WRITING ALL NIGHTER

Pulled my first all nighter in a long time last night. Got to church at 8am and didn't leave till 5 am the next day.

I had told Shannon that I would be a bad Dad and a lousy husband for 2 days because I had to fully immerse myself in being a seminary student for 2 days. This wasn't a bad week to say that since we're going away for our anniversary for thursday, friday, and saturday and since I'm taking most- if not all of Wednesday- off to hang do graduation stuff with TJ as he leaves the 5th grade and heads to middle school.

Anyway, I had to stay up all night to finish the first seminary project in 3 years that actually has direct application to my youth ministry. My Evangelism/Discipleship seminary professor is a church planter of a local church in our area and as a result, pastors think different than professors. I'm convinced of that much. So my class project was allowed to be tailored to the audience I work with and allowed to be directly ready to use, not a research project I'd have to assimilate later. WOW... NOVEL THOUGHT!!!

I better stop or I'll go off on a rant here. I have serious opinions about the greco-roman-european-postmodern-learning system I find my self stuck in... but that's another post with a lot of swear words...

So, despite the fact that I'm turning my project in late, it's done. Here's what it is:

A 6 week bible study and work book for students in our ministry. We are launching it in the fall of this next year in our small groups an in a parallel weekend series I'm writing called, "Everybody Matters". Here's how the 6 weeks break down:

• EVANGELISM 101- understanding God's heart for those far from God.
• BECOMING THE REAL DEAL- living an authentic life of a follower of Jesus before a watching world
• IDENTIFYING AND UTILIZING YOUR UNIQUENESS FOR GOD- examining different personality and spiritual gifts in light of the goal of evangelism.
• EMBRACING THE PROCESS- being faithful to the long haul of evangelism
• THE ART OF SHARING YOUR OWN STORY- harnessing the evangelical power of a changed life.
• UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL MESSAGE- clearly communicating God's story to those far from God.
  

So, I think I'm going to try and kill 3 birds with this one stone.

1. I'm going to give it to my prof for class credit.
   
2. I'm going to use it for my own ministry in the fall.
   
3. I'm going to see if Simply wants to use it as a small group curriculum.

I really hope all 3 work sweet!!!

Speaking of Simply, I also finished another bible study last week, which is why this seminary project is so late. That fact and graduations and about a million other things. Anyway, last week I tweaked a bible study I wrote for new believers back in my early days of youth ministry. (I think I was like 23) It took me a long time to tweak it, because I lost one of the chapters on my computer and because I've changed. So some of the stuff I wrote before I no longer believe. Ha!!!

Anyway, it was fun to do- minus the time crunch. It's really more of a survey of the Bible on 5 critical components for a follower of Jesus. I'm going to use it in our ministry as a class we're offering for new believers/students who want to reestablish the basics 2x a year over a 2 Sunday afternoon period. I used to call it "Foundations", but I retitled this series, "The Essence".

Here's how it breaks down.

• What is a Christian and why should I be one?
• What is the Bible and why should I read it?
• What is prayer and why should I practice it?
• What is the church and why should I get involved in it?
• What is evangelism and why should I do it?

I'll post here when the series goes live at Simply. But I'm guessing that won't happen for several months.

OK... I now have to go cram for my greco-roman-european-postmodern-learning system regurgitation of memorized trivia for my seminary final in 5 hours.