Second Drafts

How Hard Can It Be?

I really like the beginning of this book review as it relates to the profession of education:

There’s no easier job in the world than being a bad teacher. It’s a cinch, with short hours and plenty of long vacations. The pay’s not always great, but as long as your standards are low, and all you’re looking for is an easy job, I recommend being a really rotten teacher. Be really awful. Cobble together some industry-standard lesson plans and re-run them every year; grade superficially and with an emphasis on numbers; kick back and watch the seasons change as the sea of young faces before you renews itself year after year. (Don’t ask me how I know so much about this)

But as soon as you decide to be a pretty good teacher, you’ve let yourself in for a world of trouble. If that stack of papers needs thoughtful grading and a quick turn-around, you’re in for long hours of intense focus. If you have to re-think every sentence to make sure it connects with this particular group of students, you’re in for a high-energy workout.

And if you decide to try for excellence, to really make a difference for your students, then you’ve moved to The Other Side of teaching, and you find that there are few jobs harder than being a good teacher. It’s not just that you’ll have to put in a lot of hours. It’s that you’ll have to think. Think!

The really hard part about teaching is the thinking. Because if you want to help people as an educator, you have to know what people are for, why they exist, what it would mean for them to be fulfilled, and what Good their existence is ordered toward. Suddenly, you are up to your chin in the most important philosophical questions that can ever be asked.

The full review is at The Scriptorium; the book is called Education for Human Flourishing by Paul Spears and Steven Loomis.

WWJD?

On Friday night, Megan and I had an impromptu date. It had been a while. As the girls were happily occupied at a friend's house up the street (thanks, Erin and company), we went out for Chinese, talked, and then came home to watch Julie & Julia before picking up the girls to play parents again.

If you haven't seen the movie, you might have heard how good it is. Megan especially liked it because it's about so many things she loves: marriage, blogging, cooking, books, and the challenge of juggling those things all at once. The conversations in the film were familiar ones to both of us, as we've struggled with many of the same things Julie and her husband did concerning her art: the absence of time, the constancy of insecurity, the selfishness of narcissism, the fear of rejection, and still the hope of creating something beautiful in the midst of everything else.

For me, the film's storybook ending (literally: Julie Powell's blog gets turned into a book which gets turned into a movie) was about revisiting the hope of being faithful with very little in order to be faithful with much. The perseverance required for Julie's experiment of cooking 524 recipes in 365 days (and then blogging about it for all to read) reminds me of "the good old days" of blogging, when the hope of something happening seemed more possible than it does now, as there seemed so fewer blogs then.

Apparently, though, it does still happen. Just yesterday, I read on Heather Armstrong's blog (I've been a reader for probably five years) about the exclusive development deal she and her husband, Jon, signed with HGTV. I know next to nothing about the network, but apparently lots of people do. While I'm happy for the Armstrongs, it feels like it's the beginning of the end of such transitions (if you'll remember, almost a year ago, I considered whether the potential of the personal blog might be coming to an end).

Sadly, my need for inspiration comes on the heels of yet another rejection of my own writing efforts, this time in the form of an email from an up-and-coming agent I approached a few weeks ago. He writes:

"Thanks for allowing me to review your proposal. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to pass. It’s not that I don’t think this is a good idea or good content. I think it’s fine on both those levels. But these days, with the poor publishing economy, I am having to limit my new clients to only those authors who have established a large national fan base. The larger publishers are insisting on such, since they don’t have the marketing budgets they once did. They want to know that they can sell an immediate 15K or so books to the author’s fan base without having to spend a single marketing dollar. It sucks. But that’s the way it is right now."

Thus, I'm giving thought to what this means (or should) for my publishing future. Do I keep up my occasional attempt to squeeze through a publishing door at least enough to get someone's attention (even if it's only to look up and ask me to leave)? Do I swallow my pride and go the self-publishing route, building a grassroots following, and then, if all goes well, take another run at the agents and publishing houses? Or, do I let go of the idea of traditional publishing machine all together and go completely digital, publishing content here (or elsewhere) without getting completely ripped off financially or otherwise?

These are some of the questions I've been asking myself of late, but as of last night's movie, I've added one more to my literary litany of lament:

What would Julia do?

Adapting to Digital Discipleship?

Most readers don't consider me a Luddite when it comes to technology, but some may be surprised that I tend to be a slow adapter/adopter when it comes to new stuff. Consider:

• I recorded three of my own CDs before I actually owned a CD player.
• My first cell phone was a late-90's Ericsson (I don't own or use one now by choice).
• My first iBook was second generation.
• My current MacBook is second generation.
• Our iMac is second generation.
• Our iPod Shuffle is second generation.
• Our iPod Nano is second generation.
• My iTouch is second generation.
• Our current video player is a 12-year-old dying dual VHS/DVD player, but I don't even know what options are out there if/fwhen it goes.
• It took me a year or so to come around to Twitter, but I'm liking it (enough) now.

Here's where I've been more on the technological front-end of things:

• With the exception of a six-month sabbatical in 2005, I've kept one of several blogs since August of 2003 (TwentySomeone (2003-2005), Seminary Tychicus (2005-2007), and Second Drafts (2006-present).
• I was on MySpace and Facebook pretty early (a fact my students still don't believe).
• I got a Gmail account as soon as the service was available. I also got in early on GoogleWave as well, but the tide is out right now on that, at least for me.

I suppose the main observation I make is that, with the exception of Twitter, I tend to be on the cutting edge of technology when it's free; anything I have to pay for I tend to wait to see how it turns out (and it usually takes me a cycle to justify spending money, though if I had the money, I'd probably spring for Apple's rumored iTablet/iSlate the first time around).

What does any of this have to do with the price of eggs in China? I'm getting there.

This weekend, an acquaintance emailed about an opportunity to do some research that would eventually be part of Monvee, a website/database designed to be a systematic approach to (for lack of a better phrase) "digital discipleship". Pastor/author John Ortberg seems to be the main name attached to this initiative (though there are several other endorsers), and while I'm not that familiar with Ortberg's present ministry, I know he was involved with Willow Creek for ten years, particularly in the area of spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation, apparently, is what Monvee is all about; in fact, it claims it is "the future of spiritual formation" (no expectations there). If you watch the preview video, you can get an idea of what Monvee understands spiritual formation to be in terms of meaning and methodology. In the video, co-founder Eric Parks sums it up this way: "I like to think of the Monvee...as the eHarmony for my spiritual life, but instead of finding a mate, Monvee discovers how I'm wired and how I grow best." (Note to Parks: Comparing Monvee to eHarmony is not going to win me over to using your product. Bad analogy.)

After you complete Monvee's three-minute survey, Monvee apparently helps you discern what your spiritual needs are, how you best learn, and how you can grow and best connect with God. Monvee then customizes a plan - "a spiritual guidebook for life" - that covers four areas: time (practices); mind (books, videos); relationships (mentors, groups); and experiences (service). It then pulls and ships all the materials you need right to your door, prints email reminders for what you're supposed to do each day, and somehow tracks your spiritual progress in real-time.

But wait, there's more: If you're a church leader who uses Monvee with your entire congregation, Monvee can provide "a spiritual dashboard of insight into how your church is growing...on a live and on-going basis...with real data, in real-time, and about real growth."

Here's my question: Is my hesitancy to support this "digital discipleship" justified or is it just another example of my technological tendency to slow adaptation/adoption?

From my perspective, the pros are that the technology seems well done, and for someone with absolutely no help, I could maybe see how this could be useful initially in self-analysis and resource selection. But the cons run along the line of the rampant individualism this could promote, the dependence on database diagnostics rather than the Spirit of God for one's sanctification, and probably just how Parks ends his video with "Let Monvee help you find your way" (creepy).

What do you think? Would you buy in/encourage someone to buy in or not? Should I?

All Dressed Up with Somewhere to Go

Believe it or not, this picture perfectly illustrates how I think about a new year: dress for the occasion, show up early and hope for the best, but sit in the back to take it all in and be near the exits just in case something goes horribly wrong.

What can I say? A few things come to mind: "Blessed are the paranoid, for they shall inherit the earth (or what's left of it)." Or how about: "Not only is the glass half-empty, it's also trying to kill me." Or my personal (and original) favorite: "Nothing can be simple."

Like it or not, folks, I'm a pessimistic-idealist trying to lose the hyphen so as to simply become a realist who lives by faith. But, by golly, it's hard, so if I've offended you, driven you off, or just driven you crazy with my rants, raves, and otherwise unmerciful mumblings, forgive me...and pray for my wife.

Thanks for sticking it out here at Second Drafts. Hang with me for another year and we'll see where 2010 goes; after all, we're here and I'm wearing a bow tie, so we might as well make the most of it (just don't ask me to dance).

Have a happy New Year.

Kids (and Parents) These Days

Megan and I had a memorable evening Friday night that got us talking about some things that, well, we're not sure we're excited to be talking about. Maybe we're showing our age or our upbringing, but last night was an introspective evening for us in a lot of ways.

The cause of this introspection was Westminster's Christmas Banquet - a formal, end-of-semester dinner for which we were asked last-minute to serve as chaperones. Being the cheapskates we are, we were happy to get gussied up for four hours with 500 of our closest high school-age friends - the food at the Airport Hilton was decent, the service was good, and it was a nice way to officially kick off Christmas Break (even though I've STILL got grading to do this weekend to meet the Monday morning deadline).

Our first moment of introspection came as we dropped our four girls off at our pastor's house for the evening. Our daughters and their daughters (four also) are all roughly the same ages and absolutely love each other, so that wasn't the issue; what was different was Andrew and Lisa also had a Christmas party Friday evening, so the eight little ladies were going to be on their own for the night. As their oldest is 12 and our oldest is ten days from being 11, we were okay with this, but it was a bit surreal leaving the girls without adult supervision for four hours. It seemed we'd crossed a threshold of sorts, so we talked about it for the 15-minute drive to the hotel and decided that, indeed, we had.

When we showed up (early) for the banquet, we found our seats (in back), so we sat and talked about what we might expect this evening. Megan doesn't know many of my students as their paths don't really cross, so the evening was going to be a parade of nameless high schoolers for her; I, on the other hand, knew probably half of the students by name from class or the hallways, and was excited to see them in a different light, one which might give a hint into who they are and are becoming outside of my classroom.

Unfortunately, what I got was an eyeful of how little parents seem to care about their kids (especially their daughters).

With guys in tuxedos and girls in dresses, we expected to see a fair amount of awkwardness as the students adjusted to their fancy duds; what we didn't expect was the ridiculous amounts of make-up, skin, and cleavage we were bombarded with, nor the (short) leather skirts and (tall) stiletto heels that came with them. I couldn't count the number of times I saw girls having to pull up the tight tops of their low strapless dresses in an honest effort to keep themselves from walking right out of them.

The guys were awkward in their own way (one freshman actually wore his cumberbund up around his ribs all night and looked like a mover in one of those support belts to aid his bad back), but you can't tell me they didn't enjoy just sitting back and taking in everything that was about to fall out right before their eyes. I've never seen these guys smile as much as they did last night.

At the risk of sounding like a puritanical prude, the question that kept coming to my mind was "Where are the parents?" Oh, I forgot: they were busy planning the "after-party," the non-WCA-sponsored dance at another hotel where, from reports I always get from the kids the week after such events, is where the real party happens.

