I can't believe it's already November.  That is both a good thing and a bad thing.  Bad in that I have several papers and projects that I have still hanging over my head.  Good because it means that it's getting closer to being the end.  I remember at the beginning of 2009 how I was thinking if I get to the end of this year the seminary load will dramatically drop off and it will.  I still will have two classes in January (4 hours) but it's looking like in the spring I will only have 7 hours and I'll have classes on only two days a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays).  This greatly gives me some breathing room in two ways.  One, it gives me ample time to prepare for my preaching lab that I'll to take.  The second is giving me flexiblity to go and meet with people and check out where I'll be doing my internship starting next fall.  Starting in January, I'll be looking around for that.  I'm really looking forward to that.

Here's the updated book list for 2009:

"Spiritual Leadership" by Oswald Sanders
"Life @ Work" by John Maxwell
"7 Practices of an Effective Ministry" by Andy Stanley, Lane Jones and Reggie Joinier
"Developing the Leader Within You" by John Maxwell
"Trust:  The One Thing That Makes or Breaks a Leader" by Les Csorba
"When Character Was King:  A Story of Ronald Reagan" by Peggy Noonan
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Poetic Books" by C. Hassell Bullock
"Grasping God's Word:  A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible" by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Prophetic Books" by C. Hassell Bullock
"Ministering Cross-culturally:  An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships" by Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers
"Foreign to Familiar:  A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures" by Sarah A. Lanier
"Planting Churches in the Real World" by Joel Rainiey
"Simple Church:  Returning to God's Process of Making Disciples" by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger
"Transforming Worldviews:  An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change" by Paul G. Hiebert
"The Gospel According to Rome:  Comparing Catholic Tradition and the Word of God" by James G. McCarthy
"Confessions of a Reformission Rev.:  Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church" by Mark Driscoll*
"The Celtic Way of Evangelism" by George G. Hunter III*
"The Blue Parakeet:  Rethinking How You Read the Bible" by Scot McKnight*
"To the Golden Shore:  The Story of Adoniram Judson" by Courtney Anderson
"True Sexual Morality:  Recovering Biblical Standards for a Culture in Crisis" by Daniel Heimbach
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Historical Books" by David M. Howard
"Basic Questions on Genetics, Stem Cell Research and Cloning" by Linda K. Bevington, Ray G. Bohin, Gary P. Stewart, John F. Kilner

(*=recreational reading)

As you can tell, I've read a lot of books this year, many for seminary.  Just to compare, here's the breakdown of books I've read since 2005:

Here's the breakdown for books read since 2005:
2005:  18
2006:  19
2007:  18
2008:  21
2009:  22 (so far)

This is not counting the six books for seminary that I have left to finish plus the one recreational reading book I started reading when I was in Poland.  It's possible I could end up reading 30 books by the end of the year but at the very least 28.

I'm excited about what the future has in store.  I'm optimistic that there is some good things coming down the pipe.  I think the time here in Kansas City has prepped me for something good and I look forward to that and what God has in store for my life.

Well, that's all for now.  Until next time, later days...

It has been nearly a month since I blogged last here.  It's not that I don't like this blog, I really do.  It goes back to seminary blocks the site (for some unknown reason) and the only times I get to are on Saturdays and the past few weeks I've had stuff going on those Saturdays.  This is the first one that I haven't.  That will be one thing that I'll look forward to when I leave here is to be able to blog again on little more regular basis.

Physically I'm feeling better aside from being wore out.  I feel stressed a lot which is a direct byproduct of the semester.  I feel like for the most part that I'm treading water when it comes to classwork and reading.  I haven't been able to really get ahead and work on things which adds a little to the stress.  Somehow, God is getting me through it.  I try and trust that I just do the work for the day and tomorrow will take care of itself when it comes.  That's all I can do at this point.

I really enjoy small group.  It is a blessing to look forward to meeting and just share life with them.  They are an encouragment to me.

The Bridge is going well.  We'll be celebrating our one year anniversary next month.  It's really cool to see how we've grown.  We started with about I think 15 and now we're over 40.  Nearly all the young adults are in small groups this session and many serve in the church in various functions.  It is such a blessing to be a part of a ministry that is vibrant and growing.  Hopefully in the coming year there will be continued growth not just numerically but also growth in discipleship and serving (in the missions aspect).

A few weeks ago, I got to play football with some guys from church and friends.  It was nice to get out and play.  As far as the game itself, it was close for a while but then the team I was on pulled away and won easily.  I ended up with like 5 catches, 3 TDs, 1 sack, 1 fumble recovery and 1 INT (along with a DEF TD).  Not bad at all.  Nice to know I still got it.  Hopefully my next place I go to will have rec league flag football and I can get back involved.  I defintiely feel like I still got something left in the tank.

This next week is fall break.  It won't be too much of a break as I'll have a lot to do.  I have errands I have to run for the auction fundraiser that our church is co-sponsoring to raise money to build orphan homes in Haiti.  I also have a lot of reading to get caught up with along with doing sermon outlines for Preaching class.  I will try and take some time off but I want to get as much done as I can.

