Back again...

Can anybody else believe that it is already July? This year has gone by so fast!! Just the fact that it has been over five months since I have last blogged is testimony to that fact. However, I hope that my blogging can once again be picked up on a somewhat more regular basis. Back in January when I last posted something I mentioned how busy my end of the year 2008 was. One thing that I neglected to include in that last post was that I was at the end of a very, very busy winter term. Essentially I was taking a one 13-week semester course and cramming it into three weeks. Our professor for the Christian Life and Ethics class was going on sabbatical over the spring and this class was really his speciality so my classmates and I got to take this wonderful class in a very short amount of time, which included all the normal reading, paper, and exam that would have been done over the course of three months.

So I was really busy in the winter, but I was naively thinking that my spring was going to be easy and relaxed. My class schedule throughout seminary was kind of out of the ordinary and I ended up taking a lot of the classes that most guys usually take in their last semester earlier, so I only had three required classes remaining one of which was a preaching class, and one was a seminar. It just so happened that there were a couple of electives that I really wanted to take. Well, let's just say my class load was a lot more than I had anticipated. All my classes were great, but more work than I thought they would be.

The reason that this was a "problem" was that I knew that I had my candidacy examination coming up at the end of June and I wanted to be able to devote some time during the semester to begin preparing for that. With my class schedule, exhorting at different churches, and working at WHI, the last couple of months have been crazy. I loved pretty much every minute of it, but there was never a time when I could really truly sit back and relax with out the nagging sense that I should be studying or preparing for something!

On May 30, I graduated from Westminster Seminary California with my Masters of Divinity degree (photos here). Throughout that day and afterwards people kept asking me, "So, does it feel so good to be done with Seminary and now you can just relax?" To which I always responded with, "NO! I still have the biggest exam of my life facing me in a month. After that I can relax!"

In order to be made a candidate for the ministry in the URCNA (United Reformed Churches in North America) one needs to sustain an oral examination before classis. This exam is really the culmination of all one's seminary training, and is a necessary step for getting called to a church. So for the whole month of June I was engrossed in studying and preparing for this exam. Almost every free moment was filled with at least thinking about all that I needed to know. I only worked in the mornings, and in the afternoon I would hole myself up in a classroom and studied. I didn't neglect my wife too much (I hope!), and was able to have a couple other things going on where I could step away briefly to let my mind rest.

But then the day came: Tuesday, June 30. The day I had emblazened on my mind for the past six months. My brother and classmate, Brad Lenzer, sustained his exam before me, and then I was up in the afternoon. (I should note that the classis needed to hear four examinations which is A LOT). My exam went very well I thought. I was relaxed and fairly confident in almost all my responses. There were a few things that I got tripped up on mainly because I didn't understand exactly what the question was getting at, but thankfully I believe I was able to faithfully present my position to the satisfaction of the delegates present. Of course I flat out missed things and forgot other things, but that was fine. So at the end of the day I sustained my exam and I have my classical diploma to prove it! God is good!!

So now what? Right now I am open for a call anywhere that the Lord leads me. It is up to the local church to seek me and my brothers out, so it is a waiting game! Some of you might know that I am helping out as much as I can in the early stages of a church plant in Gig Harbor, WA. So we will see where the Lord leads with that. The work that I have done I would be more than willing to hand over to somebody else if the Lord so wills and if another man is called to that work. There are other open pulpits in the URC that I am open to candidating for, and I hope in the next couple of months that the Lord will make his will known where I can serve his kingdom best. In the meantime I will help with the church plant and exhort at various churches. I pretty much have all my Sunday's booked through the end of the summer, so that will be good.

The Bible Study/Church Plant project in Gig Harbor has a website so check that out. If you know anybody in the Gig Harbor/Tacoma area that might be interested in our work there, please let them know!!

Finally, I hope to keep this blog updated more regularly with what is happenind with Michelle and I, and then also any theological things that pop into my head that I want to discuss. So stay tuned! This blog does have and RSS feed so subscribe to that!

Take care,
Mark