Apparently, in addition to providing the DJ and dance floor, these parents "supervise" the opportunity for high school students to "grind" on one another to their hearts' (among other bodily organs') content. I can't count the number of students who've asked me over the past three years if grinding is wrong - they bring it up every time we study (get this) the seventh commandment prohibiting adultery. When I tell them that, yes, grinding is wrong because it's basically "sex with clothes on," you wouldn't believe the pushback I get. You'd think I had accused Bill Clinton of having sex with Monica Lewinsky or something.

This - all this - made up the discussion Megan and I had on the drive back to pick up the girls. If we enroll the girls at WCA (or any school), do they accept a boy's invitation to be his date at a banquet. If they want to, sure, so long as she's dressed appropriately (that is, wearing clothes) and simply going to enjoy the evening with a friend who happens to be male. Do we let them go to "after parties"? A trickier question, but one we will hopefully attempt to answer with them by talking about all the realities in play. Decisions like these come down to clued-in parent involvement - both now and (for us, at least, before) - and I'd sure like to see more of this informed kind at WCA.

Granted, not every WCA student nor every WCA parent is suspect in this, and I could name plenty of students who were appropriately dressed at the banquet who probably didn't attend the after-party due to parental intervention. But as a current high school teacher and future high school parent, let me encourage anyone with kids to re-consider the fact that no one's going to parent your kids for you; frankly, God didn't give us the option when he gave them to us. Hear the words of Deuteronomy 6:5-7:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

In other words, we are to parent according to our love for God and the words of his Scripture, and we are to parent as we (and they) go. There are no breaks; it's 24-7, baby, and we will be held accountable for every decision we make (or don't make) in training up our children in the way they should go. Might I humbly suggest that public cleavage and grinding have no place in this biblical equation? God help us all.

Worldview: A High Schooler's Perspective

Got this from a former Ethics student who is now a senior taking Worldviews here at WCA:

Lately when I've been on You Tube, I've seen some pretty stupid videos (like REALLY stupid videos) of ignorant people saying ignorant things and it makes me so mad!!! My heart hurts really bad and I feel horrible when people challenge or attack Christianity. This year, Worldviews has helped me SO MUCH in broadening my er...worldview (I love it but I can't test on it for crud).

Anyway, I was just wondering what my role is in this situation? I don't like standing back and watching people sling mud at my religion with really bad arguments...HORRIBLE arguments that I could easily counter, but it's not my job to convert them...is it? And is it my job to educate them? I feel like if I put a cork in their mouth nicely and logically they might not convince anyone else to convert to "atheism" or whatever.

Here's how I responded:

A few thoughts:

1. You probably need to consider the source before you get too angry. The greatest strength of the Internet (self-expression to the fullest) is also its greatest weakness (no checkpoints whatsoever); thus, anybody can say anything for any reason and, in the true spirit of pluralistic relativism, there exists this assumption that you have to take it all seriously and view it all as equal in terms of truth. The good news? You don’t have to do either.

2. While I appreciate your heart for the name of Christ, God does not need a defense lawyer; rest assured justice will be served in his time, and he is certainly big enough to take it. This is not anything new that Christianity has not already endured for hundreds and thousands of year, and Jesus warned us about this kind of stuff in the gospels. He’s not surprised (and we shouldn’t be either) that those who don’t know him would think of him as they do.

3. As for your role in any of this, the thing I would encourage you with is to rejoice that, by God’s grace, your conscience seems to be working, that you don’t desire to do the same thing, and that you have an opportunity to pray to resist judging those who seem to hate us (that “love your enemies” thing seems appropriate here). Use all this as a check on your own life, pray for those who persecute you, and give thought and prayer as to how to love them. Maybe this indeed leads to a response of some kind, or maybe not (I’ve found Internet discussions like this are usually pointless); regardless, look for the same kinds of discussions going on around you (in the student body or with friends) that you might be able to jump in, join, and engage.

I’m thrilled that you’re enjoying Worldviews (I thought you might). Don’t worry about the testing part; the important thing is to grasp what you’re learning and think about holding onto it both now and into the future.

I noticed on your Facebook page that you’ve been reading some good stuff and I wonder if I could make a book suggestion for over the Christmas break? The book I’m thinking of is The Reason for God by Tim Keller. It’s very well-written and deals with a lot of what you’re struggling with in terms of responding to the online stuff, and doing so in a tone that I think would really be helpful for you to hear. Would you consider picking up a copy and reading it over the break? I believe the library may have a copy (and I’ll be glad to go to bat for you for an over-Christmas-break check-out if that would serve).

I’m proud of you for caring about this. Stop in and let’s catch up sometime and maybe we can talk more about all this. Congratulations on being halfway through senior year. I’ll be cheering for you when you graduate.

Hope some of this helps,

Mr. D.

Having the Appearance of Godliness, But Denying Its Power

“In his classic book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster reminds us that the spiritual disciplines are uniquely designed by God to allow us to receive his grace by allowing ‘us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us…We must always remember that the path does not produce the change; it only puts us in the place where the change can occur.’” The Leader’s Journey, p. 136

I’m trying to recall when in my life I’ve felt most spiritually disciplined. It hasn’t been often. My first thought goes back to my sophomore year of college, when I embraced (via The Navigators) the concept of Scripture memory and the Quiet Time (or “Q.T.,” as we affectionately called it then). I would rise every morning at 6 a.m. (after a 9:30 p.m. bedtime – unheard of for dorm life), make my way down the hall to the student lounge (which was always empty that early in the morning), and read, pray, write, memorize, and review verses for an hour. Over the next couple of years of doing this, I read through the Bible a few times, memorized (and retained) 2-3 verses a week, and filled 6 journals with my thoughts. I learned and grew a lot those three years, which was good. I was hungry to do so.

My second memory consists of a collage of my first three summers at Eagle Lake – first as a counselor responsible for the physical and spiritual care of a tee-pee of seven teenage kids each week, then as one of four program directors responsible for the whole camp (about 2,000 souls each summer). The sense of responsibility I felt was enormous, and my prayer life reflected it through multiple prayer walks (often in the same day) around the lake, across camp, and on a particular flat rock in the path leading to the A-frame. I prayed a lot those first three summers – sometimes out of gratitude, but mostly out of desperation – as the challenges felt immense and my ability to meet them seemed so small. These were hugely developmental times in terms of spiritual growth and leadership, and much of this had to do with those times spent in prayer, voicing my dependence to God.

If spiritual hunger and voicing my dependence to God are criteria for engaging in the spiritual disciplines, one might think there would be plenty more examples of having done so in my life. After all, since my days in college and at camp, I’ve gotten married, had four children, bought three different houses, written a book, traveled and spoken many times, experienced significant ministry transition, graduated from seminary, and now teach 100 high schoolers a day in my New Testament and Biblical Ethics classes. It would seem I have/have had reasons to exercise my dependence on God through spiritual disciplines.

Unfortunately, I haven’t felt spiritually disciplined for a long time, for in addition to the spiritual disciplines producing fruit in me in the past, they have also made me more competent at handling life and ministry in the here and now. Maturity, of course, is by God’s design, but competence is not meant to be an end in itself but a means to the end of continuing spiritual transformation and formation. This is what Foster means when he writes, “the path does not produce the change; it only puts us in the place where the change can occur.” Thus, when I have been most desperate, it has been when I have been most spiritually disciplined – not because I had to be, but because I needed to be.

In considering all this (and I do often), I think of Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 3:2-5:

“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

Sadly, I recognize myself too much in these verses – not in every way mentioned, but in more ways than I care to admit. The appearance of godliness – so often mistaken as competence – too easily hides my desperation for God. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency – values affirmed in our culture – too often numb my felt need to practice the spiritual disciplines as they numb my real need to experience God. Spiritual disciplines can help me realize what’s going on in my life, but only God has power to transform my heart.

City of God or Country of God?

Maybe I've read too many Wendell Berry books, but it's taken some time for me - a country boy - to come around to the thought of the city being a cherished part of the Christian mission. Indeed, I get the concept of the biblical narrative taking us from the Garden (Genesis) to the City (Revelation), and it does seem God spends an awful lot of time in the Scriptures interacting with ancient cities and their inhabitants, but it's only been since moving to a big city myself that my heart has warmed to the idea.

Growing up six miles outside a town of 1,200 (Griggsville, IL - "Purple Martin Capital of the Nation") two hours north of the STL, my big city experiences were few and far between. When I did visit St. Louis or Chicago (which my family rarely did), or even when I traveled overseas at the age of 16 to major cities like London, Paris, or Munich, I was rarely scared by them, but I was not all that enamored, either. While I enjoyed the idea of being there, the cities all felt too touristy to me (granted, a tourist), and I just couldn't figure out who or how one enjoyed living in a place so overrun by millions of non-residents.

This theme continued when I moved west. Colorado Springs - as beautiful as it can be - seemed to prostitute itself to the spring break and summer tourist crowds. Add to that feeling the fact that there's absolutely no good way to drive east-west in town (which was unfortunate, since that was how we had to go to get to our PCA church), and I began to lament our attempts at church community in the city. I couldn't figure out how church "happened" naturally and personally in a city of 350,000, let alone 3.5 million.

Then we moved to St. Louis - a classic example of an American city that has suffered from decades of racial tension, white flight to the suburbs, and inner-city poverty (both financial and human). As the middle-class moved out, so grew with them the megachurches. Harvie Conn, in his book The American City and the Evangelical Church, sums up well what seems to have gone on here and in other metropolitan areas like it:

"The community church has become a regional church. And in becoming a regional church it becomes a megachurch...In this decentralized world the church loses its grip on local geographical neighborhood and is transformed into a megachurch, twenty-five minutes by car. The size of the megachurch becomes limited only by the size of its parking lot. And the lost community created by this change finds its replacement in the small cell groups and house meetings also characteristic of the successful megachurch." (p. 191)

(Random thought: Maybe this is why I really don't like small groups - it's an unconscious rebelling against megachurches everywhere. Actually, I love the Catholic "parish model" with churches geographically placed throughout the city and members living within the neighborhood attending; in fact, if it weren't for those pesky doctrinal issues - worship of Mary, sainthood, purgatory, etc. - I'd probably have become Catholic by now if for no other reason than I love the architecture. But I digress.)

After we moved to Maplewood (where we live half a house from the St. Louis city/county line), we knew we wanted to be part of as local a PCA congregation as we could. Thankfully, Crossroads Presbyterian was just a ten-minute walk around the corner and up the hill from the house we bought, and we're glad for the fact that in terms of both vision and facility, there are no plans nor means to grow the church beyond 300 members without planting another church (which we're actually doing now) first.

All that said, my heart for the city (Maplewood and/or St. Louis proper) is growing in addition to my heart for the country. Yes, I'm still waiting for the PCA to catch a vision for church planting in more rural areas, but I know it's tough financially and (honestly) culturally. But, while I still feel the need to be an advocate for rural ministry here in the city, I'm glad to feel an expanding love in this country boy's heart for the city as well.

So, with apologies to Augustine, is it the city of God or the country of God that matters?

My best answer: yes.

Judged with Greater Strictness (gulp)

“Rather than living a reflective life characterized by the classic spiritual disciplines, far too often we live a frantically busy life that occasionally has daily quiet time. As we try to get some control over all the things that pull at us, God is assigned to the ‘spiritual’ or ‘Sunday’ part of our lives, rather than permeating all that we do. Consider: Do you have a prayer life or a life of prayer? Occasions of fasting, or a lifestyle of fasting? Do you relegate Jesus to a quiet-time encounter early in the morning, or engage in a reflective lifestyle that seeks to know Jesus’ presence in every moment of the day?” The Leader’s Journey, p. 11

One of the toughest challenges being a Bible teacher is this reminder from James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” If there’s a verse that keeps me up late at night, it is this one.

