As of about ten minutes ago, when I sent off the last of four assignments/projects due by midnight tonight, I'm done with this semester. I'm numb. I'm literally leaned back in my chair with my eyes closed right now, just willing myself to type these words. This has been an intense past few months. Definitely the most challenging academic semester I've ever faced.

But now I can breathe . . . at least for a couple of days. Then I'm going to dive into a class I need to take "on the side" in order to qualify for the program I've spent the past year and a half in. I shan't complain, though, especially given that one of the assigned books for the class is N.T. Wright's excellent masterwork, Jesus and the Victory of God. Hopefully I can knock that class out in about a month or so, because by then I'll be headlong into the next semester. Joy!!

For now, it is time for me to re-acquaint myself with my pillow and my wife. Nighty-night.

Labels: school

Wow, this has been a heavy set of days for me. Having come off of two conferences last weekend (one of which involved around 12 hours of driving round trip to attend), I've had a heavy school project working - hard work on structuring my dissertation and outlines. Much frustration here. I know the work will pay off, but oi! It's funny, because words and writing and ideas have always been pretty easy for me, but there have been multiple moments this week where I've felt the same as I did in my college chemistry classes - completely stuck. I'm making small breakthroughs, so no worries. I'm just whining.

In better news, we had another teach-in with inter::mission last night. Good times. I made enchiladas, guacamole, and some cinnamon tortilla chips. Tasty, if I must say so myself. Mike Gunn, pastor of Harambee Church in Renton, WA joined us for a discussion of gospel and culture. I really enjoyed that a lot. Mike is skillful at reading culture, as evidenced by his movie reviews over on Hollywood Jesus. His approach to culture is in the tradition of Lesslie Newbigin. He also made reference to Kevin Vanhoozer's book, Everyday Theology . . . though that mention made me sad, as that book has been sitting unread on my desk for the past two or three months . . . even now, it's only about thirteenpointfive inches away from my left elbow, mocking me, taunting me, daring me to lay aside the piles of school books I'm already delinquent on . . . but I digress. Mike hammered the Christian ghetto culture more than the culture of the bigbaduglyworld, which is a no brainer for some of us, but a stunningly new approach for many. All in all, it was another stellar evening at The Purple Door, and another signal that we're continuing to move in a quality direction.

Labels: conference, culture, inter::mission, school, the purple door

I just updated the list of books that I have read, as well as the list of books I intend to finish by the end of the year. There are a few more books I need to add to the "to be read" list, but I'll pop those on the 'ol blog later. I dare not linger too long on what's left to be read, because it's pretty overwhelming. I'm not an overly fast reader, nor am I an amazing retainer of the things I've read, unless it's super good. Usually, I'm good for a few general summary sentences, but not a thorough review.

Anyway, the reading list alone should indicate why I haven't been blogging as frequently, as well as the likelihood that my frequency will change much in the near future. Maybe I'll just pop a bunch of YouTube videos on here to keep people entertained . . . as if anyone comes here for the entertainment value.

Labels: blogging, books, school

. . . and when I do, I'll wonder where my summer went. Wow, it's continued to be super busy. Transitioning at the Purple Door, welcoming new staff, cranking on school, etc. At the end of last week, I had a quick trip to Atlanta for some meetings at one of the denom's big mission centers. It was a good trip - got to see some George Fox school buds for dinner, and the work project at the denom went very well.

I'm quite certain at this point that one of the key things that's kept me sane has been my renewed "efforts" in the area of Sabbath. I've not been perfect, mind you, but more often than not, I've been able to significantly mellow out and spend some down time reflecting, talking at a reasonable pace with my lovely wife, and realizing that the world will still be waiting for me when the day is over.

I only have two weeks left before my DMin school stuff gets going again, which means I need to hustle hard to get my summer school stuff knocked out. The classes I've taken this summer are on Jewish scripture . . . what we Christians call the Old Testament. That's been interesting, in the sense that it's a wonderful reminder to me that God's Kingdom has always been central in scripture, and that our story goes back a long, long time. Even the legal focus of these texts points in a direction that focuses on the true King, and the fitting response of his people.

