Christian Missions w/Naaman looks like it'll be a good class. It's one of the easier looking ones. I'll have to write about a missionary amongst a group of other mini-papers. I'm considering Tom Watson, the missionary our church supports, however I also need to evaluate my church's missions program separately so maybe I won't do him. I'll also be required to do a kind of evangelism activity in the city... looking forward to that. One of the textbooks for the class is a book of martyr stories, some of which are martyrs that graduated from Moody. The prof seems to be a good balance of humor and integrity. He has a Muslim background and a passion to reach that community.
Intro to Disciplemaking with Craigen was not too bad either. I imagine it won't be that hard. It involves a good number of evangelism activities outside of school. While the evangelism methods presented in the class are more focused on relational and "servant evangelism," I appreciated the prof covering some good ground and balance. He wasn't what I expected, while ultimate judgment is reserved for the end of course. I think at least one of the textbooks could have been better chosen though. One of the books is Permission Evangelism By Michael Simpson. It seems to be exactly what the title suggests. I've read through chapter one and have all kinds of writing and underlining in it already... I'm anticipating providing a thoughtful report on my response to the book as one of our assignments. It has some good comments, but the overall thrust is a bit man-centered and boy does the author seem to slam street preachers! It will be a "thorough" read for me I'm sure. It'll go on my shelf next to Becoming a Contagious Christian, which I believe was actually used here at the school before this book. Sigh... much work to do here. I look forward to the Way of The Master Season 3 watching parties I plan to hold when the DVDs arrive :)
Old Testament Survey with Marty is what I expected as NT last semester... a few long reading reports and tough quizzes. Praise God I finished reading the whole OT over summer!!!! So that's behind me now. The prof has begun to crack down on attendance and conduct in class though. Last semester it was quite difficult to stay awake in a 2 hour class like that one. Why do I fall sleep so much and in so many venues? He says if he catches a student sleeping, he'll kick them out of the class and they'll have to take a cut for that day. I understand his reasons and don't blame him, but this will certainly be a challenge for me nonetheless. I always make it there... but my brain may not be with me that whole time.
Greek Grammar I with Gray is still a wild card. It's his first semester teaching Greek so it'll be hard to tell how he'll work out. The first class got me worried because he said we didn't have to worry because if we didn't know Greek, "I don't know it either... we'll learn this together. They just threw me into this. ...well that's partly true." Flashing red lights in my head heated until the bulbs broke! Today was better though. It's apparent that the real learning in the class will come from personal study anyway (1-3 hours per night)... as many of the Greek classes seem to be. I'm just glad we don't have ONLY the textbook. The Croy textbook is not good for self-study without any worksheets, supplemental instruction, or someone saying the pronunciations out loud. The class meets for an hour 4 days a week. I still have 5 chapters and practice exercises to do tonight!
Communication of Biblical Truth (first Preaching class) with Koessler will almost surely be my favorite class. Who would have guessed, eh? I hear he's a tough critic for constructive criticism... but that's good as long as I have the right spirit about me as I hear the feedback. He's got a sense of humor about him too. He said someone once was relaying a rumor they heard to him. They told him, "I heard you make the men and women in your class cry." He said "that's not true... I've never made a woman in my class cry." About 40% of the class is teaching us about preaching theory and content... the rest is spent preaching or listening to another student preach and evaluating.
PCM starts September 7th so I'll continue preaching at the Retirement Home. I've prepared a tentative list of the passage divisions to be able to finish the book of Galatians in the next 13 weeks I preach there. God has blessed me with about a month to begin formulating outlines and marinating in the texts of my upcoming sermons. We also get a new guy in our team who is also a Pastoral major. Maybe he and I can share the preaching load a bit! I haven't met him yet. There's still formal meetings and information distribution from the school this week.
I'm trying to stay on top of my reading so far... which is easy without working. Still no clear word on my job with the Radio station... the guy I needed tot alk to Monday will be back Wednesday (tomorrow) so I still need to talk with him and prayerfully... Lord willing... get more hours than the initial plan. I know the other job is still waiting to hear from me though. Man I also found out that I'd need a brand new pair of white-soled shoes if I wanna work out in the gym here! I walked all the way to the gym dressed and ready to start up again only to come back to my room and drop the whole thing :( It was rather disappointing. Oh hey, can you believe I'll be 24 years old in less than a month?!
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