Week 8

Hey, ya'll. I'm bored. I mean, I'm not lacking things to do. But I'm tired of my classes. As I always am at this time of the quarter. No, wait, I'm only tired of the one with all the busy work. Yeeuck. Jeanette, you tried to warn me, and now I'm paying for it. I'm supposed to write a 3-session curriculum. This in addition to a group project and a stupid busy work paper due every week of this stinking class! I'm really sick of all the work. The reading load isn't too bad, but the books are boring. It's all practical. And we won't even go into the lectures. Let's just say there's not much going on.

Yet I find myself talking to others about what I'm learning in that class more than any other. Probably because it's practical, applied stuff, so it's easy to relate to real life. How interested are other people, really, in the fineries of homiletical technique? Or in ancient-future worship patterns? Nope, that's stuff for us liturgy geeks (the latter I mean). So bleh.

But tomorrow we have a treat: Robert Webber is coming to have lunch with a group of us students, then Friday he's coming to my seminar class (because our class has been set up to test his theories about ancient-future stuff) so we can grill him. Then we get to have lunch again in a smaller setting. I'm really excited to talk to him. He's kind of the evangelical guru of worship awareness. Plus his book, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, was very helpful for me when I became Episcopalian. It's going to be fun to meet him.

So I'll have stuff coming up that I will post. But since we're heading towards the end I won't be able to post frequently. Not that I've been all that good about it lately. Honestly it's getting to be kind of a drag. I love to hear from you guys. But writing is tiring. I'm definitely bidding goodbye to the blogging when seminary is over (unless someone wants to pay me for it!).

Anyway, I will post my curriculum for you - it's going to be about worship (I know, big surprise). The three sessions will be worship in church (the worship service), life rituals and rites of passage, and how to worship in the world (job, family). I'll probably do the middle one live (I have to test a session), since I have the most ideas for it. We'll see.

And I'll preach again on June 7. I'm really looking forward to the process this time. And of course I'll post sermon #2 for your amusement...I mean edification and transformation.

And then there's the ancient-future paper, for which I have yet to be commissioned with a topic. So I just wait. Whatever I write on will be fun. That class has just been such a kick - it's a great way to end my week every week. I SO prefer the doctoral seminars to my other classes. But really, since I'm not doing much academic this quarter, it's felt like a little respite. And I seriously needed that after last quarter.

I signed up for summer classes - only 2. I'll do a 5-week systematic theology: ecclesiology and eschatology with an Eastern Orthodox prof. Looking forward to her perspective! Then I'll do a two week on "Evangelizing Nominal Christians" with Eddie Gibbs (he of the "Emerging Churches" book). Since I have to do an evangelism class I figured that would be the least pukey. At least it will focus more on discipling and formation than conversion.

But more importantly, in 3 weeks and change I get to see my niece again and meet my nephew! I'm really figuring out what's important and it is spending time with those guys. I love them so much.

Then over 4th of July, J and I will take a much-needed couple-trip, to Vegas. We're psyched. Then it's finish class #1, J's parents visit, take class #2, and I have from mid-August until end of September off. Nice. I will be busy - I've got dozens of books to read, a movie to edit, and I've taken that job at USC. And it would be lovely to get away on retreat for a couple days.

Yeah, time never stops marching on, does it?