Hey friends!
Just a quick check-in to let you know what’s going on with me…
Family/Church: Things are going well at home. My beloved and I celebrated our second anniversary last month (I’m so blessed to be hers). Things at church are great, as well. In a few weeks, I’m going to join a teaching rotation for our “children’s church,” so that will be a new and fun challenge. And Lord-willing, I’ll have an opportunity to preach during Sunday worship sometime in the fall, as well. My wife and I love our church family, and we are so blessed to be part of that community.
School: I’m in Week 7 of my “Biblical Hermeneutics” class, which is essentially the last week of classwork, since Week 8 is solely devoted to the final project. The last 2 weeks have been pretty intense for me, but I’m thankful to report that my grades are pretty good so far, praise the Lord, and I’m in a good position to finish well.
After this class is over next week, I’ll have a 3-week break before starting another 8-week class (this time, “worldview and apologetics”). I expect that will be pretty intense as well. However, I’m going to work up some blog content over the next few weeks, so that I can post semi-regularly throughout the fall class, rather than take another mini-hiatus like the one I’ve been enjoying.
My academic plan at this point is to take the August-October class, and then step back from school until March or so. The holidays will be busy for us, so I’ll be ready for the break from schoolwork.
Thank you for your prayers and encouragement over the last 2 months. The shortened semester is an entirely different kind of challenge than I’m used to, but I’ve learned a lot and I’m excited to put some of these new hermeneutical tools into practice.
Reading List: As you can imagine, my 2016 reading list progress has ground to a halt, thanks to hours of lectures and papers. I’ll be posting my May book list pretty soon, but I didn’t read anything from the Reading List in the month of June. I’ve got a biography of the Wright Brothers that I’m going to try to knock out this month (before the next class), but other than that, I think my personal reading will need to be limited to my previous book review commitments, so any “list” reading will be limited to books for review that fit those categories.
The fact that I’m taking another class in August-September is forcing me to accept the reality that I’m not going to hit my 52-book goal by December 31st–at least not without a Herculean effort in the last 3 months of the year. While that may be possible, it’s not preferable, especially if it means not being available for family and friends over the holidays.
When it came right down to it, I decided that progress in seminary was worth more to me than hitting a reading goal this year. If I can finish 30 books from the list, that will be enough. Perhaps I will carry the rest of the 2016 list into next year, since I’m excited about the other books I had planned to enjoy. We’ll see.
Blog: I’m excited to get back to writing semi-regularly. I’ve missed the opportunity to interact with y’all on this platform. So, as I said, while this may be a little less often during the next class, you can expect to see at least 1-2 posts a week through the end of September, and then back to normal (?) 3x a week posting after that.
Book: The other project that won’t let me go is the novel I started writing last November. It’s crept into my thoughts at random times over the last few weeks, and seems to be demanding some attention. So I’m thinking that may come back around to play a big role in my fall and winter plans. We’ll see how it all shakes out.
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Okay, back to the grind. Posting will resume next Wednesday, July 13th. See you then!
The4thDave Blog 