Wednesday, April 15, 2015

A personal update

For those of you who are interested in tracking my personal life, I thought I’d give you an update. Last summer, I expressed a plan to pursue a Ph.D. Then I backed out of that, needing some time away from distance learning.

My next stop on the planning train was a Doctor of Ministry. It’s a more practical degree, which is good, but therefore less applicable to academic work. Which is bad.

This brings me back to where I am right now: I think I’d return to the Ph.D. model and pursue something in the academic theology field. But I just cannot bring myself to do the preparatory research languages (German, Latin, French) through the online class model. It was just not working for me. Grades were fine, but I felt that I wasn’t gathering the understanding I wanted out of it.

So, right now I’m leaning in this direction: I’m going to look for ways to fill in the language learning while I weigh out the pros and cons on either one. That, and I’m back to reconsidering whether or not I would be better off with a non-theological degree on the list. There are some options that might be worth considering there.

Why all the time on education? I like to learn. More than that, I like the challenge. That’s one reason I’m leaning toward something like an MPA or MA in Communication Studies. These would push me out of the religious studies bubble and help me wrestle with differing viewpoints.

Is there a plan?

Not yet.

In fact, right now the plan pretty well leaves out school. I’m going to try and write another Advent devotional book as well as tackling creating some home school Bible study/Biblical Interpretation material (basically, a middle-school level study guide for Grasping God’s Word) while still juggling the other things in life.

But the more young preachers I encounter…the more I want to be equipped to help them start off and avoid the stupid things I did as a young ministry student, young minister, and so forth. They may do their own stupid…but I’d like to help slow it down some.

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