Sarah and I were married March 3. The first few months have been great and I’m looking forward to many more in the future. I’ve had some pictures up on the Wedding Photos page for a little while but haven’t updated the rest of the site. Sarah and I met in a Sunday School class last Fall. We fell in love and I proposed right before Christmas. Here are a few pictures from the wedding.
Somehow the day finally arrived. On May 17th, 2006, I graduated from Southern Seminary. It is a great feeling knowing I am no longer a student. The stress level has fallen and I started to feel like a (somewhat) normal person. No more papers or tests. Here are a few photos. I’ll try and get some more up in the photo pages sometime soon. The first is of me and Dr. Mohler. The second shows me with Dr. Bruce Ware.
My time at Southern was incredible. I remain convinced it is the top evangelical seminary in the country. I’m currently in the church search process and I’ll give some updates on that in the coming months.
I took my video camera up to church to get some shots of our band (if you can call it a band yet… so far, its me and Erica on the violin and Gentry on the drums). So here are a few songs I recorded. The videos are of us practicing before the actual service. I just wanted people to be able to see and hear what I’m doing at my new church. Plus I love the violin with worship music, I think its adds a lot to the sound. So here are a couple videos and I’ll post the .mp3 audio of a couple of them as well.
If you’d like to download the video files, right click on the name of the song and choose “Save As…” To download the audio files, right-click on “MP3” and choose “Save As…”
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Famous One
You Are So Good to Me/Victory in Jesus Medley – MP3
We Are Hungry – MP3
Getting to preach the last couple of Wednesday nights has been a good thing for me. I’ve been leading music and preaching for our youth worship services, so its been a little stressful getting both things ready, but the benefits outweigh any drawbacks or frustrations, at least from my perspective.
Last night, I talked about why preaching is central to what we do when we come together as a church. I was a little worried that because it wasn’t what you might think of as a “youth” topic how it would go over. I think the students grasped it well. We talked about how important Paul thought preaching was as one of his last exhortations (4:2) to Timothy in the last letter we have from Paul in the New Testament. It was Paul’s prescription for a church living in a godless age (3:1-5) so that the church might resist that same godlessness from seeping into its own walls. We also saw that the reason for the power in preaching is the supernatural nature of Scripture (3:15-17). Therefore, we said that preaching must have as its foundation the very words of the Bible. When we hear those words and a preacher explains, illustrates, and applies those words, the lost are saved (3:15) and believers are equipped for the lives God calls us to live (3:17).
Sorry, nothing to do with college basketball. I know its been forever so I wanted to post some updates. School is keeping me tremendously busy. I was supposed to have to take only 9 hours this semester to graduate in May, but a graduation audit said that I needed one more class. Turns out a class I took last year didn’t count toward my degree. It would have been nice to know that then, but I didn’t. So I had to add another class for a total of 12 hours, which is a full load. So much for this being a laid back final semester!
In bigger news I’ve recently been voted in as the Interim Youth Minister at the church where I’ve been helping with youth. The youth minister, Neil, who had been there for 3 or 4 years took a position in Illinois since he is done with seminary. The church will be looking for a permanent youth minister while I serve as interim. Things have been going well at church and while this is a huge responsibility, it has also been a joy to step in and help out in this way.
The pastor will be away this Sunday so he’s asked me to preach for the Sunday morning worship service. I haven’t decided for sure, but I’m leaning toward preaching on Psalm 96 at this point. I’ve been struggling with a cold over the past week or so and I’m hoping that will be gone soon since I have to lead music and preach for our Wed night youth worship service. Thats all the update I can think of for now. As always, I’ll try and be better about updating!
Time for my first blog of 2006. I didn’t write over the break like I wanted, but hey, its a break! Actually the last real break of my academic career. (I guess there is also Spring Break, but thats just a week so I’m not counting it for these purposes.) But the good news is that classes are about to start. Good news you say? Yes! Because its my last semester and graduation is coming soon. May 19th to be precise. After that, I’m no longer a student for the first time in my life I can remember! What will life be like without research papers and finals? I’ll know in about 4 months or so.
In other news, I’ve been sending my resume out some over the break to different conventions, associations, and churches. Hopefully some search committee will like it and give me a call one of these months coming up so I will have something to do after I graduate. Seriously though, I am really looking forward to finding a church and getting started as a pastor in a few months.
Things at church are going well. I really love getting to lead worship for the youth at church on Wednesday nights. I also just started teaching an adult discipleship class on Sunday nights as well. We are reading and discussing C. S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity. Our first class was this past Sunday and I felt like it went well. The people in the class said they enjoyed it. Sometimes people say stuff like that to be nice, but I think they really did like it.
I think thats all for now. I’ll try and not take a month to update again.
Thankfully exams are over and its starting to settle in that I only have one more semester of seminary until I’m done with school. It seemed like I would never get to this point but now I have to stop and ask myself if I’m really ready. I think the answer is yes. I’ve spent the majority of the past week putting together my resume and getting it ready to send out to churches. I’ve also spent some time reaching out to different state conventions and local associations for contacts that will help me find a church that needs a pastor and is a good fit. I’m looking first in Virginia and Texas since I’ve enjoyed living in both those states, but I’m open to the possibility of going other places as well.
I got back to Virginia last Tuesday and I’ll be here for the rest of December. I’m going back to Kentucky the first week of January to get back with my church there as far as leading worship and a retreat we’ll be on in the first weekend of January. But I’m enjoying the break here and trying to use it to get some reading and study done for my personal growth instead of for class – and believe me, there’s a huge difference. I’ll try and write a few more entries in a next week or so to update everyone on different things. Thanks to everybody who keeps checking back for updates – there are some more on the way!
After turning in 3 papers and a test this week, the good news is that I have hardly any work left for this semester. One last Hebrew test and two finals. I know I’ve been terrible about keeping up with my blog and updating my website this semester, but I’m going to put some effort into it soon.
This semester nearly killed me with al the work I had. 9 hours of class in seminary is full-time, 12 is a full load. I did 15 plus 10 hours a week of my ministry project, plus helping out at church. The good news is that I only need three more classes to graduate now! Next semester should be much more manageable. I’m just glad this one is almost over.
Well its pretty obvious that its been a while since I posted. Not quite a month but close. Sorry about that, I’ll try and do better. 🙂
We had mid-terms last week and its great to have those over with. Its hard to believe that the semester is halfway over. I only have a couple of weeks left before my SME project is done. That takes up about 10 hours a week right now, so that will free up my schedule quite a bit. Also, this Saturday, we have 8 hours of training for my new job at the emergency shelter. As soon as we complete the training, the shelter can open. So next week I should start actually working shifts.
Thats the latest news. The Hokies are having a great season so far and we’ll hope that continues and hopefully VT will get a shot at the National Title this year. VT played Florida State in 1999 for the National Championship, but lost the game. Hopefully this year they can go all the way! Go Hokies!
The Fall 2005 semester is here in full force. There is plenty of work to go around and about all I can do is take it a week at a time as far as papers and assignments. Happily we have an extra reading week this semester during the last week of September. That will be a welcome break already after only 4 or 5 weeks of class. I knew it would be like this, but its ok, I guess its just the price I have to pay to graduate in May instead of waiting until December.
Now for the good news… The VT Hokies are 2-0 and ranked #4 nationally. As long as they keep their heads and play the way they should, I’m hoping for an undefeated season. We’ll see. It seems like forever since last college football season, and I’m sure this one will be over before we know it! At least it gives me a break from school work. Well thats about all the updates for right now.