Or is it? Let’s be honest: when was the last time I was actually up late fretting in holy fear over this Scripture passage? Or any Scripture passage? Based on my sleep habits (usually to bed around 9:45 and out as soon as my head hits the pillow), one might justifiably suggest that I’m not too bothered by the possibility of any stricter judgment to come. In fact, as one of my fellow teachers once concluded when he heard when and how I fall asleep, “You must have a clear conscience.” Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

Maybe it’s due to the subject matter (New Testament and Biblical Ethics) or the fact that I’m incredibly (unfortunately) gifted in “do as I say, not as I do” theology, the longer I teach, the more dangerous I see myself becoming as a teacher. My fear stems not from being a “bad” teacher theologically, nor from aspiring to be a “good” (or even “great”) teacher of the Scriptures. My fear is fooling everyone (including myself) into thinking that everything I teach is indeed everything I practice – precisely, particularly, perfectly. In my vocation as a Bible teacher, I worry as much about hypocrisy as I do hermeneutics, lest what I have learned and now teach as “truth” be possibly negated by not living all or any of it.

This feeling of hypocrisy – so graciously allowed by God’s Spirit to check me in the here and now – would seem to be part of that stricter judgment I normally reserve for a future date. Yet God is never content to let my inconsistent behavior go unaddressed and only (finally) to be judged at some cosmic Bema Seat; he is always at work by his Spirit (in conjunction with my conscience) to judge me in the present, that I may be made aware of my sin and repent.

Herrington, Creech, and Taylor write in their book, The Leader’s Journey, that “We often believe that the great difficulty in life is knowing the right thing to do. Sometimes it is. At other times, however, the difficult thing is simply having the inner resources to do what we believe is right.” (p. 17) I fully resonate with their statement, as so often the question for me is not what I am reading in the Bible, but if I’m reading enough so that the Bible can read me? Can I really address the subject of Sabbath with my students when my Sabbath is as subject to preference and schedule as theirs is? How is it my place to challenge my students on prayer when prayer has so little place in my own life? Once again, hypocrisy trumps hermeneutics.

The authors quote Dallas Willard in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, on “the futility of attempting to direct our lives by asking the question ‘What would Jesus do?’ when we are not practicing the spiritual disciplines that Jesus practiced regularly in his life. Attempting to ‘perform’ as Jesus did when we are under pressure to compromise only frustrates most of us.” (p. 23) Maybe the reason I so rarely ask the WWJD question is I so poorly practice the spiritual disciplines needed to discern any answer to it. Again, my conscience condemns me.

My only hope in all this is Jesus – the Great Teacher himself – who endured the strictest of judgments to be found righteous in what he taught and how he lived. Jesus did not practice “do as I say, not as I do” theology; no hypocrisy trumped his hermeneutics. It is this Teacher who calls and motivates me to teach, and it is this Teacher who must empower me if I am to do likewise.

Making Beautiful Music

Continuing thoughts from my studies in Educational Leadership (see this previous post for more). Forgive the book report, but that's what it is (though hopefully more "reflective"):

“How you are tuned is another default setting in the system that is yourself. Each person is like a stringed instrument, tuned in a slightly different way from everyone else. As you go through life, your strings resonate with the environment based on your own particular tuning. Your tuning derives from many different things: your childhood experiences, genetic predispositions, cultural background, gender, and loyal identifications with various current and historical groups. Your tuning in your professional life may also be affected temporarily or long term by what is happening in your personal life.”
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, p. 195

“Your sin ignites the sin in me.”
Bill Thrall in The Ascent of a Leader

Reading in chapter 15, I really liked and “resonated” (pun intended) with the metaphor of people being stringed instruments. I also really appreciated the admonishment to be more aware of our individual “tuning” so as to be more capable of discerning what’s going on in us and in others when tension and conflict emerge.

Contagion of sin fascinates me: passages in Psalms and Proverbs promise our sin will pass down to third and fourth generations, but we also pass on sin to those in the same generation (and often the same room). “Sin migration” intrigues because, though sad, it’s so tangible to watch. My vibrating strings cause others’ string to vibrate for good or ill (and vice versa) – sometimes we make beautiful music together; other times, not so much.

I liked how the authors talked about how vibrating strings “may prevent you from seeing the situation more fully and may inhibit you from responding in productive ways” (199). I apply this idea when, over a period of a few hours or even days, I can get worked up over something that someone else’s additional vibrations playing along inflame by adding to the noise. This is why gossip and slander are so dangerous for me, and why I do my absolute best to try to avoid them – they can vibrate all too easily in my own mind and heart.

I also liked how the authors said that “the more finely tuned your strings become over time, the more you are at risk of seeing the things happening in the environment you are sensitive to, even when they are not there” (199). As a very high intuitive, I’ve caught myself responding to a lot of string vibrations that either weren’t vibrating as loudly as I perhaps thought they were, or sometimes even at all. Combine my high receptivity with a high moral (at times, moralistic) perspective, and I can die on a hill for just about anything in minutes. (It’s hard to lead people when you’ve died before the battle begins.)

This leads to the third point I really appreciated: “When others know how you are tuned, they have more power to entice you to partner with them to support their own interests or to derail you from yours” (199). This could also be translated as “pulling one’s chain,” or in the authors’ language, “plucking one’s strings.” I wouldn’t say I’ve fallen prey to others too often in this, but that has more to do with the quality of character and trust of those around me more than anything.

As the authors note, our greatest strength is often our greatest weakness. My intuition can easily be an Achilles Heel in the hands of others with different motives other than love. Thankfully, those around me recognize who I am and how I think; they love me by not trying to stifle or manipulate my intuitive sense, but at the same time, they help keep it in perspective by trusting me with their need and desire for it. There's nothing like someone looking you in the eye and depending on you to keep you honest.

Apples to Apples: Case Study in Relativism

For those about to accuse me of party-pooping or being a kill-joy, rest assured: you're not the first and won't be the last. Keep in mind you're reading the blog of a guy who actually fell asleep at his senior prom, as well as on more than one occasion has used his newborn-, toddler-, and now nearly tween-children (even when behaving well) for as good an excuse as any for leaving a party early.

In other words, I'm not a game-player. But I appreciate that you might be. Just don't ask me to play with you. Ever.

That said, why blog about the game Apples to Apples? More than the fact that our family owns it, Megan and the girls love it, and we've had neighbor friends over last night and today, I'm writing about the game because it's perfect to teach kids about relativism.

I know, I know: leave it to me to ruin a perfectly good game. But stick with me (and no, I don't think the game is evil, nor have I thrown ours out). For those unfamiliar, here's the basic gist of Apples to Apples, according to the website Love to Know:

"The game is played by the Judge selecting one card from one deck and dealing cards from the other deck to the players. The object of the game is for the players to select the best card from their hand to match the word on the card selected by the Judge."

But here's what makes it "fun" (or so I'm told): the role of the Judge rotates, so the whole point of the game becomes trying to choose not what goes together, but what you think the person thinks goes together. This, of course, can vary depending on the Judge's relationship to you, not to mention his or her preferences, mood, or reason for choosing (or not choosing) what you present as a match.

In other words, egoism, which is a form of relativism. Thomas Hobbes would love this game; David Hume as well.

For instance, here's a round from my kids' Apples to Apples game last night:

Judge: my seven-year-old daughter

Apple card: crazy

Options: my family, cats, penguins, fairies

I might have thought my daughter would have labeled her family crazy (at times, we would certainly qualify). And yet, knowing my daughter as one particularly attune to others' feelings, she would never say that about us (or anyone else). She loves cats and likes penguins, but she doesn't think of them as crazy; they're just animals. But fairies? She's crazy about fairies (or, I should say, the idea of fairies), so that's what she chose. For her, crazy equals fairies.

Another round:

Judge: our friends' nine-year-old daughter

Apple card: dull

Options: pirates, mashed potatoes, orange juice, snowboarding

Personally, I would have chosen snowboarding here, because even after living in Colorado for twelve years, I just don't get snow sports (something about still being able to walk at the end of the day, etc.). However, as our friends' nine-year-old daughter (who is as black and white in the decision-making process as they come) was the judge, three guesses as to which she picked? Yep, mashed potatoes. For her, dull equals mashed potatoes.

Again, I'm not trying to bash Apples to Apples - it's an entertaining game and kids of all ages tend to like it (even some of my high school students are fans). Instead, I'm thinking that here's a perfect opportunity to teach our kids about worldview and human nature by helping them recognize what's really going on that makes the game so enjoyable.

When we're the Judge, we get to make the matches, while everyone else trying to win has to please us to do so. We don't have to have good reasons (or any reasons at all) for what we choose - the matches are in the eye of the beholder - and we can even choose against reason to spite someone else just because we can.

But what happens when we're not the Judge? What about when someone (or Someone) else is? Hmmm.

If you never invite me over for board games, I'll completely understand. And don't worry: I'll probably be relieved.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

I've been reading a really great book called The Practice of Adaptive Leadership by Ronald Heifetz, Marty Linksy, and Alexander Grashow (otherwise known as the Cambridge Leadership Associates). These three guys teach leadership in executive education programs at Harvard, New York University, and Duke Corporate Education, and unlike a lot of leadership authors I've read (and there have been many), they do a great job converging the theoretical with the practical in very readable prose. Two quotes and a couple thoughts from the first 25 pages:

“People love change when they know it is a good thing…What people resist is not change per se, but loss…Adaptive leadership almost always puts you in the business of assessing, managing, distributing, and providing contexts for losses that move people through those losses to a new place.” The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, p. 22-23

I tend to enjoy rather than dread change. This may surprise some who know me as a systematic thinker – an intuitive creative-type both logical and methodical in his art – but while I don’t consider myself particularly entrepreneurial, I get bored with the status quo. I tend to embrace change not for change’s sake but because there’s a problem that requires a new solution; as I like solving things, change then – regardless of what it is or entails – becomes an accepted and necessary means to resolution, no questions asked.

Megan, on the other hand, is addicted to change – she loves it and craves it (thankfully, she has yet to scratch the itch of being married to the same man for nearly thirteen years) and adjusts fairly well in the midst of it. I’m grateful for her flexibility, and have more than taken advantage of it by moving our family 9 times in the past 12 years.

Because of my temperament (which in the midst of change tends to be especially objective and detached, probably as a protection mechanism), I can forget about the loss that change often represents to others. I experienced this in the later years of our time with The Navigators, when every day of trying to turn an ailing ministry property around was full of change, and people’s unwillingness to accept it seemed ridiculous. Why would someone want to stay in a system that wasn’t working? Why resist change when the status quo was just that?

The answer I didn’t see then – partially blinded by zeal for what I was being asked to do, as well as by my age and experience up to that point – was that it wasn’t change people feared, but loss – of the familiar, of their control, of their identity. There’s a difference between causing change and being changed; most of us prefer the former to the latter.

“When your organization calls you a leader, it is rewarding you for doing what your authorizers want you to do…Adaptive leadership is not about meeting or exceeding your authorizers’ expectations; it is about challenging some of those expectations, finding a way to disappoint people without pushing them completely over the edge.” The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, p. 26

I recently had an experience in which I did something that, were it not for the politics involved, would normally have been affirmed and held high as an example by the leadership over me of what we as an educational entity are about. Instead, because of what I perceive to be equal parts fear and picking one’s battles, my actions were approved of (but not applauded), tolerated (but not endorsed), and largely ignored (but hardly forgotten). Honestly, I can’t deny my disappointment, but in a fit of maturity (and they don’t come too often), I suppose I understand.

