BOO!

Happy Halloween. It truly is a scary one for me. I have two midterms back to back today - first Pentateuch, then Hebrew. Plus, I have a paper due tomorrow that I haven't started yet. I'll be glad at 11:00 tomorrow!

WORLD CHAMPIONS!

Let's hear it for the St. Louis Cardinals - 2006 World Series Champions!

I think this is the first time any team I've backed has won a championship (as I've watched). Correct me if I'm wrong. Way to go Cards!

I'm sick of Hebrew

Just puttin' that out there.

Two Months!

Just a quick note to remind everyone that two months from today is Christmas day!

Also of note: only 226 days remain until commencement.

We Are American Baptists

This weekend I was once again in scenic Green Lake Wisconsin for the Orientation to ABC Life conference. This conference is held every two years for American Baptist seminarians in their 2nd or 3rd year as well as pastors who are new to the denomination. We attended several sessions that acquainted us with the various aspects of denominational life in the ABC/USA, worshipped together every morning, and best of all, met a lot of new people and spent time hanging out getting to know one another. There is a picture here of some of the American Baptist seminarians I met.

The weather at Green Lake was great! It was in the 40s most of the weekend, and I even got to see some snow flurries just before we left Monday morning. Speaking of leaving - of course, I didn't want to. My senioritis has taken a turn for the worse, I'm afraid. I'm really ready to get out of school, and I'm really looking forward to serving with the colleagues I met this weekend. The conference was intense, some of the sessions were too long and boring, and I'm really tired now, but it was a great weekend, and I'm excited about being an American Baptist.

More than a symbol?

Yesterday I discovered this interesting paragraph from the Second London Confession, a Baptist confession of faith approved in 1689. Check out what these Baptists had to say about the Lord's Supper.

"Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive, and feed upon Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death; the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses."

According to this confession, Christ is spiritually present in the elements of communion. The bread and wine, while still bread and wine and not magically transformed into anything else, are more than mere symbols.

Theologian Quiz

Here is the URL for the theologian quiz I took the other day.

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=44116

Luther Wins!

I scored as Martin Luther, the daddy of the Reformation. I am opposed to any Catholic ideas of works-salvation and see the Scriptures as being primarily authoritative.

So says an internet quiz anyway.

I actually had to answer an additional question to break a tie between Luther, Karl Barth, and Anselm. I showed up as Anselm when I took this once before, but I've loosened up on the infant baptism question since then, so that may have allowed Luther to come through. I didn't know those three were tied before I answered the final question, but, needless to say, I'm thrilled that I came out as Luther. He's one of my heroes after all.

I should mention that the last Sunday of this month, October 29, is Reformation Sunday. Wear red to church that day, and if someone asks you why you're wearing red, tell them it's Reformation Sunday. More people need to know.

You can find the quiz I did at the link below.
created with QuizFarm.com

The Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching

...in the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary was dedicated last night at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, and I was present. The service began at 7:30, and it ended at 10:10. It was very long. Everything in it was very good, there was just too much of it. The music was phenomenal - pipe organ and choir - and everything that was said was very well put. The cake was good, too. All the talk about the need for strong biblical preaching that is bold and passionate in our congregations got me to thinking. Specifically, it got me thinking about the possibility of Ph.D. work again - this time in homiletics (big academic word for preaching). I think preaching in a church for some years and then going for a Ph.D. (or Th.D.) so I can teach future preachers sounds like a pretty good idea, so I'll keep thinking about that.

How do you like this: according to Ogilvie (a very well-known preacher and former chaplain of the U.S. Senate), a preacher should spend one hour in the study for every minute spent in the pulpit. For me, that would usually be 20 hours, and I think it's reasonable, because I agree with Ogilvie that preaching is the central task of parish ministry.

I tell people that preaching is pretty much my favorite thing to do, and I really think it is. When I hear good preaching, I get a strong itch to do it myself. As I help plan worship services and look at various themes we're dealing with, etc. I begin to wish that I were the one writing the sermon for that day, because I see so many connections between different things and have so many thoughts about what the text is saying to God's people. I look forward to preaching after I graduate.

I think the words of 2 Timothy 4:1-3 provide a charge that our preachers need to hear today:

1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Life on 16 Units

Remember those commercials that used to say "This is your brain," and then show you an egg, then show you an egg frying and say "This is your brain on drugs."? That might work for my life these next 10 weeks. Normally, my life might be like the egg - pretty cool, everything's holding together alright, but life on 16 units, which is 4 units (one class) more than normal for me may be more like the frying egg. Everything gets busted open and thrown on a hot pan. But perhaps I'm being too dramatic.

It is busy though. I have three classes: Hebrew, Family Therapy, and Pentateuch. Hebrew is a language, so it shouldn't be too hard, just time consuming. Pentateuch is the first 5 books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - so that's a lot of material in not a lot of time. Looks like it will be manageable though. Family Therapy is great! I love that class. We all have families so it's pretty hard not to find something of interest there. The first thing to learn is that families are systems, so if there's a problem with someone in the family, it's not just their problem, it's the family's problem. We all affect one another tremendously, and get this - every major decision you make is influenced by 3-4 generations of your family! Incredible. I can't wait to learn more.

By the way, in spite of the first loss of the season at Notre Dame, I'm pretty pleased with the Purdue football team right now. I was very worried after ISU scored 35 against them, but they are improving steadily, and the game at ND showed a lot of promise. We have at least one very promising player on both offense and defense and our quarterback is shaping up very well. Barring any major disasters Purdue will return to a bowl game this year, and may well be in the top 25 by season's end, in fact, I expect them to be.

Ah, what's for dinner tonight? Tuna helper, I think. Wait, no, I just got a call. Lasagna with Chris and Lindsay - excellent!