Here's the updated book list for 2009:

"Spiritual Leadership" by Oswald Sanders
"Life @ Work" by John Maxwell
"7 Practices of an Effective Ministry" by Andy Stanley, Lane Jones and Reggie Joinier
"Developing the Leader Within You" by John Maxwell
"Trust:  The One Thing That Makes or Breaks a Leader" by Les Csorba
"When Character Was King:  A Story of Ronald Reagan" by Peggy Noonan
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Poetic Books" by C. Hassell Bullock
"Grasping God's Word:  A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible" by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Prophetic Books" by C. Hassell Bullock
"Ministering Cross-culturally:  An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships" by Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers
"Foreign to Familiar:  A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures" by Sarah A. Lanier
"Planting Churches in the Real World" by Joel Rainiey
"Simple Church:  Returning to God's Process of Making Disciples" by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger
"Transforming Worldviews:  An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change" by Paul G. Hiebert
"The Gospel According to Rome:  Comparing Catholic Tradition and the Word of God" by James G. McCarthy
"Confessions of a Reformission Rev.:  Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church" by Mark Driscoll*
"The Celtic Way of Evangelism" by George G. Hunter III*
"The Blue Parakeet:  Rethinking How You Read the Bible" by Scot McKnight*
"To the Golden Shore:  The Story of Adoniram Judson" by Courtney Anderson
"True Sexual Morality:  Recovering Biblical Standards for a Culture in Crisis" by Daniel Heimbach

(*=recreational reading)

I've started thinking about the future beyond this year.  I have some decisions ahead of me.  I'm 99.9% sure that I will not be in Kansas City after July 2010 given the fact of my internship and there isn't a lot of options there.  I think the fact that I'm comfortable with that this far out lets me feel that God is leading me out of KC.  I think I knew when I came in January of 2008 it wouldn't be a long term thing which is the first time in my life that has been the case.  Every other place I've been I would go somewhere and not know how long I would be there.  But I've been blessed in the time I've been here I've been lead to a church like Fellowship of Grace and had been able to do things that I never imagined I would have (going to Poland, meeting and making friends there).  What the next step is I don't know.  I have I feel three options but they're way out there and I haven't even begun to try and see if there viable or not.  That'll come starting in January.  My hope is to shore things up probably by April and then finish up my classes in July or so.  I'll still be "in" seminary but all I'll have left is the internship which I'll do somewhere else.  Hopefully it can be worked out that the internship can be a paid one whether it's a staff position or US/C2 missionary position or if needed raise support.  There's a lot for me to pray through and think about in the coming months.  In the meantime, got to survive and get through the rest of this semester.

Well that's all for now.  Until next time, later days...

I just finished week 2 of the Fall Semester.  And I'm really tired because of it.  I thought it'd be a long semester and I was right.  I'm trying to keep up as much as I can and so far I'm doing as good a job as I can.  I'm literally reading like six books at the same time for like five different classes.  It's crazy.  I'm trying to get ahead on my reading but because several classes have stuff due reading for each week it's kinda hard.  I did finish one book before the semester started, for my missions class.  I still have to write a book review for it but it's not due until middle/late next month.  I just keep telling myself I just have to survive to December.  It's been a popular refrain since January but it's true.

Here's the updated book list:

"Spiritual Leadership" by Oswald Sanders
"Life @ Work" by John Maxwell
"7 Practices of an Effective Ministry" by Andy Stanley, Lane Jones and Reggie Joinier
"Developing the Leader Within You" by John Maxwell
"Trust:  The One Thing That Makes or Breaks a Leader" by Les Csorba
"When Character Was King:  A Story of Ronald Reagan" by Peggy Noonan
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Poetic Books" by C. Hassell Bullock
"Grasping God's Word:  A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible" by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays
"An Introduction to the Old Testament:  Prophetic Books" by C. Hassell Bullock
"Ministering Cross-culturally:  An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships" by Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers
"Foreign to Familiar:  A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures" by Sarah A. Lanier
"Planting Churches in the Real World" by Joel Rainiey
"Simple Church:  Returning to God's Process of Making Disciples" by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger
"Transforming Worldviews:  An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change" by Paul G. Hiebert
"The Gospel According to Rome:  Comparing Catholic Tradition and the Word of God" by James G. McCarthy
"Confessions of a Reformission Rev.:  Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church" by Mark Driscoll*
"The Celtic Way of Evangelism" by George G. Hunter III*
"The Blue Parakeet:  Rethinking How You Read the Bible" by Scot McKnight*
"To the Golden Shore:  The Story of Adoniram Judson" by Courtney Anderson

(*=recreational reading)

I got an A for my overseas internship.  Found that out in my first day of class for missions (professor was the same one as for my internship).  I was happy that all the hard work put in was rewarded with an A.  It also reminded me of how I miss Poland and Krakow.  I miss the friends I made there and I miss the work I was doing over there.  In spite the hardships I had (trying to learn the language, trying to juggle classwork while doing ministry work), it was a blessing to be over there.  Since I've been back, I'm still trying to plug back into ministry work here and it hasn't been easy.  Guess that's what happens when you're gone for two months and life goes on.  It's a reminder that patience is important along with submission.  While I'm here in Kansas City, I'll play the role that I'm called to even though at times it can be hard/frustrating because I want to lead out more.  But on the other hand, it's a good reminder that I am called to lead and when the time comes I'll be ready.

Well, that's all for now.  Until next time, later days...