I remember once – after experiencing a similar situation with different leadership over me – asking my director at the time if I was difficult to lead. I imagined that a response of “Well, sometimes, yes,” might help me understand why I struggled to toe the party line, especially in light of the politics of that situation. Strangely (to me, at least) the answer was “No,” which was also disappointing – in my pride, I thought I was more of a handful than he gave me credit.

The good news in both of these situations is/was that I have/had good leaders above me who do/did not react with knee-jerk force – they presumably saw my value, both as a person and employee, and did not try to lessen my contribution by censuring or firing me for my ideas and actions. The bad news is that I continue to wonder where the line is between being a “yes man” and being an adaptive leader willing to challenge my organization’s expectations of me for the sake of the greater good.

More thoughts to come, I'm sure. If you're looking for a book on leadership, this would be a good one.

Closure?

Been trying to figure out how to bring closure to the Obama speech conversation. Terry Mattingly's Scripps Howard article from our interview might suffice. Enjoy (or don't).

Putting the Mental in Fundamentalist

The hubbub caused by President Obama's planned "Welcome Back" speech to school children on Tuesday is interesting to say the least. For those of you just tuning in to the debate, here's a helpful summary of arguments from all sides concerning the public school arena - not much I could or would add to any of that. However, as I haven't read much from a Christian private school perspective, let me get the conversation started.

On Friday, Westminster received several phone call from parents asking if the school was going to participate in watching the President's speech. The official WCA position for this and other such live presentations is that they are not to take the place of our own academic presentations - those prepared lessons that fit within the planned curriculum for the courses we teach; thus, as guided by our scope and sequence, there is no official planned showing of the President's live presentation in WCA classrooms on Tuesday.

Maybe because we've already had three weeks of school and the idea of a "Welcome Back" speech seems past the expiraton date, I didn't think too much about the email. While I always want to consider whether something like this applies to what we're talking about in Ethics, in light of the fact that my students are gearing up for their first major test next week (and Tuesday finishes up our discussion for that), I figured I'd watch the speech on YouTube and, if anything seemed to apply, bring it in to class afterward.

This idea might get complicated, however, as apparently we had parents (not a lot, but a vocal few) express that if WCA showed the speech, they would keep their kids home from school.

Seriously?

When I got home later in the day, I asked Megan what she had been reading in the blogosphere about President Obama's planned speech, and she told me there were several "sick out" campaigns being organized for Tuesday, mostly by parents whose kids were in public school (though homeschoolers seemed all too eager to jump on the bandwagon as well). When I told her about the phone calls at Westminster, her response was the same as mine.

Seriously?

Am I missing something here? If it's not in the home (and why a homeschooling family would not use this as an opportunity for discussion I have no idea - we are), I would think parents would at least want their kids engaging live presentations like President Obama's in a Christian school, where I as a teacher am going to ask questions like "What can we affirm?" (importance of education, faithful study, etc.) or "What needs to be challenged?" (ideas different from Scriptural truth, etc.). It shouldn't matter who the speaker is - these are the conversations I would think a parent would be PRAYING to take place. Why keep your kids home from them? This logic does not compute; after all, why are they/we here?

At some point, Christians have got to stop putting the mental in fundamentalist and start interacting with the world. Teaching our kids to stick their heads in the sand and ignore anyone they may not totally agree with is, in a word, unChristian. Folks, we can't counter the culture unless we encounter the culture, so let's take off the blinders, read through Acts 17 again, and be some salt and light around here for crying out loud.

Thoughts?

Rejections & Feedback & Pub Boards (oh, my!)

I should have shared this a few weeks ago, but with school officially starting, I didn't make the time. For those following along on the book publishing front, here's the bad news: all three publishers I spoke with in May have officially passed on ThirtySomewhere. Obviously, this was not exactly where I was hoping to be by the end of summer, but alas, it's where we are now.

The feedback was interesting to consider. One publisher's "pub board" (a group comprised of editors and sales and marketing people) said that, "ThirtySomewhere's audience likely would consider the topic in a magazine but not necessarily a complete book."

Obviously I don't agree...unless one thinks the experience of a decade of life can really be reduced to 1000 words. Sure, a well-written magazine article can be helpful, but it's certainly limited in its depth and effect. Is their issue that the content wouldn't fill a book, or that the audience wouldn't read one? As sales and marketing folks were involved in the decision, I'm guessing the latter drove the decision.

I understand the tension, especially considering the economy and the up-in-the-air status of the print industry; however, the reality is that books are not getting published today for the worth of their content but for the fame of their authors and the potential of their sales. My co-author, Doug Serven, responded to the news this way: "Disappointing. Maybe we should be Tim Keller and then they'd want to do it."

Maybe. Or maybe we keep writing something that, if and when someone ever takes another chance on us, is worth reading and not just selling.

Here's another pub board's feedback:

"While there have been some positive responses to the content and to your style of writing, the conclusion many came to was that this is going to be a hard sell. While TwentySomeone was timely when it came out (and did fairly well), the sentiment here is that a generational book is not so timely now. I realize that your intent is to look more at life stages and life experiences as the shaping influences, but even with that, from a sales perspective it's hard to see the consumer interest in the topic now. We may be wrong, sometimes are, but we have to go on what we know and sense from the very difficult retail world right now."

Interesting, especially since the publisher knew (and even acknowledged in his email) that we don't think of our book as a generational book; it is a stage of life book. I would agree that generational books are not as en vogue as they were perhaps 15-20 years ago (Generation X, anyone?), but did the world suddenly misplace millions of literate thirty-year-olds, or are there just no thirty-year-olds left who care enough about this stage of their lives to read about it? I know what I know, but I guess the pub board knows (or thinks they know) something different.

So, we're at a bit of a fork in the road. And yet, since we still believe this book is worth both writing and reading, we're pursuing other avenues. If you or anyone you know works in publishing and might be interested in a proposal on helping thirty-somethings find their place in a decade of possibilities, let me know, as we're trying to find our place in the world of publishing in order to reach them.

15-Year Old Hopes, Needs & Expectations

Few things are more exciting to me than fresh starts, and today's first day of school was no exception. I have 109 students this year - three sections of sophomores in Biblical Ethics and two sections of freshmen in New Testament. I've taught 25% of these kids in previous years, but the rest are newbies for me, so I've got a lot of new names and faces to learn (I give myself no longer than two weeks to get them down, as that's important).

What a great day: late start (for the kids, that is) at 9:30; shortened 40-minute class periods; lots of familiar faces (and even a few hugs) from former students. Now in my third year teaching the same classes, I actually feel as if I finally know what I'm doing, and having done some initial prep work the previous two years, I could concentrate more on the students without being so distracted by the details. It was fun.

After the initial awkward welcomes and greetings, I live-narrated a 3-minute digital scrapbook of pictures I threw together in iPhoto as a way to introduce myself. Set to Randy Newman's song, "You've Got a Friend in Me," the slideshow moved quickly, and at the end, I invited the students to ask any question they might want to ask as follow-up to what they saw.

A lot of questions were predictable (What's your middle name? Do you have any pets? What were you thinking having four girls so close together?). Here was the funniest question of the day (with exact phrasing): "Mr. Dunham, I'm trying to figure it out, but how would you describe your style of dress?" I confessed I wasn't sure I had one, so this girl came up with one for me: "I'm going to call it 'comfy-casual.'" "Works for me," I said. She smiled, and just like that, we bonded.

Next, I handed out an over-sized notecard to each of the students and, over the course of the 15 minutes or so, asked them to write out and complete the following sentences, which we would share and talk about as a group:

• "I hope Ethics/New Testament class..."
• "I need Ethics/New Testament class..."
• "I expect Ethics/New Testament class..."

The answers were what you might expect - "fun, interesting," etc. - but some went into more detail on their actual cards, which I collected (along with two prayer requests) at the end of class. Some of the kids really got that my classes are meant to be more than requisites for graduation (which they are, requisites, that is); their hopes, needs, and expectations were heartfelt in their desire to learn and walk with God, and I was glad to read them along with the things for which they asked prayer.

Those requests were interesting as well. I was a bit surprised how honest some of them were, even on the first day. There are always the medical requests for sick grandparents or pets (not necessarily in that order), but one theme I picked up on more than usual was a specific stated tension between kids and their fathers (very rarely their mothers). With a slight lump in my throat, I thought a lot about this as I put my girls to bed tonight, saying a prayer for my own kids as well as those I have at school. Stuff like this must break God's heart; I know it does mine.

Tomorrow, we'll deal with more of the nuts and bolts stuff (syllabus, readings, assignments, etc.) before I turn them lose for the weekend with no homework (I don't give any over weekends anyway) and we get into things in earnest next week. But I don't want to lose sight of the realities with which these students began trusting me even the first day out of the blocks. Their busy and dramatic worlds are as jumbled and confusing as anybody's, and I hope/need/expect Ethics/New Testament class to be some part of God's work in their lives this coming year. Let it be so, Lord, in too many ways to count.

July Update

Megan and I have been in de-cluttering mode as of late, getting rid of stuff we don't need, won't use, and can't believe we are still hanging onto. It's been a good process and one I wish we'd engage in more frequently, especially now that we have no moves on the horizon (though I'm not sure all those really helped us - we just schlepped the stuff along with us and everything else).

We are very different in our perspective on things, and have been from the beginning of our marriage. While I am purely utilitarian with only a trace of sentimentality and even less tolerance for space taken up, Megan has a much more complicated evaluation equation that includes price paid, potential resale value, and every possible future use imaginable (regardless of whether we actually plan to sell or use something down the road) in addition to sentiment and family history.

This difference of evaluation has caused more than one healthy disagreement in our marriage as to the state of our estate over the years, and both of us have had to learn to compromise in order to accommodate the other at various times and seasons in our marriage. Thankfully (at least from my perspective), July looks to fall in my favor as Megan has caught a bit of my bug (I have the spiritual gift of throwing things away) and has worked hard doing some summer cleaning that has yielded good results.

If only I could apply her newly-discovered diligence concerning the house to my writing and the purging of all the stuff lying around within my head concerning it. After taking a week to recover from the South Dakota trip during the last two weeks of June, I find myself with just another two week window before our family trip to Florida at the end of July. From the point of our return from that trip, it's just two weeks before school starts, and summer - and my season of scribing - is officially over.

Two goals I have for the next two weeks: 1) organize and edit the 190+ pages into some kind of sense-making narrative (it's there, but just takes time to find); and 2) figure out how to extend the writing season to more of a year-round reality (this will take some effort in light of finishing up my second masters this next year, but it needs to happen).

Doug and I are still waiting to hear back from WaterBrook Press as to their decision to publish ThirtySomewhere (no news is good news, I suppose, but it sure would be motivating to lock in a contract, especially since they have first right of refusal according to our TwentySomeone contract). Megan and I have received two rejection emails on the book idea we're working on, but that's secondary right now in light of everything else. Much change is going on in the publishing world, so it's interesting pitching ideas to publishers who are trying to figure out where their industry is really going.

So, for those few still following along, that's the latest. If something changes, I'll let you know here. In the meantime, thanks for caring.

