Visiting Seminary

I've been wanting to post an update regarding our recent visit to Concordia Seminary, but I've been swamped in the design process of the new TXKTraining.com Web site, completion of two more classes at Evangel University and, oh by the way, my daily job of actually teaching IT classes. Phew. Everyone told me that this course of life would be difficult, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier. Sigh. I digress.

Well, we had a great visit! It was wonderful to meet so many special people (both those considering attending Concordia Seminary and those among the students and faculty). Many of the questions Debbie and I have had about this process were answered and overall it really eased my mind about many of the details of the programs there.

What I thought would happen as a result of that visit is that I would be confirmed in my decision to go the traditional residential route of actually relocating my family to the St. Louis campus during my studies there (as early as fall of 2009). However, after returning home and processing our visit in view of the context of our lives here and the life of our local congregation, I was literally shocked that this may not be our choice. Instead, if I had to choose today, I would likely go the route of a "Specific Ministry Pastor" or SMP.

For me, the reason for being originally swayed away from the SMP program has been the lack of a specific ministry for me, per se. What I mean is that my role in our current congregation for so long has not been directly integrated in growing our ministry there (from my point of view). This statement is not a criticism of anyone other than myself. Instead, I have viewed my role as practical and task-oriented. Because of this, I did not detect a way in which I could find myself in a Specific Ministry role. My calling by the Holy Spirit is toward preaching and teaching, not Web design or Audio/Visual tasks (which have been my primary role at ROL during the last seven years) and this led me to want to break out into a formation process that would not be tied directly to my current and past roles.

So, I (perhaps quite erroneously) had pigeon-holed myself as the resident Christ-Centered Geek in our congregation. When I have had opportunities to preach and teach, they have been some of the most alive-moments of my time there, and I could not see an opportunity to do that on a more permanent (vicarage) basis.

However, our visit to Concordia Seminary and subsequent return has changed that opinion. As I drove home from St. Louis I just didn't feel a peace of mind about the resident program being the choice for us.

I now see all kinds of possibilities. I now see a tremendous need either in my congregation or in communities directly adjacent. I suppose what happened is I began to change my self-image when I began to be honest with myself: maybe I can be more than a Christ-Centered Geek in my Christian Community. Or, at the very least, maybe I should try.

So, while I thought October of 2008 would bring my decision to choose a route, I'm going to stand pat for a while now that I've realized (for about the 946,785th time) that God views the situation quite differently than I do (go figure), and I need to be much more open-minded to His work.

Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, 13I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-by to them and went on to Macedonia.

This is a quote from 2 Corinthians 2:12-13 where Paul is recounting his decision making process about ministry. He thought he had everything all lined up and God and even participated in that process, but he had not peace of mind about it at decision time. He wasn't settled in that course of action. At this moment, I can definitely relate to his situation. I have no peace of mind about the residence program...but instead I find myself very much attracted to the SMP program. I'm excited to see what God does in this process!