A Thousand-Mile Walk, 500 Years Later

I was intrigued by a short article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last month. The writer, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, and her husband have decided to take a long walk together. To be specific, exactly 500 years after the father of the Reformation marched from Erfurt, Germany all the way to Rome, they're going to do it too. The piece is titled, "A Thousand Miles in the Footsteps of Martin Luther." As they go, the couple are writing up their experiences and posting some pictures too. Their blog is called hereiwalk.org.

5 Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life

Okay, so I got tagged by Arlene Kasselman. My assignment (and I've chosen to accept it) is to talk about 5 Ways That Blogging Has Changed My Life. Here goes:

1. Blogging has introduced me to a wide array of usually bright, interesting, funny people of goodwill, people I never would have known about any other way. I really enjoy this blogging culture that I'm a part of.

2. Blogging has forced me to realize what a struggle it is for me to sort out what I think, to say what I mean, and to say it as well as I can. Every week, I run straight into the fact that I don't know exactly what I think and that, once again, I'll have to turn it over in my mind and write it out. Only by doing that can I come to some sort of provisional conclusion. That I have a blog prompts me to keep thinking in front of others.

3. Often, when I get a comment from someone who's read what I've written (and I always feel like a kid getting a present when I see a new comment) the feedback provides me with the sort of "peer review" I don't get any other way.

4. Blogging has often reminded me that we do not know other people in mind only. This is precisely why, when we come to "meet" other bloggers via the Internet, we deeply want to meet them truly, in person. When Paul wrote the celebrated Letter to the Romans, apparently not even that fabulous piece of correspondence could communicate what he wanted to give them; that exchange would have to wait until he saw them face to face (Romans 1:11). To all of my blogging buddies I say, "I long to see you."

5. Blogging has helped to show me and remind me of what an intriguing world this is, what an interesting time it is to be alive. Blogging has been and, for now anyway, will continue to be a part of my life.

Thanks for the tag, Arlene.

Oh, and here's a link to the originator of this chain post.

This time I'm going to forego the tag, partly because a bunch of the folks I might have picked have already been tagged.

Blogs to Check Out: Latest Adds

I now have four more deserving names in the sidebar under Some Bloggers I Read. Others belong there too; all in good time. In random order, the new ones are:

Adam Gonnerman, who describes himself as a "once-and-future missionary to Brazil, currently working bivocationally in northern New Jersey with Brazilian immigrants. . . . " He goes on to explain that he has ties to both the Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ and the a cappella Churches of Christ. To top off the both-and thing, Adam's blog, Igneous Quill, is written in English, but also includes a bit of Portuguese as well.

Brian Nicklaus, the Blog Prophet. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had met Brian while the two of us were at a men's retreat in Connecticut. Nice guy. The fact that he was looking through used books when we met gave him a certain measure of instant credibility.

Paula Harrington say she's a "a Christian wife and mother of five trying to live for Christ, raise my children for Christ and be who He wants me to be." And if that didn't rate, she's also into Vacation Bible School and is Brian's sister.

John Mark Hicks is a former-and-current teacher of mine. Back in the day, I took several of my classes at Harding Graduate School of Religion with Professor Hicks; and he's still teaching me. He epitomizes what the Churches of Christ need from their college faculty: scholars who know God, who know a lot about Scripture and Creation, who know the good-and-not-so-good history of their people, and who teach and promote what is best among the churches.

Two Weekends in New England

My week and a day in Connecticut went by so fast.

Yesterday was my twelve-hour travel day back to Amarillo. That's not the funnest experience (and, yes, funnest is a word), but it was sweet to see Michele when I got off that last plane.

Quick question: Does Chicago's Midway Airport just have short runways, or what? Landing there always feels like we're coming down on an aircraft carrier.

Anyway, here are just a few of the highlights from my trip, in random order and varying levels of importance:

1. As things turned out, I didn't take the course on "Judaism in the Time of Jesus." Sorry, nothing to report about that. However, if you go to the link for that course, you'll see another link that will take you to the syllabus, which is worth a look for those interested.

