The numbers game...

I have had quite a bit of numbers floating around in my head lately due to various circumstances...let me explain:

0 - the number of times I have reviewed my Hebrew Grammar from the fall semester. Our professor is giving us a quiz on our return in February to see if we have kept up with it. Oops.

6.022x10^23 - if you know what this number is off the top of your head than you are as big of a dork as I am...

7 - the number of chapters it took me to read before I actually "liked" Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz". (Note: "liked" does not imply agreement or endorsement".

13 - thirteen points, that is - the numbers of points the Salukis managed to score in the first half of their b-ball game with Illinois State over the weekend. Are you kidding me?! Thirteen! The middle school team I played on in 1986 could have scored more points than that in twenty mintues! Are you kidding me?!

15 - the number of Westminster Shorter Catechism questions I have memorized. I have a long way to go...

18.50 - the price of a one hundred page paperback book I had to buy for my upcoming "Christianity in the Postmodern World" class.

45 - the number of points the Salukis scored in the first half of their b-ball game with Bradley on Tuesday night...hello Dr. Jeckyl, meet Mr. Hyde...unbelievable

1,000 - the number of times I have gotten tired of the phrase "emergent conversation" instead of "emerging church/movement"

Half way there...

I reached a personal milestone this past December and it wasn't 3 months without a blog post. Rather, it was the halfway mark of my race to the finish line of seminary. One and a half years down, one and a half to go. Part of me feels as if this journey has flown by faster than Sanjaya's singing career; the other part feels as if it has progressed as slow as the Miami Dolphin's winning percentage. (I must get some points for those comparisons, right?) But, either way, I can stand here and definitely say I haven't made it this far on my own strength alone. God has definitely carried me along.

The question I get asked the most by people about seminary is, "What have you learned?" Surely no one really wants the complete answer to that question and it is nearly impossible to reduce down to one sentence. The best answer I can ever seem to come up with is that, "I cannot do it on my own." A simple, yet profound answer.

But I have learned some interesting things. I now know what a 'jot' and 'tittle' are and I can put the Pauline epistles in chronological order. I also know what an amaenuensis is and how papal authority developed in the early church. I've learned two more alphabets and I finally know the difference between modernism and postmodernism. I have also learned the art of making awesome memory clues for cramming for tests.

Even more - I think I know Jesus a little better too!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

We are still alive! We know that it has been almost three months since we updated this thing, but here we are kicking off the new year with an attempt to keep one of our resolutions. We're not promising anything, but hopefully (hmmm hmmm - DAN!) this will be updated often.

We rocked out the new year in the car while driving back from Meg's family's Christmas/New Year celebration...which, as always, was a real good time! On our way back to Dan's parents, driving west on I-70 we were treated to a nice (no, really) fireworks display somewhere around farmer Bubba's corn field in Greenville, Il. It was a great way to bring in the new year and hopefully Bubba and/or his 13 children of the corn were not injured or permanently blinded.

We hope all of you have a blessed new year and hopefully you will check back as often as we post!