Like it or not, the next few months are gonna stay hectic. In fact, I can almost guarantee that things will get "worse" before they start getting "better." It's almost all good stuff, though, so I don't want to complain (much).

Peace to all who read this.

Labels: denomination, friends, sabbath, school, the purple door, travel

I do hope that the few fine people who read this blog do so via an RSS reader of some sort. Mainly because I just don't seem to be posting much this summer, and asking people to manually drop in to the actual site is probably asking too much.

I'm still in the midst of a summer school slam. Last night I got to the 99% point of completion for one class I've taken. Sadly, not 18 inches from my right elbow, is a stack of 7 books waiting to be cracked for my next class.

Some good stuff's happening these days. But I'm just not in the position to process it publicly in blog format . . . too much other stuff to get done. I'm already feeling guilty about the ten or so sentences I've taken the time to write here.

Some day soon, I shall return.

Labels: blogging, school

posted by Steve at 7:20 AM
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Sunday, June 10, 2007

Who am I becoming?

This past week during one of our class sessions, one of my cohort-mates, John, talked about some of the teachings he's been doing at his church recently. Today I've been bumping around with some reading from Dallas Willard, and was reminded of a sentence John said . . . I'd like to make it a mantra in the days to come:

Who are you becoming by what you are repeatedly doing?

Labels: books, friends, school

posted by Steve at 11:59 AM
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Saturday, June 09, 2007

Down from the Mountain

Yesterday I returned from being away for the week on Mt. Hood in Oregon for school. We stayed at the historic and beautiful Timberline Lodge - 'twas a good, good week.

It had been almost a year since the last time I saw most of my school chums, so that was cool. I'm honored to be a part of such a great group of people, and this week, many friendships went to a deeper, richer level. So many good stories, great laughs (one guy talked about what a great ab workout he got from laughing so much), shared experiences. Oh yeah, and it snowed . . . we basically couldn't go outside for two days because it was snowing with about a 35mph wind. It didn't accumulate much, but we were stuck inside - which gave us more time for conversation.

The classroom end of things was pretty decent, too. Interesting discussions - nothing too shockingly profound for me, but I'm always up for good theological conversation with cultural insight and bits of missiology thrown in.

I'm definitely glad to be home - it's hard to be away for more than a couple days. Sleep is nice . . . definitely nice.

Labels: friends, school

posted by Steve at 12:28 PM
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Monday, March 19, 2007

Denmark and back

Well, I'm back home after a few days away in Denmark. It was a good trip, but too short and too lonely (in other words, I wish Michelle had been able to go with me). I went to a conference on Church, Religion, and Politics in the Global South - it was a school related thing for me. Basically, I was looking for a conference to go to, and this came up on an internet search, and when I looked into it, I found a phenomenal price for a nonstop flight from Seattle to Copenhagen. So, I went to this thing in Denmark for less money than I would have paid to go to a conference in Los Angeles or Atlanta or Boston. Cool deal. The conference was held at the University of Aarhus - a very large school about 3 hours by train from Copenhagen. Aarhus is a great little city - full of life and energy.

The conference was good - highly academic (all of the speakers who gave presentations read their papers) and helpful. Not exactly compelling, life change oriented stuff, but again, from an academic standpoint, it was very helpful to me in my research. Plus, I got to be with some very smart, gracious, and interesting people. And now it's time for a little name dropping. I got to share lunch and conversation with THE Viggo Mortensen. No, no, not the actor, the highly regarded missiologist.

I was able to spend two nights in Aarhus and two nights in Copenhagen after the conference. I've got several items of reflection and commentary on this trip, most of which are random and unrelated to each other. So, I'll post a few times over the next few days and process some of my observations and things I found interesting.

Labels: conference, missiology, school, travel

posted by Steve at 10:36 AM
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