Life at Luther

I didn’t realize until last night that today was my last day of class for the semester. I’ve been so busy working on final papers that I didn’t even notice that time in class was wrapping up.

This came as a pleasant surprise considering all the finals I still have to write. The one week I have left to finish things seems so much longer now that I know I don’t have classes.

Yet, at the same time it feels like the school year ended so abruptly. As I’ve mentioned, I had …

'Cuz We're Movin On Up...To The East Side...

You probably need to be over the age of 30...and maybe more like 35-40...to have any idea what I'm talking about, but this old time theme song is playing in my head today.

I've talked about it before, but since the beginning of my internship, my office has been in the basement. Pretty much as far away from the main office area as possible in the church.  Now, while this is great during the weeks when I'm preaching and don't want to be disturbed …

Today was my first day back in class after a three-day weekend. My class schedule has worked out nicely this semester so that I have Mondays off. I especially appreciate this now, during finals.

Not only does this schedule give me more free time to enjoy on the weekends, but it also helps me get stuff done. When I have a paper to write or a big assignment to do, I get more done when I have longer chunks of time to sit down and dig in. So I save most of my paper writing for these long weekends, when …

This morning I had a coffee meeting (HUGE PERK OF PASTORING RIGHT THERE) with the chair of my internship committee. Now usually we meet at the church when we both have a free moment, but this time around we decided to meet at one of the local coffee shops and talk over some things.

I got there a little early and had some time to just sit prior to her arrival. Now...the location of this coffee shop is interesting. It sits in a little strip mall alonside of highway 169 where it comes into the Cities...about …

A couple of weeks ago I stopped by the Luther coffee shop in between studying in the library and my next class. My plan was to drink lots of coffee while cramming in the rest of the reading I hadn’t finished for my class. 

Then, when I got up for a refill, I passed by another student I know and said “hi.” He was enjoying his coffee and roll while gazing out the huge windows at the beautiful spring scenery. I asked him what he was up to. He said, “just taking a break.” …

Recently I talked about the online preaching class I’m taking this semester. I also have a Systematic Theology class, the second of three ST classes required for the M.Div. It’s a little different in format from the other online courses I’ve had so far.

One of the things I really like is that there are substantial lectures, and I happen to be a person who likes lectures. Well, I like them when the lectures are good, and in this case they are. I tend to benefit most from both reading …

We’ve been talking in my Revelation class about one of its recurring themes—worship. We’ve also been discussing how these passages—the glorious visions of the heavenly throne surrounded by living creatures and elders worshipping God—are the ones that make it into the lectionary and are more likely to end up in a sermon (if anything from Revelation makes it into a sermon!).

So I couldn’t help but notice at church yesterday when one of the pastors cited Revelation …

Today, my site hosted an intern cluster meeting. This is the 2nd and last of the cluster meetings for my area in the Cities for this year of internship. While hosting the meeting brings a certain amount of extra work...planning worship and setting up the hospitality/rooms/etc, the meeting itself is a great experience. It offers a chance to get together with other people in the same boat as me as share some of the same frustrations and joys that come along with our experience.

That being said...sometimes …

Last weekend the annual Society of Biblical Literature/American Academy of Religion regional meeting was held at Luther. Although I’ve attended this event previously, this year was my first time presenting a paper at it.

For those who aren’t familiar with this conference, it’s an opportunity for students, scholars, and professors to gather and share ideas on a variety of topics involving religion, science, biblical studies, philosophy, etc.

Each year there is a different focus …

I'm certainly no stranger to preaching. Been doing it for awhile now, but there are always new lessons to learn, new tactics to try, new situations to be in.

I currently find myself in one of those times. Namely, rapid turn around.

As I think back over the course of my preaching history, I've never had to preach back to back. If memory serves me correctly the fastest turn around that I ever had was 2 weeks. Namely...preach...week off...preach again.

That's all changing this week. My supervisor …