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Why the Stage
If you’ve ever been to more than one church, you’re sure to notice that each one is different. Just like when you visit someone else’s home, you find there’s always something they do differently, no matter how much you otherwise have in common. For the past seven years, my family and I have attended a church that’s a little different than any other we’ve been to. It includes a strong emphasis on theater. Theater?! you say. Isn’t church for sermons? Worship music? Teaching? Prayer? Helping others? Sending missionaries? Yes. We do those things, too—not perfectly, of course, but we’re always working to get better. And some of those things might…
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New Adventures in Teaching
It’s been a year since my last post, and this was intentional. Last fall I poured all of my effort into doctoral studies once more, but after growing sufficiently disappointed with the school, I chose not to continue my studies there. It was a painful decision after putting so much work into returning. This year I have been taking time to lament that in silence, seek God’s wisdom and direction, and return to volunteering in the areas I had given up. Professionally, I have continued working part-time at my church and returned to adjuncting and course design work on the side. This fall, I had planned to resume writing and…
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Fix This
One of the biggest changes in my thinking this past year has to do with my philosophy of ministry. The change was building up slowly, but it didn’t truly confront me until listening to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. Just about every episode related to my experience in ministry, but as someone far away from the action and the movements tied to it, affected as though by waves from a massive ship over a great distance. But I did feel convicted in one area: the desire to fix the church. You see, before I had even set my sights on ministry, I had the sense that the church…
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Waterways
Right now I’m reading Tim Blanning’s The Pursuit of Glory, a history of Europe in the early modern period. It covers a great many areas of life across a wide range of countries. For those who think of Europe as somehow one big culture, that’s not true now, and it was even less true back then. This is a period where modern nations are just starting to form, often by the will of one ruler who has enough power to start uniting the lands around him. Even once they were politically united, there was often a great difference from one region to the next, and from one city to the…
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How to Take Smart Notes
For the past year, I’ve been hard at work trying to improve my reading. My reading habits had waned a few years after I left school, relying on audiobooks and podcasts to supplement a busy schedule and growing family. But as I prepare to go back to school, reading well is possibly one of the most important skills one could work on. Of course, reading well for academia is not simply a matter of reading quickly (although it seems one can never read fast enough!). It’s also a matter of what you do with what you are reading. I attended a workshop on speedreading techniques in seminary, and over time…