One day at school

Tuesday March 5th  blog

4:30 am  - Rise in the morning to prepare for the day, as I have been doing all year.  The early morning start gives me a chance to have solitude not only for morning prayer but also a chance to sort my thoughts for teaching today.  Compartmentalizing the duties of the day are of utmost importance, since so many new variables have come my way in the form of counseling and after-hours mentoring.

6:00 am - On the way to school after a good 30 minute run on the treadmill.  The doctor visit is set on Thursday and ever since he warned me of my family's history of diabetes, I have been in a regimen not only of avoiding any processed sugar and eating salads, but also a daily running routine.

8 am - Sociology class:  we covered the cultural of local speech and finished a project on dialectical differences around the USA.  We then had a very serious study on the Suicide Forest tucked next to Mt. Fuji in Japan.  What causes so many young people to migrate to this forest and hang themselves?  What type of counseling could a Christian offer to give hope to these disillusioned and hurting young folk?  One student told me how this study has been reaching deep inside her.

9 am - Talked with the students in Bible 10 about the need to have a college-prep approach to all of our studies. Was well met.  The teens of the second period continually impress me with their deepening desire to ask and ask.  Romans 7 talk on sin, Romans 8 on eternal security.

Impromptu after-school counseling took me near 4:30 but it was a powerful time in seeing a student take serious steps toward returning to church and a powerful Christian walk, including a regular Bible reading.

As we move into March...

It has been an eventful February, to say the least.  The Winterim Theology Camp in January was perhaps the most enjoyable and fulfilling camp I have experienced in years.  The campers were almost obsessed with asking questions and studying the Scriptures about the New Heaven and New earth... wow, th whole week was almost transcendent to any camp I have had the privilege of organizing.  A second camp - a weekend retreat, really - is already being set up and the reservations are filling up fast. 

Now for February.  The contests have been heated, and the projects have been plenty. Sociology Class has been finishing up a report about polling and surveys.  We have also had debates, where I play the atheist.  We have studied cults and mob hysteria.  The students of the second period Bible class (Epsilon Delta) that I teach has been amazing in their desire to learn and mature.  We are now into the New Testament Survey (currently in Acts) and have been adding a new Koine Greek word to their vocabulary every other day.  This class won't slow down!  They have picked up comprehension, and so have their grades.

This is not to say that their contemporaries haven't followed their lead.  The past week had student speeches as part of the learning process.  The third hour (Omega Rho) also stunned me with the quality of their speeches.  In the past I would have complaints about the challenge of standing up and giving a presentation, but that has quickly faded - the attitude is positive.  Three students in a row - L., L, and T. all were exceptional.
This week we will survey the book of Romans and add demonstration speeches as well.  The students will show me how to make a sandwich.
I have been using the Zockoll University website as a source for the students' in-class notes and reading, and the class enjoys the fun of the fictional college, hoping that I may have sneaked their name in a time or two.

Theology Camp: Heaven

This coming week is our Theology Camp, and the theme is Heaven.  And when I say theme, I mean the whole drive, the whole approach, the whole study, the whole discussion time, the whole intensity will be on the afterlife of the Christian.

We're not going into the false views nor are we going into a study on Hell. We are talking about where Christians will be a thousand, a million, a trillion years from now.  I believe that my generation has been shortchanged in learning about Heaven and the coming New Earth.  Just as Satan wants, the average Christian doesn't say much about what heaven is like because he has been taught almost nothing about it.  Revelation 13 states that Satan is achieving one of his objectives, and that is of blaspheming God's dwelling place.

This coming week will seek to change that in the hearts of 17 students.  Please pray for us as we venture into some of the most exciting territory I've ever studied.