It Is Finished.

This week has finally come to an end, and boy, was it a doozy. The first and most basic part of the week was my J-term class, "Teaching and Learning Christian Formation" (I had to look up what it was actually called; some of these classes are hard to remember (i.e. "Leadership and Empowering the Laity (or Ladies, as some like to joke) for Church Growth", "Models of Christian Formation," "Living Responsibly in the Realm of God," and it's alternate, "Living Irresponsibly in the Realm of God.")) It was from 8-12:30 and 2:30-5:30 every day. If you know me, you most likely know that this isn't my type of class. Education classes were always my least favorite as they usually weren't taught very well (note the irony. On one of my worst days it led me to come up with the quip, "Those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, teach teaching." Notable exceptions at North Park included (but are not limited to) Jill Wettersten, Whipp Johnson, and Nancy Berggren). I would much rather take a meaty theology course or a distinct biblical course like on the book of Revelation. I decided to take this because it was required, and I would rather rip the band-aid off quickly in a week rather than peel it off slowly through the semester.

However, I have to give Laurie Bailey (my teacher) some credit. While the subject matter still wasn't my favorite to grapple with, she made it experiential and, dare I say, fun. The class went by quickly, and we had some great discussions and wrestled with what Christian Formation looks like in our own lives. It didn't hurt that we used a lot of Parker Palmer!

So, running concurrent to this class was interviews with the superintendents and various leaders of the Evangelical Covenant Church. The superintendents are each in charge of various regional conferences of the Covenant throughout the U.S. (Pacific Northwest, Central, Midwest, etc.). In these interviews, they basically try to get a feel for where your gifts lie and how they may be used in their various conferences. It's a bit nerve-racking, but it helps that I have signed on at ResCov through December and have a place to live. The only downside to the interviews is that they were held in between and after classes making for very long days. The questions usually revolved around your spiritual history and discussions of what your dream job would be. I think the hardest part was figuring out what to wear each morning.

Thursday I had an interview at World Relief, a Christian organization that helps refugees resettle in the U.S. I was offered the job as Donation Coordinator, which is a fancy way of saying that I will help the full-time guy (the one and only Matt Johnson) pick up furniture from donors' houses and set up refugee apartments with this and other supplementary furniture. It will be good to do some manual labor during the semester when I'll be on my butt too often reading and writing my thesis. The best part about it is that it will be very part-time until the summer when it will pick up, which is just when I will have nothing but time after graduation.

So, it's been a busy week, but now it is over. The only consequence: I think I'm getting sick. However, I just finished all my church work and look forward to napping and reading The Passage, which Carol Wilde lent me (I almost said "borrowed me," which is such a Minnesotan expression; in Minnesota you "borrow" a book from someone, and that person "borrows" it to you). It's about a colony of people that try to survive in a compound after the world's population has been decimated by vampire-like creatures called "virals." I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies and books (e.g. The Road, Children of Men, 28 Days Later). I don't know what it says about me that I am attracted to movies and books that deal with the subject of human beings being almost entirely wiped out but for a remnant who must fight to stay alive. Maybe it's my attraction to the biblical idea of the faithful remnant? Maybe it's a metaphor for faithfulness in the midst of trial? You tell me.

Okay, I'm going to eat lunch. Later.