It's remarkable to me how infrequently I post to this blog. I do enjoy the experience when I sit down to do it but I just can't seem to nail it down into a schedule. Since it's been another long drought I'm going to have to use a mock thesis statement to try and cover everything that's happened since last Tuesday. There was Thursday’s contemporary service, Friday’s Greek midterm, Saturday's spiritual formation retreat and devastating USC comeback, Sunday’s sermon, Monday’s return of the Greek midterm, Tuesday's purchase of the Koran, and today's NT01 quiz.
While it may be smarter to start with the most recent and work back - assuming that my recollections of what now seem to be long past events won't get any hazier - I'm going to travel linearly through time in the hope that I might recognize any themes that have escaped me to this point.
Thursday night a girl from the ultimate team (call her Suze, as that's her name) invited me to her church in Wexford, PA to check out the inaugural Thursday night service at North Way Community Church. "He [the pastor] is a former Presbyterian with his PhD and everything so he's legit, but now he's sort of Pentecostal," Suze said, perhaps apologetically, in order to preempt any disappointments I might have. Though I have limited experience with Pentecostal services I really doubt that’s what this was. It was just contemporary, like SAPC's "The Well" would have looked with a $15,000 budget. We arrived 4 minutes late to an auditorium style sanctuary. Lights along the walls were illuminated blue to match those shining on a complex array of curtains behind the stage. There was a translucent screen creating silhouettes of the 5 piece band. The music leader and his two backup singers stood in front of the screen and the PowerPoint (of course) was directed onto another translucent screen above the performers giving the appearance that the words to the songs were suspended in mid air above the stage. A+ for visual impact. After 3-4 worship songs were sung though seemingly infinite repeats that included up tempo and somber paces for each song at different moments ("It Is Well With My Soul" first sounded like a hymn, then a dirge, then a rockin' praise chorus, then a hymn again) the blue lights faded into soft white as they played a cute home-made short film about nothing in particular. The theme for the night was relationships but there was only one character in the short film. Using awkward (maybe some would call them artistic) camera angles the black and white film told the story of a man trying to find a ringing phone only to discover that the phone was really a banana set on a pile of other fruits. The white lights went to red and a spotlight illuminated the center of the auditorium where the pastor took his post to teach the lesson. The text was from Genesis 25 (and after) about Jacob and Esau. The message wasn't really about that at all. His illustration for the story of twins struggling for the blessing of their father was a commentary on marriage about the dangers of focusing too heavily on individual demands and expectations. Later I found out his PhD was in chemical engineering. I do plan to continue going if for no other reason than that this type of fellowship has proven vibrant and meaningful for lots of Christians and it’s a type of preaching that I wouldn’t mind doing (just not on a Sunday morning, if you please).
Friday's Greek midterm was quite a concern going in. From the perspective of a beginning student there was a large amount of memorization and plenty of ways to trip over details. But the exam was very fair and reassuring. I can remember in German the first time I was able to read understand text fluidly without stopping to conjugate in my head. This exam focused on translation of simple sentences (all Greek to English) that encouraged contextual thinking. In Greek the sentence structure can be different so you have to conjugate most everything before you can design a comparable English sentence but I felt as if I was doing that at a pace similar to 3 years of German. I think I learned more taking the exam than doing any of the weekly exercises.
This past Saturday the spiritual formation retreat gave us an opportunity to engage in the same activities we do each Thursday afternoon only with 3 times more people and for 4 times longer. The most significant part of the day was a communion reflection by Dr. Andrew Purves on Psalms 13 and 137. There is some pretty vivid imagery of terrible lament in those scriptures. Two students read the Psalms for him in the regular order of worship but it wasn't until his booming Edinburgh accent cried out in a manner befitting the psalmist's intent that the true message of suffering became clear. We cover our own wounds allowing them to heal over infections. God must lance the wound, clean it, and allow it to heal more perfectly. I really don't do it justice.
This isn't a forum for football I know, but I really have to say that watching the end of the Notre Dame/USC football game was a spiritual experience. I didn't see the ball go out of bounds; I thought USC had finally been vanquished as I watched the clock roll down to nothing. Such a terrible thing watching Reggie Bush push Leinart into the end zone. Appalling. I was distraught.