Mid-June Update

It's been a good start to the summer on multiple fronts around here. The weather has been (for the most part) a little cooler than normal, and we've enjoyed doing more outdoor stuff than usual as a result. The girls have been a lot of fun to hang out with, and Megan has done a good job of planning plenty of fun things for them to do. We're even growing a garden. It's been fun.

I've made good progress on ThirtySomewhere, and am pleased with my efforts in culling from all my post-30 journal entries and blog posts about 190 double-spaced pages of solid edited material. It's been fun retracing steps of the past eight years, and I'm newly reminded of just how sovereign God really is and has been in my life, bringing me to where I am now. It's been an enjoyable exercise.

The next step in the process is taking the material and sorting it out into one of the twelve already-outlined chapters, seeing what fits and makes sense, and then knitting it together with transitions and necessary new material to really flesh out the main ideas. Doug's doing a similar thing on his end, so my hope is that by the time I get back at the end of June, we'll have a much better idea of where the flow is, as well as where the holes are.

I'm hoping to hear back from publishers between now and July, and it would be hugely encouraging to begin this next phase with some kind of contract in hand. Editorially, the publishers I met with last month are all on board with our ideas, but the reality in book publishing is that the sales and marketing guys have the final say - regardless of how great the concept, if they don't think they can sell it, you're done. As frustrating as this is to my idealism, I've come to accept it for what it is and am just hoping for the best that they make us an offer we can't refuse.

I leave tomorrow for two weeks as part of Westminster's Summer Seminar in South Dakota and, while I hate the thought of giving up the rest of June, at least it's for a great reason. Five other staff and I are taking 22 soon-to-be seniors on what is becoming, according to senior essays of the past, one of the most significant experiences of a WCA student's high school career, and I'm glad to be part of it. I'm also much more prepared mentally and physically and have had a lot more of the kids in class, so I'm looking forward to the journey (for reflections on last year's trip - with pics! - click here and here).

Of course, the hardest part about a trip like this is being away from Megan and the girls for so long, but Megan has strategically enrolled them in some day camps the next two weeks, and my folks are helping out with some multiple-night overnights on the farm, so all should be well. It doesn't make being away any easier for me (I deal with incredible self-induced guilt even for a night), but hopefully the girls won't notice quite as much as they'll be happily occupied.

So, that's the latest. Thanks for checking in here periodically, as well as for being patient with me as I focus on some other, more delayed gratification kind of writing this summer. I may post a few things here and there from what Doug and I are coming up with next month, but we'll see how things go. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of June and I'll catch you in July.

Four Years Later

Covenant Theological Seminary Graduation, May 15, 2009

Master of Arts in Theological Studies

(Photo by Kelly Park)

500

If anybody's still reading, you know I've been dragging my feet a bit on this, my 500th post here at Second Drafts. The reason is partly due to the fact that I haven't had much to write about (or time to write about it), and partly because I've been waiting for just the right topic to inspire me for this post's supposed significance.

Significance, however, is overrated. So, to bring some closure (at least for now), I thought I'd give you a peek into what I'll be doing over the next four months and simply call it a post. Of course, I may throw a picture or thought up here every now and then just to surprise folks, but for now, consider this the official start of my blogging sabbatical.

In the meantime, here's what I plan to be doing:

May
1-3: First official Dunham family camping trip of the season
8-10: Meet with potential ThirtySomewhere publishers in Colorado Springs
14-15: Covenant Seminary baccalaureate/graduation
23: Westminster Christian Academy graduation
29: School's out for summer

June
ThirtySomewhere writing/editing
Covenant Seminary Bookstore (one day a week)
5-7: Clayton Community Theatre's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
12-14: Clayton Community Theatre's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
15-27: Westminster Christian Academy Summer Seminar in South Dakota
29: St. Louis Cardinals game

July
ThirtySomewhere writing/editing
Covenant Seminary Bookstore (one day a week)
19-25: Dunham family trip to Florida
27: St. Louis Cardinals game

August
ThirtySomewhere writing/editing
Covenant Seminary Bookstore (one day a week)
10: St. Louis Cardinals game
13: Westminster Christian Academy first day of school
31: ThirtySomewhere manuscript to publisher

In terms of the work, I tend to write best in the early morning, so when I'm not traveling or working the bookstore, my daily schedule will involve getting up at 4:30 or 5 a.m., writing for 3-4 hours, and then editing/revising a couple hours that afternoon. My goal will be 1500-2000 solid words (about 4-5 pages, double-spaced) per day. If I can put together 100-125 good pages and edit them together with roughly the same number from Doug by end of summer, we'll be in great shape.

So, stay tuned/subscribed for the occasional pic or progress report, but any prayers and general words of encouragement for the project are greatly appreciated.

Have a great summer.

All Must Be Well

My mom and I had lunch Saturday, as she was in town for a Mary Kay conference at the St. Louis Convention Center. I took her to Tigin, an Irish pub Megan and I had discovered as part of a mystery shop date a few months ago - cool place. I can't remember the last time I had a meal with my mom that didn't include Dad, Megan, or any combination of children, so we had a novel time catching up.

The conversation went a variety of directions, but one topic that came up was all the debt America is accruing and the impact of that on multiple generations. I've never known Mom to get upset by too many things political, but she had obviously spent some time thinking about the consequences for her children and grandchildren. She was concerned, she said, and spoke of how, the older she gets, the more realistic she's trying to be in adding to - rather than spending - our inheritance.

Thanking her for her thoughtfulness and honesty, I shared a little of my perspective (semi-transcribed versions here and here if you're interested) on the mess the government is making of the financial sector, as well as a little about the moral dilemmas (here, here, here, here, and here just to link a few) that will impact our nation's future in ways as significant as any financial crisis. The conversation could have turned into a real bummer had not we ended up agreeing there's really little hope for things apart from the grace of God. Simply put, it was a good and meaningful time.

Finishing lunch and dropping Mom off at the Convention Center for the rest of her conference, I made my way to Clayton for a wedding. My friend and teaching colleague, Abby Doriani, was due to get married at 2:00, but I underestimated the hassle the I-64 repair shutdown from Kingshighway to Hanley would be and realized I was going to be late. I finally made it to Clayton, found a parking place, and ran up to the church, figuring I missed Abby's procession, but would at least make it for the remainder of the ceremony and reception.

As I opened the front door to sneak in, I almost ran over Abby's dad, Dr. Dan Doriani, who was leading Abby and the bridesmaids up the stairs into the foyer before proceeding into the sanctuary. As I had Dr. Doriani for several classes at Covenant, I smiled and shook his hand, trying to be mindful of the fact that he probably had a lot on his mind and now might not be the best time for small talk. I waved to Abby, who looked beautiful in her wedding gown, and then I headed up the stairs to the sanctuary to find a seat.

At the top of the stairs, I saw Abby's mother, Debbie, and gave her a hug. Far from being a dreaded mother-of-the-bride, Debbie was all smiles, asked how I was, thanked me for coming to the wedding, and reassured me there were plenty of seats left, but I would have to go in after Abby and her dad did as the seating of grandparents had already started. She gave me a quick wave, then took her place at the door to the sanctuary and was escorted in by one of the ushers, followed by Abby's first two bridesmaids.

This left Abby, her dad, her two younger sisters (each of whom was a matron/maid of honor), and me standing in the foyer. Abby noticed me trying to blend into the wall so as not to intrude on the family moment, but as it obviously wasn't working, she humorously asked how I was enjoying my behind-the-scenes experience of her wedding. I laughed and said I was just taking notes. Her sisters each gave her a kiss and went in, and then it was Abby's turn to walk arm-in-arm with her dad through the doors to get married.

More than most, the wedding ceremony was a very warm reminder of how the God-given institution of marriage is (and is to be) a reflection of Christ's relationship with his bride, the Church. In his charge to the couple, Dr. Doriani spoke of the differences between romantic and divine love, but stressed the need for both in marriage. Vows were taken, the community affirmed them, and everyone rejoiced in the fact that two were becoming one before their very eyes. It was a beautiful thing, and afterward, we all went downstairs for cake and punch (another beautiful thing).

For me, the afternoon was an insightful one: in light of the good but sobering discussion with Mom at lunch, I needed the reassurance of Christ's relationship with his Church that a marriage ceremony can provide; despite the pressures of the day, I saw parents who didn't make their daughter's marriage all about them (or even about her), but about Christ's relationship with his Church; and, strangely for the first time, I imagined my own daughters getting married - each with her three sisters as bridesmaids - and prayed that their weddings would reflect Christ's relationship with his Church as well...even if there's little money to pay for them...or even less morality left in our culture to care.

This morning at church, we sang the following verse:

"We expect a bright tomorrow, all will be well
Faith can sing through days of sorrow, all is well
On our Father's love relying, Jesus every need supplying
Yes, in living or in dying, all must be well"

Because of Christ's relationship with his Church, all must be well...both in the now and the not yet. I needed that reminder, and I'm grateful to God for it this Lord's Day.

Approaching Normality?

"Normality: being within certain limits that define the range of normal functioning."

I've not been motivated to write much of late as 1) there's been so little interaction here on the site the past two months; and 2) I'm up to my eyeballs reading and writing. For those anticipating email from me for one reason or another, hang in there - it's coming.

As it's now March, I'm newly-stoked about the fact that, in roughly 2 1/2 months, I'll be on the backside of a seminary degree and another school year of teaching. This summer will mark our fifth year in St. Louis, which doesn't really seem possible. Time flies when you're in transition, I guess, and it's felt like we've been in transition most of that time.

Thankfully, it's beginning to feel less transitory, and I hope this trend continues as we expect getting a more "normal" summer under our belts. Currently, I have no plans to 1) take summer classes; 2) buy a house; nor 3) move. I do plan to go to South Dakota again with 25 WCA high schoolers in June, possibly make a trip to a beach in Florida with Megan and the girls in July, and finish (finally) writing the ThirtySomewhere book with Doug by mid-August, but that's about it (and that's enough).

Between now and then, I've got a downstairs at home to fix up and paint over Spring Break, six hours of course credit to finish at Covenant, and four commandments and half of the New Testament left to teach (not to mention all the grading that goes with that). I've also got plenty of husbanding and parenting to do, so that should keep me out of trouble.

In many ways, it feels like I'm coming to the end of a particular chapter of life. How do I know a new chapter might be beginning? Several reasons, but mostly because U2's got a new album coming out tomorrow, and that usually means something cosmically significant for us (more on that, perhaps, in a future post).

More Than Daddy Day Care

For Valentine's Day (not really, but it's a happy coincidence), I'm sending Megan to the Rochester L'abri conference taking place this weekend "way up nort der in Minnes-O-ta." I'm excited for her to go - certainly for the content and experience, but also for the time away and alone for a long weekend - and mercifully, the weather for Rochester looks to be almost warm for the upper Midwest this time of year (highs in the lower 30s).

Obviously, the implication of Megan being gone Thursday through Sunday is pretty impacting on our family. Since I still have to teach Thursday and have a full day of teacher in-service on Friday, our friends the Sargents and the McMillens have graciously agreed to take our brood in half-day shifts today. On Friday, one of my students is hosting the girls for all the Dance Dance Revolution they can handle (thanks, Julie). Apart from that, it'll just be the ladies and me, which could be fun...that is, if I don't screw it up.

So far, I've got a few plans in place: half-price shakes at Steak-n-Shake Friday afternoon; Friday night movies at home with the Back to the Future trilogy; a field trip or two on Saturday to the Science Center (we're members) and the Art Museum (it's free), with some reading time in the afternoon/evening; church and naps on Sunday - in general, more fun than you can shake a stick at.

