple of churches in mind for tomorrow morning.  Depends upon what time I get up.  One is right off the edge of campus here at 11:00am.  We will be assigned our congregations for Field Education in the next week or two so this might be the only chance I have to go to any other locations. 

Well, as I told you last night I am usually in bed before now and I am tired tonight.  I am going to call it a night and get back with you tomorrow.  Blessings.

Steve

Arrival

This has been one long day!  Gordon and Sandy were flying out this morning so we left about 5:40am.  It was good to get on the road early.  I could have stayed later, but I was anxious to get to Columbia to see what I shall see.  The trip was uneventful, the best kind.  Overall it took me about 9 1/2 hours to get here.  It could be worse, but definitely not a go home for the weekend kind of thing. 

Columbia is a cool town.  I like it so far.  I signed my paperwork and got my dorm room keys about 11:30.  Drove over to the dorm building and parked in front.  Now remember there are only 161 students here total and maybe only 15(a guess?) in the dorms.  The first person I saw was Peter from our church.  It was great to see him again!  I met Blake, yes there are now two Blakes in my life.  Both of them helped me unload the car(not both Blakes, Blake and Peter).  It is a good thing too.  If I had to unload it myself it might have gotten done this weekend but then again maybe not.  There are stairs everywhere here!  The dorm building is an old building with very high ceilings.  There are 25 stairs between floors 1 and 2.  The guys are on the second floor.  There are 7 more steps just to get to the door of the building.  Remember Florida is flat.  I do walk 3-4 times a week, but that did nothing to prepare me for the stairs!  When Blake was bringing up the last load I physically could not have gone down and gotten anything else.  My legs were refusing to go up the steps.  I went into my dorm room, laid on the bed, turned on the ceiling fan and tried to cool down while my legs were jelly.  Thankfully Sandy had made me a care package bag.  I grabbed the fruit and nuts and tried to get some energy.  As I write this at almost 12 hours later, my legs are still worn out.  Thank God they helped me unload.

It didn't take too long to unpack once I was able to get upright again.  I actually have my own room.  That deserves double smiley faces. :)  :)  If you look past the steps, and in a couple of weeks it will be no big deal, this has worked out great.  I have a study room that is about 12' X 18' with built in bookshelves and a very large window.  I will work on posting some pictures over the next couple of days.  My bedroom is about the same size less the space for closets, of which I have two, at the one end of the room.  The room comes with a dresser, twin bed (yes my feet hang out over the end, but at least I have a bed), a chair and a night stand.  The study room has a desk a small table for a printer, a couple of cushion chairs, and a couple of desk type chairs, and an end table.  I think I could hold a Bible Study in here.  It is really a pretty nice set up.  I got to meet Jason from down the hall, he is also on the computer lab tech team.  He was on the conference call yesterday so it was good to meet him.  He is from Jacksonville, small world.

I made a list and went to the Super WalMart, which was packed, to pick up a few things I needed.  One of which was a webcam so that I can talk and see everyone at home when I call.  If you have a webcam and a skyp account let me know what it is and I can add you to my contacts list so we can do a webcam call. 

We have a kitchen behind my room.  Small, just for heating stuff up.  I brought my refrigerator from work and my coffee pot so things are looking pretty good.  We have the ability to buy a hot meal at lunch, but that is the only meal they offer.  Remember there are not enough students here to justify full kitchen and three meals as most of the students live in the apartments or townhomes. I think this will be good anyway.  I want to get to eating lighter at the end of the day, maybe a sandwich or fruit or some yougurt nothing too heavy.  At home, I ate too much in the evening.  I am going to try and get away from that.  I bought some soups and Ramen.  You can't go to college without Ramen Noodlles! 

We watched the last of the Matrix movies tonight in the common room.  Love those Matrix movies.  Keanu Reeves is one of my favorites along with Will Smith.  If they are in a movie I will watch it.  Those of you that know me well will look at this posting time and wonder what the heck happened?  I am usually in bed by 10:00. Well I got a 2 hour nap today and after getting a shower late decided to update everyone as I know you all knew this was the arrival day.  Don't know how many of you would be up to read it at this hour, but it will be there tomorrow.  If you are from church and you read the updates if you could tell anyone that asks how things are going I would be grateful.  Somehow I get the feeling that my early to bed and early to rise thing might be on the way out.  We will see. By the way, when you see the posting time on here it is posted in Pacific time. I don't know why it is doing that and I have not been able to figure out why I can't change it. It is only on my home page with Yahoo. The computer is set to the right time. There is an edit on Yahoo for this, but nothing shows up when I go into change it. Anyway the real time is now 12:17am on Saturday.

That's all for tonight.  Thanks for all the prayers to get here safely.  They worked.  God bless you all.
Steve

T-Day

T Day has arrived as in Take off for school day.  I haven't left yet but I am pretty sure this is going to be the hardest part.  It is going to be a while before I see my family again.  On a positive note, there was a posting for a Computer Lab tech at school on our school e-mail.  I replied and it looks as though I may get to do this while I am at school.  I figure that I already do it for 3 computers at home for free, so why not do it and get paid a little bit?  Even better at school is the IT Manager is there to back you up if you get into something that you can't fix.  That's even better than home! 

You know we were all joking about everything fitting in my car, well maybe 80% of it is packed in the car and there appears to be room for the rest.  That's good news!

Can't wait to see Sandy and Gordon tonight.  For those of you that don't know, I was honored to have been asked to marry them in December of last year.  It was one of the highlights of my life!  (For those wondering how that could be when I am just starting seminary?  In Florida if you are a Notary you can marry people.  I became a notary for this and voila! I was able to perform their wedding ceremony.) 

All for now, tears will be flowing later, not a good time to write.
Steve