Things I'm Looking Forward To In The Near Future or I Really Do Not Blog Often Enough
Starting classes at Nazarene Theological Seminary in January
- kinda scary. Even though I have been keeping up reading and thinking critically, I have been sloppy in both over the past couple of years. Can I clean up enough to justify paying more student loans in the future? When I start in January, I was hoping to actually be done with seminary in that same 3 1/2 years. It is a little bit frustrating. I like to think of myself as smart and intelligent, but it is easier to feel that way when I am around less educated people. So, in a sense, I'm a snob with less educated people, but feel not so great around those who are more educated. Several have given me genuinely nice praise about my intelligence, and that is one of the reasons why I am going ahead and pushing towards getting graduate education.
- the thing that I am more concerned with is that I don't like who I am when I'm a snob. People should always feel valued and shouldn't feel belittled because they don't know or act like what I think they should. Over the past 2 years specifically, I have been hesitant to pursue any graduate education because I do not want to separate myself even further from the people I am around. That being said... should education really be a barrier between people? Isn't education supposed to help remove barriers and bridge gaps? I would appreciate any prayer from any who read this.
Rapid Reading
Just started a book on rapid reading. I already read fairly quickly, but would like to read at a faster rate and add more comprehension. It is supposed to take six weeks, so we will see how much it helps. I tested myself at 442 words per minute off of a thick theology book, but my comprehension was lower than I hoped. I thought I might have missed one or two items out 9, which is tremendous retention rate. But glancing back over, I was about 8/16... not so good. Now the catch is when we are looking for what we missed, we will find more than we expected. So in reality, I probably was around 8/12 which is 75% retention, which is still very high. I would like to increase that. We'll see how it goes.
Planting a Church
Though I have been scouting the area for the past 11 months, I will take my first official actions as a church planter starting next month. We will be organizing at least 2 small groups with no less than 7 people being involved and have the possibility of as many as 3 or 4 with up to 20 people. Either/or would be tremendous to start with. We'll see how it goes.
- This will also mark the start of breaking up with the Norwin Church that I am an associate pastor. I currently average around 40 hours a week at Norwin and that number could easily drop to around 20 which will truly test how I've done in the first 6 months. I am only required to do 20 hours, but once things start moving, it will eventually be a mostly independant growth from Norwin.
- It becomes sad as I truly love the people that I have worked with over the past half of a year. Some of the best people I have met in my lifetime make up that church. And though I will still get to see them, my overall contact will be less as I am working on the church plant. I feel bad for my teens particularly, because I really care about the things they do and decisions they make. They are all precious, and it will kill me to be in less contact with them.
- On the flip side, it is exciting to do something that I have felt some form of calling to for the past 20 years or so. Ever since I was around 10 I wanted to start my own business from scratch, but I never knew how that would work out with my call to pastor. About 11 years ago, I was introduced to the idea of church planting, and eventually my passions matched my calling. I am so afraid that I will screw it up.
Oh well, too long without blogging... sorry all two or three of you who read this.
- kinda scary. Even though I have been keeping up reading and thinking critically, I have been sloppy in both over the past couple of years. Can I clean up enough to justify paying more student loans in the future? When I start in January, I was hoping to actually be done with seminary in that same 3 1/2 years. It is a little bit frustrating. I like to think of myself as smart and intelligent, but it is easier to feel that way when I am around less educated people. So, in a sense, I'm a snob with less educated people, but feel not so great around those who are more educated. Several have given me genuinely nice praise about my intelligence, and that is one of the reasons why I am going ahead and pushing towards getting graduate education.
- the thing that I am more concerned with is that I don't like who I am when I'm a snob. People should always feel valued and shouldn't feel belittled because they don't know or act like what I think they should. Over the past 2 years specifically, I have been hesitant to pursue any graduate education because I do not want to separate myself even further from the people I am around. That being said... should education really be a barrier between people? Isn't education supposed to help remove barriers and bridge gaps? I would appreciate any prayer from any who read this.
Rapid Reading
Just started a book on rapid reading. I already read fairly quickly, but would like to read at a faster rate and add more comprehension. It is supposed to take six weeks, so we will see how much it helps. I tested myself at 442 words per minute off of a thick theology book, but my comprehension was lower than I hoped. I thought I might have missed one or two items out 9, which is tremendous retention rate. But glancing back over, I was about 8/16... not so good. Now the catch is when we are looking for what we missed, we will find more than we expected. So in reality, I probably was around 8/12 which is 75% retention, which is still very high. I would like to increase that. We'll see how it goes.
Planting a Church
Though I have been scouting the area for the past 11 months, I will take my first official actions as a church planter starting next month. We will be organizing at least 2 small groups with no less than 7 people being involved and have the possibility of as many as 3 or 4 with up to 20 people. Either/or would be tremendous to start with. We'll see how it goes.
- This will also mark the start of breaking up with the Norwin Church that I am an associate pastor. I currently average around 40 hours a week at Norwin and that number could easily drop to around 20 which will truly test how I've done in the first 6 months. I am only required to do 20 hours, but once things start moving, it will eventually be a mostly independant growth from Norwin.
- It becomes sad as I truly love the people that I have worked with over the past half of a year. Some of the best people I have met in my lifetime make up that church. And though I will still get to see them, my overall contact will be less as I am working on the church plant. I feel bad for my teens particularly, because I really care about the things they do and decisions they make. They are all precious, and it will kill me to be in less contact with them.
- On the flip side, it is exciting to do something that I have felt some form of calling to for the past 20 years or so. Ever since I was around 10 I wanted to start my own business from scratch, but I never knew how that would work out with my call to pastor. About 11 years ago, I was introduced to the idea of church planting, and eventually my passions matched my calling. I am so afraid that I will screw it up.
Oh well, too long without blogging... sorry all two or three of you who read this.
posted by Mike W. McVey @ 11:37 PM
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