Friday, August 30, 2013

What's This About Anyhow?

I am on the internship step in my journey that is seminary education.  Which has been a great experience for me so far.  However, it doesn't really provide me the opportunity to engage what I read in the same way that seminary classes do.  So this blog is a way for me to start engaging the books that I'm reading to continue my theological growth and help me make the transition from full-time student/part-time pastor to full-time pastor/part-time student.

I plan on reading some books, old and new - covering a wide variety of topics from pastoral care to theology to biblical studies. While I read, I want to come up with a way to start thinking about how these books will help me grow as both parish pastor and theologian.  To aid me in this venture, I've come up with three questions to answer as I work my way through the books that I read.

1. How has this book changed how I think about the topic presented?
2. How will this book influence my preaching and teaching?
3. What thoughts does this book provoke, and what are some implications of those thoughts?
4.  Who might benefit from reading this book based on questions they have asked or situations that they are going through?

This blog is intended to become a conversation, between me, the author, and you.  I want to start engaging these books in such a way that I am fully able to integrate the thoughts and ideas that the authors are presenting.

Please join me on this journey so that we can keep the conversation growing.  One of the most important things I've learned this far into my faith journey is that faith without conversation grows stale and stagnant.  One might even go so far as to say it becomes its own sort of idolatry.  So, together, let us keep our faith on its toes - growing and learning together through our theological engagements with these texts.