I hadn't realized until Monday morning that "Judaism . . ." was being offered as an afternoon class. I would have loved that one. But what I really needed was a morning class. I finally wound up going to a great alternative for me, a class called Reel Presence: Explorations in Liturgy and Film, taught by Dr. Teresa Berger.

Wow, what an interesting teacher. She's a German, Roman Catholic scholar, with two earned doctorates, who specializes in liturgical (worship) studies. As you might have guessed, everyone else in the class came from either Catholic or mainline Protestant backgrounds (Lutheran, Episcopalian, etc.). That's something I can count on at the Divinity School: always meeting up with people who come from places that are quite different from the places I know. That can be an education all by itself.

So, as it turned out, the movie buff in me got to learn a little more about reflecting theologically on the films we tend to watch as mere entertainment. Maybe I'll talk about that sometime. By the way, although most of what we actually watched in class were movie clips, one film we watched all the way through is called Whale Rider. Anyone else seen it? That could be a provocative one for churches, to say the least.

2. While in Connecticut, my kids and I got to visit some of our favorite places to eat, including this gourmet vegetarian place in downtown New Haven called Claire's Corner Copia. We followed that up with ice cream dessert at Ashley's. Woobie Doobie.

3. Over the weekend, Friday and Saturday, my boy and I got to attend the Northeastern States Men's Retreat, held annually at the Kent School up in the northwestern corner of Connecticut.

This year's speaker was J. J. Turner, a long-time leader among Churches of Christ and, yes, John Alan's dad. J. J. spoke about "activating Acts in the 21st century." In addition to presenting so many great reminders, he put his quick sense of humor to good use. It was good for me to hear those lessons, to sing with 250 other Christian men, to introduce my son to that experience, to see again so many church leaders from the Northeast.

Oh, and speaking of bloggers, late Saturday morning, as I worked my way through most of the items at the Kent Public Library book sale, I just happened to meet The Blog Prophet himself, Brian Nicklaus. Very cool.

4. Finally, last Sunday I had the exquisite pleasure of baptizing my son, Benjamin, into Christ. This was something he'd had on his mind for a long time, something we had talked about and prayed about and planned. How sweet. Photos to follow (when I can figure out how to copy them).

A New Blog for the "Life of Paul" Class

As soon as I started college teaching, I wanted to try out using blogs in order to enhance my courses. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

During the first three semesters or so what I found out was, forget the blog idea, I was having a hard time keeping my head above water just doing the basics: creating syllabi, reading textbooks, writing tests, putting together power points. When I first started those were added to what teachers normally do: meeting with students, answering their email, grading tests, going over term papers. Oh, and I was also a student in a course for new college teachers, and was the faculty sponsor for the Kappa Chi club.

I don't regret any of the work, but it was tiring. And, no, giving up "Frankly Speaking" in order to free up more time for a course blog was simply not an option. By then, this place was known to a handful of family and friends and cyber acquaintances. At this intersection, I met up with a few people who "got" me, which is a big part of why I've continued to blog here.

Anyway, especially during that first year, I felt overwhelmed. From that experience, I can tell you that if someone teaches a solid, glad-you-signed-up college course, two things are probably true: (1) They've been at it for a while (2) They're still working hard to make the course content and presentation even better. By the first point, I don't mean to say that the classes of new teachers are bound to be mediocre at best. I do mean to say that if a first-year teacher's class sessions are really good, he or she is working hard. But I digress.

A few weeks ago I finally started my first course blog. I'll be using it through the end of this semester for my "Life of Paul" class. Up to this point, we've surveyed all of the New Testament material: the relevant sections of Acts and all of Paul's letters. We've also looked at some of the post-biblical material that pertains to Paul: passages from Clement of Rome, the Muratorian Fragment, Eusebius, etc.

So during these last few weeks of the semester, we're shifting over to something more like a topical seminar: so far, we've taken up "women in ministry." I'm having the students read and report on a speech by N. T. Wright and, on the other side, an open letter to egalitarians by Wayne Grudem. I think from here we're going on to something like "Paul and the Law." We'll see.

Here's the course blog for "Life of Paul." And here's the link to the course syllabus.

Thoughts? Suggestions for topics? Experiences from those who've used blogs in teaching?