My dad sent me a link to a video about a dog. I did some research on this bulldog named Tillman. Dude has his own website.

Here’s why:

My dog is officially lame. Tillman is King.

Ok…. so while I’m waiting for my seminary final, here’s the pre-test conversation while our prof was out of the room.

This is way too much to memorize.

Yeah, it never actually sticks for me.

I used to be able to memorize stuff when I was young, but not so much anymore.

Well, it ain’t working for me. (from a young guy)

I just flip through the test first looking for the questions I just barely know and right down all those answers first. Then the information can fly away and I’m ok.

Yeah me too.

Truth be told, if I took this same test I just took next week without cramming again for an hour, I’d fail it. When is someone going to figure out this system is broken. Regurgitating 4 points that so and so made in a book is stupid. That’s why he wrote the book. What do I need it memorized for and isn’t there a better way to test for understanding than jeopardy style quizzing?

I really didn’t want my seminary degree to represent plug and chug making it through a system so I could say I did it. I hate that I’m giving up one night a week to listen to my profs read their notes or power point to me so that several weeks later, I can rewrite their power point from memory- only to forget it days or weeks from the time I took the test.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I do get more out of seminary than this rant expresses, but I’m tired and hate the testing methods of learnings so tightly tied to my job, my soul, and the God I’m trying to love and serve with my life.

Good thing I don’t have to take another class until September.

I have been ridiculously slammed these last few weeks. So I haven’t had the time to post several things I’ve wanted to. Like 8 days ago I took the day and spent it with TJ and all the 5th grade students from his school at soak city.

I love this picture. Pure fun.

I was super glad I went. I drove there in my own car so we could leave whenever we wanted. I tried to find us a starbucks on the way home and got totally lost. I told TJ it was kinda fun. He thought I was nuts. Eventually we got home. Fun day with my oldest. My kids grow up too fast dang it.

Here’s a collage I made of our day.

Pulled my first all nighter in a long time last night. Got to church at 8am and didn’t leave till 5 am the next day.

I had told Shannon that I would be a bad Dad and a lousy husband for 2 days because I had to fully immerse myself in being a seminary student for 2 days. This wasn’t a bad week to say that since we’re going away for our anniversary for thursday, friday, and saturday and since I’m taking most- if not all of Wednesday- off to hang do graduation stuff with TJ as he leaves the 5th grade and heads to middle school.

Anyway, I had to stay up all night to finish the first seminary project in 3 years that actually has direct application to my youth ministry. My Evangelism/Discipleship seminary professor is a church planter of a local church in our area and as a result, pastors think different than professors. I’m convinced of that much. So my class project was allowed to be tailored to the audience I work with and allowed to be directly ready to use, not a research project I’d have to assimilate later. WOW… NOVEL THOUGHT!!!

I better stop or I’ll go off on a rant here. I have serious opinions about the greco-roman-european-postmodern-learning system I find my self stuck in… but that’s another post with a lot of swear words…

So, despite the fact that I’m turning my project in late, it’s done. Here’s what it is:

A 6 week bible study and work book for students in our ministry. We are launching it in the fall of this next year in our small groups an in a parallel weekend series I’m writing called, “Everybody Matters”. Here’s how the 6 weeks break down:

• EVANGELISM 101- understanding God’s heart for those far from God.
• BECOMING THE REAL DEAL- living an authentic life of a follower of Jesus before a watching world
• IDENTIFYING AND UTILIZING YOUR UNIQUENESS FOR GOD- examining different personality and spiritual gifts in light of the goal of evangelism.
• EMBRACING THE PROCESS- being faithful to the long haul of evangelism
• THE ART OF SHARING YOUR OWN STORY- harnessing the evangelical power of a changed life.
• UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL MESSAGE- clearly communicating God’s story to those far from God.

So, I think I’m going to try and kill 3 birds with this one stone.

1. I’m going to give it to my prof for class credit.
2. I’m going to use it for my own ministry in the fall.
3. I’m going to see if Simply wants to use it as a small group curriculum.

I really hope all 3 work sweet!!!

Speaking of Simply, I also finished another bible study last week, which is why this seminary project is so late. That fact and graduations and about a million other things. Anyway, last week I tweaked a bible study I wrote for new believers back in my early days of youth ministry. (I think I was like 23) It took me a long time to tweak it, because I lost one of the chapters on my computer and because I’ve changed. So some of the stuff I wrote before I no longer believe. Ha!!!

Anyway, it was fun to do- minus the time crunch. It’s really more of a survey of the Bible on 5 critical components for a follower of Jesus. I’m going to use it in our ministry as a class we’re offering for new believers/students who want to reestablish the basics 2x a year over a 2 Sunday afternoon period. I used to call it “Foundations”, but I retitled this series, “The Essence”.

Here’s how it breaks down.

• What is a Christian and why should I be one?
• What is the Bible and why should I read it?
• What is prayer and why should I practice it?
• What is the church and why should I get involved in it?
• What is evangelism and why should I do it?

I’ll post here when the series goes live at Simply. But I’m guessing that won’t happen for several months.

OK… I now have to go cram for my greco-roman-european-postmodern-learning system regurgitation of memorized trivia for my seminary final in 5 hours.

3 years ago I started blogging. Now it’s become kind of a mainstay in my life and this is post number 501 since I post a few times a week.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to print this blog annually to kinda of archive my journey in book form. But I have not found any reasonable way to do this. I know that links I have to other stuff will obviously be dead and sorta pointless in print form along with videos too, but most of my blog is actually words and pictures.

So, I found this place that at one point did it, but is now out of business.

This place won’t do it for blogger and says they are fixing the problem soon. Yeah, I’ve been checking for like a year. They mean soon like Jesus evidently meant soon.

I found this place that I tried to download the program from and I think can do it, but it’s like some kinda unix code thing and I’m not this smart. I think it will actually print them to a pdf and then I can use a site like Lulu to get it self-published. But like I said, I’m not that smart.

So, does anyone in my SD readership know unix code and want a side job or has anyone actually done this before?