Next Semester

Next semester is going to be different from this one. Last semester I had most of my classes in the afternoon. So after a while I got into a routine of staying up later at night and sleeping in some in the morning. THIS semester my classes all start at 7:45 or 8:00 so my routine must change somewhat.

Next week is "Acts and Pauline Epistles."

Then I'll be doing:

• "Hebrews, General Epistles and Revelation" - Dez is excited I'm doing Rev. because she wants me to know more about the end times.
• "Leading the Church in Effective Ministry" - This sounds great - very practical. I think I get to practice baptizing and stuff.
• "Hebrew I and II" - affectionately known as "suicide" Hebrew

Organizing

Today is my day to take all my books from last semester off my "access" shelf and move them to the back room. I'm also taking all my notebooks and organizing all my notes and papers so I can pull them out easily if I need to in the future. "Now what were my thoughts on worship?"

Tuesdays With Morrie

It's late and I should be in bed, but instead I got captivated by this book. It's incredibly moving if you haven't read it yet. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. If you haven't read it then go get it and read it. It's cheap and not a long read. A few evenings will get you through it with ease. It's about a man's experience of dying and it drives home again and again the reality of death and what it means.

What does it mean to die well? What does it mean to live well? Am I living well? Am I ready to die?

It stirs these questions within you... In some respects I think I know and I'm ready. In other respects I think I don't live with mortality fully in mind. I plunge forward in the thick of life and become enmeshed in the crisis and issues and responsibilities of living with my entertainment and relaxation often consisting of things that only keep my mind occupied and moving on. I don't think enough about life and death. About the gifts God has given me. About the air I breath. About the fact that I can move each finger in my hand with such precision that I can type this blog without a thought to where they are going. I am letting too much of life slip through my fingers.

I listened to a sermon by a good friend of mine today who was preaching from Ecclesiastes. Each day you have only so many seconds to "spend." Lie's not a race. I can't sprint with the fear of death nipping at my heels. But one day the world will awake without me and I have to ask myself now, if that day is tomorrow, will you be able to say like Paul, "I have fought the fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith?" How much of my time will I regret spending on things that are not necessarily bad, but are "lesser?"

Ironically, I read the first third of the book during the commercials of Monday Night Football.

Gmail

Thanks to Brian W. I now have a gmail account. I haven't decided to make it a primary account yet, but I can already tell I like it much better than yahoo or hotmail. I have a couple invites I can give out if any of you guys want to try it too.

Christmas was great this year. Very fun time with the family. Now we have to get ready to move! Yuck.

Paul is a Stud

I just finished reading Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit by Chuck Swindoll. I really enjoyed it. Easy read but it exceeded my expectations. He makes constant applications and speaks to pastors a lot so it was like spending a day listening to some practical advice from a guy who's been there done that. Really good and it was fun seeing Paul's life laid out in summary. I just am amazed at this guy's resolve and commitment. Very motivating

Christmas Break

Well, Fall '04 is completely finished. It was quite the relief when I sent in the final reading report the other night. For the next week, we're visiting family in Arkansas. In fact, this post is coming from my in-law's house. (I forgot how sloooow dial-up was!)

I'm taking a winter-session class on Acts and Pauline Epistles the first week of January that should be busy. I have Pond for a prof. and everyone says he gives LOTS of busy-work. So the reading has already started for that class.

2 thoughts:

1) I don't have any new lines of thinking to ponder right now - so does anyone have a topic they'd like to take up?

2) I'm thinking of renaming the blog. I'd like a name and web address that go together and Theo. Rum. is kinda long - plus weird. What do you think? Keep it or dump it?

That's Cutting Edge

Brian B., the internet manager for Fellowship Church in Grapevine, posted a comment at the end of our discussion a few weeks ago on my worship experience at Fellowship Church and Holy Trinity. Check it out if you want. Basically, he was contending that Fellowship Church, unlike other seeker sensitive church, doesn't water down the gospel and seeks to evangelistically bring in lost people. (So that's their response, Matt...)

Now I don't care what you think about Fellowship Church, having a guy who trolls the net periodically and looks for opportunities to connect with people and invite them to become more connected at your church is awesome! Brian B., way to go! One of my biggest criticisms of mega churches is that it is incredibly easy to get lost in the crowd and slip in and out like I did. Obviously, Fellowship Church is taking major steps to combat this.

I'm assuming he regularly searches the web for blogs and takes the occasional time to comment since I don't really advertise this site anywhere. Anyway, thought that was pretty cool.

Sad News

We're moving. We just found out yesterday that we're going to have to relocate where we live. Most of you know that we do a ministry called Apartment Life. It's a super ministry and the benefit of a mostly free residence is great too. This is the odd downside. It's not unheard of but it isn't normal, even in the ever-shifting apartment industry for Apartment Life teams to have to move. We're just the ones who got it. Our property was bought out by another company and they only want one Apartment Life team on the property. There are two teams here now, and even though Dez and I have "seniority" over the other team, we feel that it's best for them to stay given a number of reasons.

So we're moving. It'll probably be sometime in the middle of January. That's not great because it's a really cold time of year. But it's better than right now with finals and all. My semester will just be starting then, so that is a good time for that sort of thing.

We don't know where we'll be. Apartment Life is going to try to place us at another property but that is one of those highly variable things. They have properties that need teams, but it's all a mattter of what properties are available that fit us. Are the apartments large enough for a family of four? Is it kid friendly? Is it close enough to DTS and our church? Will they let us bring our adorable cat? :-)

We really aren't looking forward to this, but we also have been praying about this and are confident that this is God moving us. He has always been faithful to us so we are right now trusting in his work and plan even though we would rather not be doing this.

Did it.

The paper from Hades is finished. Its 4:30 am and I'm headed to bed.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Well, I'm about to sack out for the night. I made decent headway on my exegetical paper. I have through verse 27 done on the commentary side of things and I have my two validation problems done. That leaves me with only vv. 28-32, two word problems and two text critical papers. Probably my progress is because I scared everyone away from that last post. Hence, I had no fun discussions to distract me. Desiree says I'm making Christmas with the family look real interesting.

Oh well. Did you notice I used "hence" above? That's a great term to use in academic papers. Furthermore, I have found other connective words handy to use: thus, therefore, consequently, as a result, however, nevertheless, conjunctivitis, weasel, and grippingly are all great connectors. Oh wait... maybe not those last few.

Hence, that just indicates its my bedtime. (Do you know Chuck Swindoll only needs to sleep 4 or 5 hours a night? I'm jealous!) Grippingly, I must retire.

Varied Worship

Well, I went to two VERY different worship services this weekend - for a class at DTS. 1) Fellowship Church in Grapevine (with Ed Young) and 2) Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church

I have LOTS of opinions on these two but I will simply start with my greatest like and dislike from the two:

Fellowship Church:
Like - attractive and seamless. It was very well done from start to finish and very fun.
Dislike - not long enough and kinda seemed to err on "God is my buddy."

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox:
Like - great theology (mostly) and a real sense of the magnificence of God
Dislike - very distant feeling and kinda seemed to err on God is "other and transcendant but not present."

Again, these are impressions. Obviously two very different services. I'm sure if I talked with worship leaders or pastors at either church they would want to affirm that God is not "just my buddy"and God is not "transcendant only" but these observations are merely what the content of the worship service said to me.

Of the two, I went in most critical of Fellowship Church and most interested in Holy Trinity. However, I came out liking (overall) Fellowship Church much better than Holy Trinity (sorry Dad and Brian).