Sunday's sermon by Dr. Barnes was on Revelation again. This one didn't seem to stay on point. Maybe a bit more than the fellow from North Way but still a wider divergence from the text than the previous week in my opinion. (I should say I don't mind this at all, I'm sure it's difficult to preach directly to each word in a passage, and it's entirely valid to pull one thing out and go with it, but I'm greatly impressed when I don't get the impression that the preacher is trying to match the lectionary to a pre-determined topic and in this case I think he was. FWIW the fellow from North Way was doing something else: not pulling anything from the text into his general message.) The text (Rev 3:14-22) is a letter addressed to the church in Laodicea. Instead of focusing on what is said to Laodicea Dr Barnes chooses - in a move I'm sure would be applauded by Dr Sunquist - to focus on the history and culture of that old Roman town. Apparently this was a very wealthy town. They were rich enough to build two aqueducts to import hot water from the springs in the north and cold water from the south. His message is about realizing what you have and not desiring more because those who desire something else will never be filled. If then you find comfort with what you have and don't desire even a little bit more you are able to live a life more devoted to God. I'm far too amateur to truly critique this but that seems a philosophical point. In fact in Rev 3:17 Jesus speaks of a rich man who says he's got his wealth and doesn't feel he needs anything more. Jesus rebukes him. The message "Making Jesus Spit" is available as audio and text from the church's website (link on the right).
It's a long post, and only getting longer.
The Greek midterms were returned Monday and I managed an A. To tell the whole story I was ranked 11 of 15 in the class. There were 7 A+ and 3 A- I was one of only 2 A grades. I'm just glad this isn't a pre-med class where my 94.8% would have earned me an F for failing to score in the top 35% of the class. I think the reason so many people do well is the checklist at the end of the test reminding you to check that you translated questions as questions (Greek uses a semi-colon as a question mark, so they are easy to miss) and not omitted any pesky little breathing marks. I imagine that saved me about 30 points (out of 300).
On to Tuesday where in a lecture on Islam Dr Sunquist encouraged us all to read the Koran on our own time during seminary. I went and bought one and spent some time with it looking over the structure. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated if I find anything provocative.
And that brings me to today. There was Greek this morning with a groggy and unanimated version of Dr Gagnon that really defies the need for a post. In Gospels (aka NT01 becuase the full title is far too long to state) we had our little quiz. Seven weeks worth of information packed into a 15-minute quiz with 10 T/F, 10 short answer, 10 matching, and 1 bonus question. Quite honestly the bonus question was probably the one I knew best. The matching was simple one-to-one pairing of terms and descriptions but it was still vague. Hard to believe that flimsy two-sided piece of paper represents 15% of the grade. I haven’t mentioned this before but Dr. Humphrey studied under NT Wright. So that’s cool.
I'm trying to think of a witty way to close this one as a reward for the reader's dutiful scanning of all the words down to this point. I'm afraid this isn't a very mirthful time of the term with quizzes, discussion papers, and all the reading from yesterday, today, and tomorrow piling up. Perhaps the absence of a well-framed ending will make it clear just how void of creativity I am but really you can't expect much. After all, I didn't include "clever finale" in the thesis.
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While it may be smarter to start with the most recent and work back - assuming that my recollections of what now seem to be long past events won't get any hazier - I'm going to travel linearly through time in the hope that I might recognize any themes that have escaped me to this point.
Thursday night a girl from the ultimate team (call her Suze, as that's her name) invited me to her church in Wexford, PA to check out the inaugural Thursday night service at North Way Community Church. "He [the pastor] is a former Presbyterian with his PhD and everything so he's legit, but now he's sort of Pentecostal," Suze said, perhaps apologetically, in order to preempt any disappointments I might have. Though I have limited experience with Pentecostal services I really doubt that’s what this was. It was just contemporary, like SAPC's "The Well" would have looked with a $15,000 budget. We arrived 4 minutes late to an auditorium style sanctuary. Lights along the walls were illuminated blue to match those shining on a complex array of curtains behind the stage. There was a translucent screen creating silhouettes of the 5 piece band. The music leader and his two backup singers stood in front of the screen and the PowerPoint (of course) was directed onto another translucent screen above the performers giving the appearance that the words to the songs were suspended in mid air above the stage. A+ for visual impact. After 3-4 worship songs were sung though seemingly infinite repeats that included up tempo and somber paces for each song at different moments ("It Is Well With My Soul" first sounded like a hymn, then a dirge, then a rockin' praise chorus, then a hymn again) the blue lights faded into soft white as they played a cute home-made short film about nothing in particular. The theme for the night was relationships but there was only one character in the short film. Using awkward (maybe some would call them artistic) camera angles the black and white film told the story of a man trying to find a ringing phone only to discover that the phone was really a banana set on a pile of other fruits. The white lights went to red and a spotlight illuminated the center of the auditorium where the pastor took his post to teach the lesson. The text was from Genesis 25 (and after) about Jacob and Esau. The message wasn't really about that at all. His illustration for the story of twins struggling for the blessing of their father was a commentary on marriage about the dangers of focusing too heavily on individual demands and expectations. Later I found out his PhD was in chemical engineering. I do plan to continue going if for no other reason than that this type of fellowship has proven vibrant and meaningful for lots of Christians and it’s a type of preaching that I wouldn’t mind doing (just not on a Sunday morning, if you please).