For those who have kids, you know all this "fun" takes a lot of work. I love my girls, but the energy required to keep up with them - especially after a full week of teaching and this weekend as a single parent - can be difficult to muster. I need to go to bed when they do (which Megan never does), as well as lower my expectations of what else I might get done (which I never do) to really have a shot at making the most of the time.

Though I much prefer having Megan with us, my time alone with the girls is important - it's different from their normal routine and provides opportunity for me to relate with them differently as well. This doesn't mean trying to be both father and mother to them - no one can do that - but it does mean trying to exhibit a fuller essence of fatherhood in the physical absence of motherhood.

Make no mistake: I may be the head of our home, but Megan is the heart of it. "All father, all the time" is not God's best (just as "all mother, all the time" is not either). Still, I think God gives windows of opportunity when time with one or the other parent is concentrated for the purpose of building relationship with that parent, while at the same illustrating the need for the other as well. I want to do my best to build depth into our relationships, but I know in trying to do so, my girls will recognize their father's need for their mother (not to mention their own similar need as well). Thankfully, and by the grace of God, this disequilibrium somehow provides a sense of family stability.

So, we're playing with some big stakes this weekend. And, while some may say I'm making more of everything than I should (when was the last time I ever did that?), I'm convinced that for a father (and a father of daughters especially), the challenge of parenting is overcoming his desire not to do so. Providing for, protecting - we as men get these ideas. But parenting? That requires real men to show up and play, as to play with our kids is sometimes the hardest thing in the world for us to do.

(FYI: Megan's latest post at World on the Web is up. She also has information on how to purchase a new book - Through His Eyes: God's Perspective on Women in the Bible by Jerram Barrs - at a discount rate here.)

New Year's Revolution

There's a saying I like that goes like this:

"Great people talk about ideas.
Average people talk about things.
Small people talk about each other."

One of my favorite "great people" in the Bible is Nehemiah, a man God used to rebuild the wall surrounding Jerusalem and the Temple so that Old Testament Israel could safely return to that city. So much of how and why Nehemiah did what he did can be found in the first chapter of his book:

"The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the capital, 2 that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. 3 And they said to me, 'The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.'

4 As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, m confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.

8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’

10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”

Three things stick out to me:

1. Nehemiah pondered what God had done (past)
2. Nehemiah prayed to learn what God was doing (present)
3. Nehemiah planned for what God would do (future)

But Nehemiah did more than talk about ideas; he did something with them. Consider Nehemiah 4:9 and his description of how they worked to rebuild the wall in the face of opposition:

"And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night."

In other words, planning takes wonder, but planning also takes work. We can dream about the possibilities, but calculating what goes into them (and then working the equation to bring them into reality) has to be included as well.

On the dawn of a New Year, real change often goes beyond just making resolutions; it requires revolution - "a sudden, complete, or radical change in something; a procedure or course back to a starting point." The difference between resolution and revolution is one letter - "v" - which in my own life I think of as standing for "violence," as we must take hold of our lives - sometimes violently if necessary - in order to see change take place.

As you consider 2009, let me encourage you with some practical steps to experience some impractical results (i.e. things God would do) in your New Year. For instance:

• Be "romantic." That is, use time's markings to measure yourself and take an inventory (good, bad, or ugly). New Year's Day is a great start to this; birthdays and holidays can be as well. In general, establish some frequent benchmarks of evaluation to help evaluate your life experience. 
• Be Word-centered. Maybe there's a personal theme for the year that sticks out as one you want/need to focus on (mine for 2009 is holiness). There are probably some books - of the Bible, on your shelf, through Amazon - that lend themselves to that focus, as within those books may be key passages to be memorized and meditated upon not just until you've got them, but until they've got you.
• Be reflective. Give yourself permission and time to think, to feel, to process. Model reflection to others in order to challenge your own. Write things down and re-read them periodically as you go. Talk with others and invite them into your endeavors. Most importantly, talk with God, as He's the one who gave you the thoughts and feelings in the first place.
• Be purposeful. In other words, do it now. Books only get read when they're read; ideas only get recorded when they're written down. Identify a few purposes for the year, make some monthly objectives to accomplish those, and then break down the weekly and daily steps to get them done (often it's not the work but figuring out what the work is that's hard). What's next? Do them!

May God give success and grant mercy in your pursuits, and may 2009 be in this way a very happy New Year indeed.

Breather for Now

I pulled the first all-nighter of my seminary career last night, writing 20 one-page reflections and cramming for the final exam for my Old Testament History class. I went to bed from 8:30 to 11 p.m. last night, got up and worked until 5:30 this morning, dozed for half an hour before getting up and teaching the day at school. I then came home and slept for an hour before dinner, studied, took the exam online, and am just now feeling as if I'm on the final approach toward finishing the semester. All that remains is reading two books for my Ancient Near East class and writing two ten-page papers by Tuesday, and I'm done. Piece of (a semi-large) cake.

Believe it or not, I felt pretty good today despite my sleep deprivation, but I was a little sheepish confessing to my students that Mr. Dunham did the very thing he encourages them not to do (procrastinate) and is paying the price. Somehow, with finals week next week, they were less than sympathetic, but thankfully Megan was, keeping a steady flow of coffee going last night and covering my bookstore shifts yesterday and today so I could knock everything out (thanks, Sweetie).

As of tomorrow I'll have both my final exams written for my students and will then need to dive headfirst into a pool of project papers and original parables before next week or I'll be up a creek trying to grade 103 exams on top of all that. At least the papers will all be different, so that will make them more interesting than usual.

In other news, I got official word today that all I need to graduate in May is Christian Ethics, a three-hour course taught by Anthony Bradley. Unfortunately, the course is not offered next semester, so I've already talked with Anthony about doing an independent study with him to meet the requirement. While I really would like to take the class normally, I'm excited by the idea of wrapping up my seminary career (or at least the theological studies part of it) with this kind of learning experience (I'll also be taking a three-hour course called Teaching and Learning, which counts toward the educational ministries degree I'll continue working on past May).

So, there's your educational update for the end of the semester. For any of you of the praying persuasion, pray I can finish well both with my studies and my students, and that I'd actually learn something in the process as well. Oh, and feel free to share any finals week horror stories from this or yesteryear if it will help your therapeutic process. The doctor is in (and it won't even cost you a nickel to comment).

Not Even Jack Bauer Can Get Us Out of This One

Powerful episode of 24 Sunday night. "Redemption" caught us up with illegal expatriate Jack Bauer (played by Keifer Sutherland) coming to the aid of African children kidnapped to be made into child soldiers under a would-be dictator.

As always, the show's story was straight out of news headlines, even including a presidential transfer of power in Washington, with the only major detail missed being the casting of the new President as a woman instead of a black man (apologies to both Senators Clinton and Obama). In a word, the episode was heartbreaking, as the use of thousands of child soldiers is going on in at least 17 different countries today.

For the past two years, Westminster has been involved with an organization called Invisible Children, whose Schools for Schools initiative exists "to creatively raise money for the schools of northern Uganda, improving the quality of education for war-affected students." So far this fall, the WCA student body has raised over $15,000 (mostly in spare change) to help the same secondary school in Gulu that we helped last year, ranking us first in the country of all participating U.S. schools with less than a month to go of the 100-day window.

While I'm not a big fan of the competitive giving strategy utilized by the organization (and enabled by Westminster), I was glad that one WCA student, as well as my friend and teaching colleague, Ann Heyse, "won" the opportunity to represent our school in Gulu this past summer. Ann spent six weeks with Invisible Children, training teachers and teaching students with her expertise in English, and based on both her personal testimony and her excellently-written blog documenting her experience, it seems the organization does good work in a place that needs much good work done.

Last night, as I watched the two-hour teaser that creatively gets Jack Bauer back to the United States for the show's seventh full season beginning in January, I found myself overwhelmed by the realism of it all...that is until one particular commercial break when there was a quick screen shot for the Human Rights Watch website, followed immediately by a national Pizza Hut commercial, and then a local ad for St. Louis' very own Casino Queen ("home of the loosest slots"). Whew. Assuagement by advertising.

What an incredibly confusing postmodern culture we have created, one in which almost every aspect of life is separated from any true and meaningful meta-narrative. How strange to go from African children dying to ordering two-for-one pizzas to having a great time gambling, all in the course of 60 seconds. And yet for those of us who have been breathing this postmodern air our entire lives, the progression doesn't seem strange at all; it is exactly what we have come to expect (at least, that is, before God's revelatory red pill of the gospel allows us to see power, gluttony, and greed for what they really are).

We live in a broken world, friends. Whether in Africa or America, ours is both a needy place and time to be alive, and not even Jack Bauer can get us out of this one.

The Reverse

As mortgage payments tend to be more than the rent kind, I started a second job this week working part-time in Covenant Seminary's bookstore. It's a good schedule for me that works with my teaching: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 4-6 p.m., and about every other Saturday from 9:30-2:30. In addition, Megan will cover the Saturday shift occasionally, as well as do some work for the bookstore once its new website launches later next month.

Our new bosses are the bookstore's new owners, Nick and Suzanne Gleason, both of whom we've known for a few years and attend church with at Memorial. Nick worked in the bookstore for several years' worth of seminary days, and just last month bought the store from its previous owner. The Gleasons are now in the process of building upon the bookstore's "good books" reputation, as well as improving some systems and general use of space at the seminary that, well, need some improving.

This is the first time I've ever worked a job in retail, and I confess I've gone back and forth on whether I'm cut out for it. Whereas Megan's personality (ISTJ) and past experience (she worked at several home decorating/fabric stores in high school, as well as ran the bookstore at Eagle Lake for years) lend themselves well to a retail environment, yours truly felt like a fish out of water, gutted, and packed in a can on my first day. The cash register scared me; the credit card machine even more so. It's no fun learning a job while physically handling other people's money...in front of them.

Halfway through my second day, I was feeling better about the technical end of things, that is until a semi-huge wave of insecurity washed over me as I was adjusting books and restocking inventory. A professor at the seminary had walked in, seen me, and the conversation went something like this:

Him: "Hey! Good to see you. Are you helping out in the bookstore today?"

Me: "No. I'm a new employee."

Him: "So you're not teaching anymore?"

Me: "Oh, I'm still teaching."

Him: (puzzled look) "Oh."

Me: (sheepish look) "Yeah."

I'm not sure why I was slightly embarrassed; it certainly wasn't because of my part-time job (books? are you kidding?), nor does it have anything to do with my full-time job (teaching the Bible on a daily basis? what more could I want?). Maybe it's that I'm having to work two jobs to make ends meet, but even then I'm grateful God is providing for our family through both of them.

No, I think my insecurity stemmed from my realization that I seem to have an uncanny knack for doing just about everything in reverse order, which has to be some kind of corollary of George Castanza's "opposite" theory. Here are just three examples (there are more) of my "reverse" tendencies:

• Go into ministry full-time for 12 years, then attend seminary


• Get a job teaching full-time, then take education classes


• Write a book, then work in a bookstore

What's next? Keep a blog, then become narcissistic?

Summer Seminar: A Summary (part 2)

After another 50 miles of biking on the Mickelson Trail (broken up over two days), the novelty of the South Dakota experience began to wear thin. At times, it was downright burdensome, as I was dealing with 28 high school seniors who I so desperately wanted to see "get it" with regard to the academic aspect of the trip, but wasn't sure all of them were. For instance:

"Yesterday on the trip back from Mystic, I listened to seven senior boys wax eloquent on the virtues and 'awesome-ness' of Pokemon, beginning with the cards they used to play with in third grade and culminating in a discussion of their best strategies for the video game now. This went on for at least half an hour before they changed topics to music and the best technology for downloading songs for free.

