Flourishing Life

Today was the last day of our class, "Biblical Interpretation for Church and Life," taught by Dr. Ruth Anne Reese. Five days of all day in class with assignments at night. It was a great class, though. Part of what she did was walk us through 1 Peter, verse by verse, interpreting a rather difficult little book, revealing her method of Biblical interpretation. That was pretty cool. I am inspired to dig deeper in my sermon preparation.

The rest of the week will be spent polishing up the first chapter of our dissertations, a meeting about assignments in the leadership class, professional development meetings, and one more session of the dissertation class. This year has been brutal. They told us it would be. There was not a single day in the last three weeks that was "free." And not only were there no free days, but the days were completely filled, from morning to night. The Houston trip was exhausting, but exciting. The next three days will be the lightest ones so far. It has been incredibly enriching, however, both intellectually and spiritually. It has also been challenging in our thinking about the church, the Bible, and leadership in the church.