Friday's Greek midterm was quite a concern going in. From the perspective of a beginning student there was a large amount of memorization and plenty of ways to trip over details. But the exam was very fair and reassuring. I can remember in German the first time I was able to read understand text fluidly without stopping to conjugate in my head. This exam focused on translation of simple sentences (all Greek to English) that encouraged contextual thinking. In Greek the sentence structure can be different so you have to conjugate most everything before you can design a comparable English sentence but I felt as if I was doing that at a pace similar to 3 years of German. I think I learned more taking the exam than doing any of the weekly exercises.
This past Saturday the spiritual formation retreat gave us an opportunity to engage in the same activities we do each Thursday afternoon only with 3 times more people and for 4 times longer. The most significant part of the day was a communion reflection by Dr. Andrew Purves on Psalms 13 and 137. There is some pretty vivid imagery of terrible lament in those scriptures. Two students read the Psalms for him in the regular order of worship but it wasn't until his booming Edinburgh accent cried out in a manner befitting the psalmist's intent that the true message of suffering became clear. We cover our own wounds allowing them to heal over infections. God must lance the wound, clean it, and allow it to heal more perfectly. I really don't do it justice.
This isn't a forum for football I know, but I really have to say that watching the end of the Notre Dame/USC football game was a spiritual experience. I didn't see the ball go out of bounds; I thought USC had finally been vanquished as I watched the clock roll down to nothing. Such a terrible thing watching Reggie Bush push Leinart into the end zone. Appalling. I was distraught.
Sunday's sermon by Dr. Barnes was on Revelation again. This one didn't seem to stay on point. Maybe a bit more than the fellow from North Way but still a wider divergence from the text than the previous week in my opinion. (I should say I don't mind this at all, I'm sure it's difficult to preach directly to each word in a passage, and it's entirely valid to pull one thing out and go with it, but I'm greatly impressed when I don't get the impression that the preacher is trying to match the lectionary to a pre-determined topic and in this case I think he was. FWIW the fellow from North Way was doing something else: not pulling anything from the text into his general message.) The text (Rev 3:14-22) is a letter addressed to the church in Laodicea. Instead of focusing on what is said to Laodicea Dr Barnes chooses - in a move I'm sure would be applauded by Dr Sunquist - to focus on the history and culture of that old Roman town. Apparently this was a very wealthy town. They were rich enough to build two aqueducts to import hot water from the springs in the north and cold water from the south. His message is about realizing what you have and not desiring more because those who desire something else will never be filled. If then you find comfort with what you have and don't desire even a little bit more you are able to live a life more devoted to God. I'm far too amateur to truly critique this but that seems a philosophical point. In fact in Rev 3:17 Jesus speaks of a rich man who says he's got his wealth and doesn't feel he needs anything more. Jesus rebukes him. The message "Making Jesus Spit" is available as audio and text from the church's website (link on the right).
It's a long post, and only getting longer.
The Greek midterms were returned Monday and I managed an A. To tell the whole story I was ranked 11 of 15 in the class. There were 7 A+ and 3 A- I was one of only 2 A grades. I'm just glad this isn't a pre-med class where my 94.8% would have earned me an F for failing to score in the top 35% of the class. I think the reason so many people do well is the checklist at the end of the test reminding you to check that you translated questions as questions (Greek uses a semi-colon as a question mark, so they are easy to miss) and not omitted any pesky little breathing marks. I imagine that saved me about 30 points (out of 300).
On to Tuesday where in a lecture on Islam Dr Sunquist encouraged us all to read the Koran on our own time during seminary. I went and bought one and spent some time with it looking over the structure. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated if I find anything provocative.
And that brings me to today. There was Greek this morning with a groggy and unanimated version of Dr Gagnon that really defies the need for a post. In Gospels (aka NT01 becuase the full title is far too long to state) we had our little quiz. Seven weeks worth of information packed into a 15-minute quiz with 10 T/F, 10 short answer, 10 matching, and 1 bonus question. Quite honestly the bonus question was probably the one I knew best. The matching was simple one-to-one pairing of terms and descriptions but it was still vague. Hard to believe that flimsy two-sided piece of paper represents 15% of the grade. I haven’t mentioned this before but Dr. Humphrey studied under NT Wright. So that’s cool.
I'm trying to think of a witty way to close this one as a reward for the reader's dutiful scanning of all the words down to this point. I'm afraid this isn't a very mirthful time of the term with quizzes, discussion papers, and all the reading from yesterday, today, and tomorrow piling up. Perhaps the absence of a well-framed ending will make it clear just how void of creativity I am but really you can't expect much. After all, I didn't include "clever finale" in the thesis.
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