When I asked if they knew that what they were doing was illegal, they wrote me off, saying it was a 'gray area,' and went on to talking about something else, with little desire for explanation or questions for discussion. They had already made up their minds as to what they needed the law to be, so that's what the extent of the conversation was as well. This, on top of many of the girls not being able to complete a sentence without, like, using the word 'like' three times (minimum), and I recognize how overly judgmental I can be, which in itself is frustrating. I need to control my attitude better."

Having left our campsite at Custer, we hiked up and down Harney Peak (the highest peak in South Dakota) before making our way through Deadwood (hello, tourist trap), and finally into Spearfish, which I really liked. While the kids did laundry, a few of us staff visited a local coffeeshop, checked out the bookstore at Black Hills State University, and then we all took an afternoon trip across the Wyoming state line to see Devil's Tower (cool, but you only need to see it once). That evening, we made a really tough (1,000-ft. in three-fourths of a mile) hike up Spearfish Canyon, but the sunset at the end was a nice reward.

Leaving from Spearfish the next morning, we hiked Bear Butte, one of the most sacred Indian religious sites for the Plains Indians and a historic meeting point for many of the most famous chiefs like Red Cloud and Sitting Bull. As we had done at most of our major stopping points, we had our final "core" here, the third of our ethics track. In general, the students seemed to enjoy these formal presentation times (nine altogether) from their teachers, after which I would usually give a writing assignment to serve as a mechanism for response. I just would have liked more informal discussion from them along the trails and in the van that showed real interest, but the groupthink/herd mentality proved too strong.

After the hike, we drove to Pierre (pronounced "Pier") for pizza and an overnight in a hotel, before meeting back up the next morning with Caleb Gilkerson, our guide and trip outfitter in the Badlands, for two days of kayaking and a night (our last) camping out on the river. We were scheduled to do the Cheyenne, but because of all the rain, the river was too high and had covered all the campsites; thus, we opted for the White (which was anything but), and kayaked approximately 20 miles over two days to where the White met up with the Missouri.

Though the mosquitoes were bad, the food (steak and walleye) was great, and I had the best night of sleep on the trail in my tent up on the 15-foot-high sand bar (two Sominex probably had something to do with that). I enjoyed the serenity of the kayaking, but because the Missouri was so high downstream, there wasn't much of a current; it was like paddling on a lake, which was fine - we weren't in a hurry - but by the end of two half days, I had fulfilled my kayaking quota.

After pulling out of the river, we drove to Firesteel Creek Lodge to enjoy a last night in some nice accommodations before driving eleven hours home the next day. We had our last meeting as a group that evening, in which I gave the students the details of "turning in" their writing assignments (due this Saturday). I also asked them to include a self-evaluation of how they made the most of the trip (and perhaps how they didn't). I'll be interested to read their observations in hopes that sitting down to think and write about it on their own might teach them some of what we may not have on the trip.

Personally, the two weeks were impacting in several ways: I came away with a new appreciation and sympathy for Native Americans as a people (both past and present), as well as a new desire to camp and make better use of our National Park system (though don't look for us at a campsite near you anytime soon - more on that next week). I also want to read more American history and get past the broad brush strokes of my current understanding into more of our history's nuances, as well as give new consideration to environmental organizations that I perhaps had not paid as much attention to before.

And, I want to keep exposing kids - my students at Westminster, as well as my own - to these important ideas and experiences, persevering and praying them through the inevitable periods of apathy that often accompany affluence, somehow planting seeds of mercy, justice, and humility along the way that one day might grow into fruit of the same kind. In many ways, the Summer Seminar was reaffirming to my calling to teach and to write, and for that (among many other things) I'm grateful for my time in South Dakota.

Top Three Jobs I Wouldn't Want Today

In light of the news, this short list of not-so-great jobs came to mind. I'm glad I'm not

1. an Olympic torchbearer in San Francisco


2. a debate coach for General Petraeus


3. a desk attendant for American Airlines

Others?

No Joke

I had an appointment for some academic advising at Covenant this afternoon and, in the process of doing the old degree audit and figuring out what I've taken and what I still need to take, I got some good news this April Fool's Day.

Barring any major screw-ups, I should finish my MA in Theological Studies one year from now. More good news: if class scheduling works out, I could be done with my MA in Educational Ministries the following spring.

Then I's bonafide.

Bittersweet Break

Due to either brilliant planning or pathetic procrastination, my Westminster Spring Break is turning out to be more about remembering what it's like to be a full-time student than what it's like to be a teacher with a week off. On the docket:

• Listen to seven 45-minute lectures, read five chapters, complete a study guide, and take the mid-term for my Ancient & Medieval Church History class


• Write a 5-page paper for my Children's Ministry class


• Write two CD reviews and a 10-page paper for my Music & Theology class

I'm spending today at Covenant with two main purposes in mind:

1. To get away and focus (the Catacombs are a bit too chilly and noisy for extended periods of time studying)


2. To schedule some academic advising in response to Covenant's publication of next year's class schedule (if all goes well, I may actually be able to finish my Masters degree in Theological Studies a year from now)

I'm preparing myself this morning for somewhat of a bittersweet encounter, namely going to my first seminary chapel all year. In addition to seeing lots of familiar faces and sitting through an optional mid-week chapel whose participants are actually interested (unlike the mandatory weekly high school chapels I'm used to refereeing), my friend Ronnie is preaching.

Ronnie and I started seminary in the same Beginning Greek class almost three years ago. He (along with Rob, Tom, Mitchell, Josh, Mike, and dozens of others) are graduating this May with an actual Masters of Divinity degree after 36 solid months of ridiculous class loads and more Hebrew than I ever wanted (or was able) to endure.

While I'm happy and proud of all of them for gutting it out these past three years, I confess I'm more than a little sheepish about showing up today in my part-time, four-year, non-language, theological studies kind of way. Though none of them possess a superiority complex because of our divergent seminary paths, I (like the 14-year-old I perpetually think of myself as) am able to provide enough of an inferiority complex for all of us.

Indeed, I'm that gifted.

That said, I'm looking forward to what God will teach me today - about his unconditional love, about his sovereign plan, about the community of his people. I need to learn more about these things today, as they may be the only things that get me through this week of full-time seminary student studies with hope instead of drudgery as my companion.

Wow (and Whew)

Yesterday after school, Jim Marsh, headmaster at Westminster, walked into my room, shook my hand, congratulated me, and then gave me an envelope with a contract for the 2008-2009 school year. Unless I do something really stupid (or stop doing something I am apparently doing right) between now and the end of May, I have a teaching position next year.

While Megan and the girls were appropriately excited, I haven't told my students yet. I guess I just don't want them distracted by the news and overcome with the inevitable tears of joy and sure-to-come shouts of exuberance before the third quarter ends this week.

And to think, all this started almost a year ago. Wow (and whew).

Of Murder, Offerings & Dogma

In case you hadn't noticed, I've been slow with original material. I think this is due to an experience earlier this week in my Biblical Ethics class that has caused me to pause ever since with regard to creating content. Let me explain.

We began walking through the sixth commandment ("You shall not murder"), and it seemed good to me to start talking about murder by studying the first murder, that of Cain killing Abel (Genesis 4:1-16). Though my students were still groggy from their holiday break, they engaged with the story enough to find it interesting, particularly God accepting Abel's sacrifice and not Cain's. Why did God choose one over the other?

Well, actually, I explained, God didn't choose one over the other; He accepted Abel's and (in grace) gave Cain the opportunity to do what was right and his would be accepted, too:

"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:7)

Cain, of course, did not receive these words (in grace or otherwise), summoned Abel to go with him to the field, and killed him - the world's first pre-meditated murder.

Even after the crime, I explained, God still showed grace to Cain by protecting him and caring for him - now a murderer. My students were fascinated (they'd never been taught that the God of the Old Testament was in the business of so much grace), but they still wanted to know the difference between the sacrifices.

What are the possibilities for understanding God's different responses to Cain and Abel? I hadn't had time to do an in-depth study beforehand, but here were the three options I came up with on the fly:

• The first has to do with the fact that "Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions" (Genesis 4:3); in other words, Cain brought something while Abel brought his best


• The second is the attitude with which each brought their sacrifices (though from the text, that's incredibly difficult to nail down apart from God's response to both)


• The third is that Abel brought a blood sacrifice, whereas Cain's was only a grain offering and wouldn't have been appropriate for an atonement offering (it seems to me God's sacrificial system for atonement was initiated when God killed an animal to clothe Adam and Eve and make atonement for their sin in the Garden)

While I alluded to all of these possibilities as seeming valid, I spoke too dogmatically about the atonement option, so much so that by the end of my third section of students, I found myself dismissing the others more than I meant to. At the end of the day, not feeling right about all I had taught, I came home that evening and spent 45 minutes flipping through the pages of some of my study books (I don't have all of them at school).

What did I find? All three of my perspectives were indeed in the ballpark of possibility, but the atonement option (that is, the one I landed on) is the weakest of the three as viable. Why? Because in the Hebrew, the word used for "offering" is almost always used in reference to a thank offering, not a blood offering; thus, the first option (and even the second) makes more biblical and grammatical sense than the third.

Nuts.

I hate feeling like a loose cannon with the Bible (this is part of why I sensed the need to come to seminary later in life), and I should have studied more than I did on the front end of teaching this passage than on the back end. Lesson learned (or re-learned).

However, the real lesson for me was learning just how dangerous repetition can be for those of us who teach or preach (or campaign) on a regular basis. The more we hear ourselves saying something - getting better at saying it as we go - the more we run the risk of convincing ourselves how right we are in saying it, regardless of our dogma and its degree of truth.

Teaching is hard; re-teaching is humbling. I did both this week, and am glad for the grace and chance to have been able to do so.

TwentySomeone at Cedar Crest

We hung out with 20 twenty-somethings this weekend near Santa Fe, MO - beautiful weather and play buddies for the kids topped off a fun weekend of teaching on this decade of transition.

I forget how much I love doing this.

One Big Game of Chess

Fellow teacher (and chess coach) Thom Johnston took this picture of Megan and the girls at Westminster's annual Carnival this past weekend. Our two oldest had a good game and played for quite a while, while their little sisters pretended to understand all the moves.

The picture makes for a good metaphor of what the next seven days look like around here; we feel like we're playing one big game of chess. In addition to the regular daytime routine, I've got first quarter grades due tomorrow, and Megan and I have How Kids Think dinners with administrators tonight and Wednesday evening. I have a project proposal for my class at Covenant due on Tuesday night, a faculty in-service on Friday, and then we're off to Miami for a series of HKT meetings with a variety of folks (teachers, homeschoolers, etc.) in south Florida.

While I'm concerned for my Queen and our little pawns, the game ends when the enemy captures the King; thus, I'm asking God to protect me (and them) and help get us all through it. I'd say the process has had us in "check" a couple of times so far, but not yet "checkmate."

Bulimic Productivity

I've spent way too much time in a staring contest with my computer this week, but at least it's been productive. Today I'll submit the first draft of my article for byFaith and maybe check email a couple of times, but that's about it. All work and no play makes Craig a very dull boy.

