My first of two classes began today at Southern Seminary: Project Methodology II. The II at the end of the class name supposes that I have taken and passed the one of similar verbage, yet follwed by I. Oh what a difference a year makes. This particular class tells us how to begin going about writing our doctoral projects. My project has to do with the local church being directly invovled in the formal training of future pastors. This has been a project I have been pursuing for quite some time now and there were moments today that it appeared the prof was not pleased with the project idea. As a matter of fact, he changed a great degree of the focus of the project from the direction I was given a year ago. So, instead of writing another book review this afternoon and evening (which I must still do), I have been rewriting my project proposal. Stacy and James, if you are reading, don’t be worried. . . . Be very worried. Tomorrow will be a deciding day for me on the project. I have reworked my proposal and will shower extra carefully tomorrow so as to be at my persuasive best.
Despite some of the tension of the class today, my wife Kelly and I had the joy of having lunch with Pastor Steve Weaver. Some of you who read this blog may know him from the very famous and substantive blog creatively entitled, “Pastor Steve Weaver’s Blog.” Steve is a humble and encouraging servant. He was just finishing a week of classes for his ThM in historical theology. We enjoyed some discussion about his approach to blogging, a bit about his church and family and a tad about how (and why) I was related to the boys at Fide-O (since we’re all from the South, I just assumed we were all somehow related genetically). Since I am beginning a new series in Romans and seeing how Steve just finished his series in the book, we chatted quite a bit about commentaries on Romans. As you can tell from his blog, he’s a good student of the Word. Meeting him personally, he is a great servant of Christ. Steve, I trust you made it home today to pitch well for your kids’ game!  I thoroughly enjoyed the time with you today.