Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Final Exams

This semester has passed and I'm, like most students, in final exams. It has been a long time since I have joined the company of students who do this two times every year. Seminary is similar to college in this regard. Everywhere you go, there are students with their noses in text books (some of them for only the second or third time this semester!) while they eat, walk, or do anything else that does not require total concentration. There is one room set up next to my suite called the study lounge-- a place I dare not go because of an overwhelming presence of stress which hovers there. Seminarians, like other people, sometimes get cranky when they get stressed and I've overheard a number of distressed and complaining conversations that rival those found in undergrad universities.

I'm doing fine. 2 exams and one paper down, 1 exam and 3 papers left to go. For sure, this beats grading papers and recording final grades. There is a safety and comfort in knowing that any sudden lapse on my part would result only in my own harm and not the harm of 86 students besides. And, to tell the truth, I really enjoy this. God has now given me the discipline to be the kind of study freak I always sort of envied in college. I feel like I'm testing out the four wheel drive of a new truck.

The series on Jonah at TWR will be done after this Friday, with Pastor Enoch book-ending the series. Meanwhile, the junior high kids will be coming over to my ancestral home once again for another Christmas Spectacular. The next two months will be focused on whatever the new preaching series will be, the recruitment of counselors for Project Destiny, and on building a multi-church worship team for our 200-something person-large youth retreat, slated for February. I'm excited.