I wish I could figure out how to be less of a binge-and-purge writer - ingesting lots of information all at once and then vomiting it back onto the page with one intense gag reflex - but I need momentum, which drives me to the "all or nothing" process that lines up so well with the rest of my personality. Blogging is the only writing I do that is even close to being consistent (at least from a chronological perspective), but that only goes so far in terms of personal fulfillment.

Words cannot express how eager I am to get on a school schedule again next month, both at Covenant as well as at Westminster. It's no secret I function best with structure, and in the absence of it, I work extra hard to create it myself. This, of course, can take more creative energy than I sometimes want to allocate, but if I have to choose between creating something (time, space, deadlines) to create something or floundering under the tyranny of the urgent and cluttered in trying to do so, I'll take the former.

This summer has been a good experiment as to what (presumably) future years as a teacher will be like. I recognize that I'm really going to have to plan - and stick to my plan - if I'm to do any serious writing in the summers. And yet, inevitably, I will still need to figure out how to adjust those plans without seriously compromising them when they need to change for reasons beyond my control. Though I've gotten better at it over the years, it's still hard for me.

This, I suppose, is the beauty of the school year - everyone will know I'll be out of commission from 7:25 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. five days a week, as well as two nights a week from 7-9 p.m., so those won't be scheduling options. And, as silly as it sounds, that will save me a whole lot of energy in thinking about my time; I just won't get to vote.

I know some people cringe at this kind of calendar imposition, but for me, knowing those blocks of time are spoken for, it frees and motivates me to make the most of those that aren't. Sure, things will feel a little tighter, but at least I'll be spending my energies more on what I'm trying to figure out and less on scheduling when to figure it out.

There's a theory that whatever amount of time you have or allocate for a project, that will be the time it takes. For most of us, I think that's true; for me, I know it is. For that reason (and contrary to popular belief), there's something to be said for structures and limits.

When I'm not fighting against them here, here, here, and here, I'm a big fan.

Ramen from Heaven

After a busy day of class and study yesterday, I met with Dick Schamp, one of the elders at Memorial, before attending our church's session meeting later that evening. It had been a few weeks since Dick and I had gotten together, and the plan was to meet at 5 p.m. for an hour at the church, where he then had dinner with the elders at 6 and the meeting at 7 (which I planned to attend as a member of the congregation).

As usual, I had brought a book with me, and planned to sit and read from 6-7; however, as I had been a little rushed getting out the door, I had only eaten a PBJ/banana sandwich for dinner and didn't have time to pack anything else. I just figured I'd sit through the meeting semi-hungry (it's not like I'm wasting away).

When Dick and I met at five, we talked for a half hour or so inside, and then decided to go for a quick walk outside. As he's been in process with us about our transition from support to my teaching position this fall at Westminster Academy, he asked how things were going with the summer job hunt.

Enthusiastically, I was able to tell him that we haven't really had to worry about it this month, as we had a surplus in our support from May that would cover most of June. This was a good thing, I explained, as the class had turned out to be a full-time job in itself (17 two-and-a-half-hour lectures, 8 books, 4 quizzes, 1 paper, and a final exam - all in three-and-a-half weeks).

When Dick asked me about July, I told him I wasn't sure, but that so far we had $600 already in for that month. In light of all the prep work I needed to do to be ready for August (i.e. read six more books and learn an entire curriculum for two sections of New Testament Survey and three sections of Ethics), I told him that Megan and I had decided to gut it out until I officially came on payroll in August. He asked how Megan felt about that, and I told him she seemed fine with it, especially on the heels of seeing God provide the new job a month or so back.

Just then, as we were walking (picking up little pieces of trash along the church property as we went), we came upon a solitary, unopened package of Ramen noodles lying smack in the middle of the empty sidewalk. Dick, who knew I hadn't planned to eat, just started laughing as I, smiling as well, reached down for the package of noodles. "Ramen from Heaven," he said. We both just stood there, shaking our heads. I had dinner after all.

I don't know of a better story to illustrate what the past few months - as well as the past fourteen years - have been for us while raising support. God has provided through strange and (often) funny means. We try not to read into it or make ridiculous demands as a result, but we certainly have no reason to doubt him; he has been faithful to us in many ways.

As you may recall, May was officially our last month to raise support; however, many still gave for June, and that has been a providential blessing in light of how summer has played out thus far. If you gave in either month, thank you. You have helped us finish well by your generosity.

While we have no expectation for anyone to continue to give, if you feel led to help us make it through July with one last gift, we won't turn it away as we consider all that God is asking us to do in preparation for the next stage of our ministry. Our account is still open at Memorial (and will be until the end of July), so if you feel led, you can make out a check to Memorial Presbyterian Church (put our name in the memo line) and mail it to:

Memorial Presbyterian Church
201 South Skinker
St. Louis, MO 63105

Just wanted to pass this story on today.I hope it encourages you in your own faith journey to look to the Lord, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10), not to mention a Ramen noodle factory somewhere in the vicinity of Skinker Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri.

(Note: We've posted our summer update here. Check it out for most of our summer doings.)

The Interview

For those following along, my interview at Westminister (the high school, not the seminary) went well. The initial meeting with the headmaster and the four other administrators around the table was probably the toughest part - not because of them, it's just awkward to walk into a room and wax eloquent about yourself with men you've never met before. I probably did too much waxing (I have no idea whether it was eloquent) and felt my answers were too long, but no one stood up and said, "Thank you, that will be all," so I took that as a good sign.

The next interview was with L.B. Graham, the chair of the Bible department. A fellow writer born the same year I was and with many of the same interests and passions, he and I hit things off from the start, and that time was a little more comfortable than the previous meeting, probably because it was just us and I purposely kept my answers to his questions shorter.

After that meeting, L.B. took me upstairs to the class I would teach: ethics. I faced 22 sophomores I'd never met before and, though you would think those first three minutes would be the most agonizing of all, they (and the rest of the class time) went smoothly. I cracked a few dry jokes (the only kind I can tell), asked them to tell me their individual names, and then had them tell me one thing I needed to know about each of them (which I used against them later) before I got started. The ice was broken and we were off and swimming.

The prep I had done on the Eighth Commandment ("you shall not steal") came together well during the time, and there was some good interaction and more than a few laughs (which is always important). At the end of my allotted time, the students actually applauded, which L.B. says never happens, and I took that as another good sign. From there, we walked back to his office, I asked a few more questions about the school, and he then walked me out as he headed for the headmaster's office to process the afternoon and...

Just got off the phone with the headmaster (seriously - he just called while I was writing this). His words (in summary): "We're recommending that you receive a contract to teach Bible and ethics for next school year." I won't go into detail, but what this means is that I have one more meeting with the school's education committee on Monday for their final stamp of approval; assuming that goes well and they follow through on the administration's recommendation, they'll extend a contract for the 2007-2008 school year to teach Bible and ethics.

All I can say (doing my best Keanu) is "Whoa." Megan and I need to take the weekend to pray and process the possible implications of all this for the future. Oh, and I still have to find a job for summer, which apparently still begins in June.

Anyway, thanks to all of you who prayed, especially to those dozens of you who contacted me personally to tell me you were praying this afternoon. Thanks, too, to my seminary buddies (Rob, Mitchell, Ronnie, Tom, Josh, Eric) who seemed as or even more excited than I was about the interview today. All of this support means a lot and humbles me beyond words (which would have been helpful in that first meeting I redundantly talked my way through this afternoon...).

Grateful to God and feeling very blessed this evening.

Jerry Maguire Moment on Education

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Jerry Maguire is at the very beginning of the film when, on a drunken binge, Jerry (played by Tom Cruise) writes and publishes his thoughts for all to read in an essay titled "The Things We Think and Do Not Say" concerning his profession as a sports attorney. (Note: If you have the time, read the essay, as it really is a wonderful piece written by Cameron Crowe, one of my favorite screenwriters.)

Though I wasn't drunk, nor did I write this all in one sitting, here is one of my own Jerry Maguire moments on the topic of education, submitted as part of a recent teaching application asking for my philosophy of education:

"Daniel 1:17 says, 'As for these four youths (Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah), God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.'

This passage has always been a motivating one for me concerning my own education, as well as that of others. Because I believe that God is the source of all true education, I believe that true education is to cover all of life, with the end result being not merely good grades, but adequate understanding and willing submission for the sake of the Kingdom.

I believe that good education cannot happen without inspiration; that it is made up of both formal and informal instruction; that it is to be as experiential as it informational; that it is not enough to teach what to think, but rather how to think; that it requires both individual discipline and community accountability; and that indeed, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.' (Proverbs 1:7)

My personal feeling is that students only respond to what is asked of them, and my observation is that we often don’t ask enough, at least in terms of deeper things. Our culture certainly asks (demands) of their time, their money, etc., but the culture will never ask to care about them, and I believe having the confidence to ask for this privilege – and then honoring it by being trustworthy – is one to which students respond.

In light of this, three practical teaching goals I strive to reach in teaching are to 1) avoid any appearance of deception; 2) use language that is both age- and audience-appropriate; and 3) teach application as the inevitable outcome of good biblical theology. In addition, cultural awareness with the goal of being conversant in a variety of topics students are interested in is a good idea, as is the creation of shared experiences that model acceptance and understanding alongside standing for truth and offering it to others."

I could always write more, but with regard to teaching and learning, this is the gist for me.

A Church for Everyone...Except for Me

As many of you know, I'm beginning the part-time/full-time job search for when we leave support in May. My tension here is trying to find a job that pays enough for our one-income family to live on (that is, eat and pay rent), while not having to work an excessive amount of hours in order to somehow stay full-time in seminary.

While I've not been at it too long (I don't need a job until June), the prospects have been less than encouraging, both in terms of pay and opportunity. Honestly, I just don't know how people live on minimum wage (or a little above), but I guess I'm on my way to finding out soon enough.

So, for kicks (and just to test the waters a bit), I applied for the role of "student ministries director" at a church (which will remain unnamed) here in town. While not my preference for reasons of possibly having to leave Memorial or to stop teaching at Wildwood (neither of which I want to do, and have communicated as much with my pastor and headmaster so they're aware of my intentions), I figured it didn't hurt to inquire.

What was the position? Overseeing the junior high, high school, and college ministries (approximately 200 students), something I've had ten years of similar experience doing at Eagle Lake, and written about (at least with regard to twenty-somethings) in TwentySomeone. While I tried not to think too arrogantly about it, I thought I might be a good candidate.

Earlier this week, I received a letter from the senior pastor of the church in response to the inquiry email/resume I sent him. At the top of the stationery was the church's slogan: "...a church for everyone!" Here's what it said:

"Thank you for taking the time to inquire about our Student Ministries Pastor position. It is obvious after considering your resume that you are passionate about making a difference in others' lives. That is exciting!

It does seem, however, after carefully reviewing what appear to be your strengths, gifts, and ministry history, and evaluating these areas in light of what we're seeking for this position, that we would not be a right 'fit' for each other. Thank you, though, for taking the time to prayerfully consider our staff position."

Of course, this was the pastor's prerogative and I'm sure he had his reasons (though I doubt very much they had to do with my "strengths, gifts, and ministry history" - I'm guessing denominational concerns were more the reason, and that's fine). However, I did have to laugh at the irony of getting a rejection letter with the slogan "...a church for everyone!" at the top. It may be "a church for everyone," but it's apparently not for me.

Random ministry lesson #4,329: Give thought to the myriad of purposes the church stationery will serve before settling on some slogan too cheesy, happy, and shiny. (Actually - stationery or other - don't settle on a cheesy, happy, shiny slogan at all.)