It Was Cold This Morning

Something very nice has happened since last Friday.  Somewhere in the week I realized I feel like I am hitting my stride this semester.  On top of this I realized I am having more fun this semester.  I think the later is because this semester is more about learning and forming our theology.  I only have one class with tests, Hebrew and they are a quiz twice a week with midterm and final, but both are take home.  We are getting into some great topics and discussions this semester and I am really enjoying it.  I have preached my second of three sermons, the funeral sermon.  I believe my grade will be pretty good on it after my review with my professor, so I guess I am back into passing status in that class.  It was so beneficial to preach my first funeral sermon in class with other students doing role play to give us feedback.  I guess this experience might have the benefit of several in the parish as we got honest hard hitting feedback that I doubt people in the congregation would be willing to give to the pastor after the funeral.  Most of it is in realizations of where people are in the process of grieving and trying to achieve balance between eulogizing and preaching the gospel during the sermon.  What a gift to get the opportunity to do this in school. 

Deb has been doing better.  She seems to have stabilized on her new medicines and that seems to make all the difference.  She is back in the department she was hired for at work, which is good because she was in a different department that she didn't like as much.  Her blood sugar is the lowest it has been in years and seems to be stabilized at this level.  Things are looking up. 

I have my endorsement interview with the Florida Candidacy Committee representatives and my student advisor in about 10 days.  This is the interview to be approved to go to internship.  I have put my application in and we are restricting to stay in Columbia with the challenges we had health wise with Debbie during this transition.  That should save us two moves.  That is a blessing.  We may still move away from campus into an apartment or rental house but that will be local and much different.  Everything else in our world will stay the same.  We still have first call coming as a game changing move, but hopefully things will be better at that point. 

Things are pretty good right now, which kind of has me looking over my shoulder to see where the next one is coming from.  But until it shows up I am going to enjoy this feeling as long as I can.  God bless you on your journey with our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.  Steve

Fall Break is Over

I have a few minutes before Intro to Theology class starts.  We were on something called a break this week.  I am not sure why we call it that other than we don't have classes on Mon-Wed.  That is a good break.  However during this break we had two take home midterms and a sermon exegesis was due in the middle of the break as I was preaching for a grade on the first day back, yesterday.  As always the Holy Spirit brought me through all of this with passing grades I hope.  The sermon I had to preach was the first I have done without a manuscript.  It went pretty well until music from the basement of the chapel became a distraction and caused me to jump ahead a paragraph in my memory.  Not that I won't ever have any distractions when preaching this was a solid reminder that things can happen.  Babies cry, people cough, things happen.  The sermon topic was a funeral sermon.  I am glad to get the first one of these in a class and not a real setting.  The role plays we did within the listeners was very good feedback to understand how people are hearing what we are saying.  The sermon went pretty well but in this class I need to hold off until I get the grade before thinking anything positive.  My first sermon this semester received all positive remarks from the listeners and I flunked it.  Go figure. 

We are putting in our applications for internship next year.  I have my interview with the representatives of the Candidacy Committee and my academic advisor the first week of November.  I have our (Debbie and me) interview with a faculty member on the internship committee that assigns us the first week in December.  We are given our assignments towards the end of March.  The Holy Spirit at work for sure.

In our Intro to Worship class today we had some great discussion on the necessity of baptism for salvation.  I really enjoy these types of discussions.  They force us out of our nice tidy little boxes to consider God on a larger level.  Some people don't like what that turns out to be,  but I think it is healthy for us at this stage and maybe during God's whole ministry through us.  We came down to within baptism and the intent to baptize we are saved.  Beyond this we don't really know because the scripture is about our life in the faith.  It doesn't really say anything about out life outside the faith.  We can only take bigger picture aspects of God and try to extrapolate from there.  There isn't really anyway to know for sure.  We live in hope.

Class is getting ready to start.  I like using this time to catch up so this might be a way that I can keep more in touch than I have been this semester.  God bless both of you.  May God be forever active in your lives.