Monday 25 November 2013

Sunday 24 November 2013

Coming December 11th

Many years ago I met a girl named Holly. We spent a wonderful summer together as summer missionaries with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), wrote a lot of letters, met up one (or two?) other summers in training for CEF, and then lived together in a lovely apartment over a hardware shop the year I was at Brock. That was the year I met Dave, her intended (and now her husband and the father of her children). This is really about Dave.

Dave has written a book: Abel's Song by D.K. Leighfield. I had the privilege of reading it a while ago (has it been a year already?) and doing some editing. It's a wonderful story and you should buy it for your children (except you, Patty, because I plan to send it to the small one for Christmas). It will be available on December 11th; if you want, you can pre-order it from West Bow Press today. I'm not going to tell you much more; you can watch the official trailer below.


Friday 22 November 2013

The Trouble with Profs

I've started the last classes for my degree. By the beginning of May, I'll be done everything and ready to graduate (with the caveat that I pass all the classes, including the ones I just finished for which I still don't have final marks). These last two classes have come with some challenges.

One is a practicum in discipleship. The work mostly seems pretty straightforward: read a lot and write about it; listen to a couple sermons and write about them; write a 10-page paper about discipleship, and disciple someone and keep a journal. And then there's this:
"Develop and critically evaluate a program for a discipleship 12 week reproducing training ministry in your own church for men and women"

I'm not really sure what he wants. I like the idea of critically evaluating my own program though. I can tell you already that it's an excellent program that should be used with everyone, everywhere!

My other class is a practicum in missions. The work is much the same: read a lot and write about it; write a 10-page paper about missions using the book of Acts. The problem here is that of the 8 books I'm supposed to read, 3 of them are out of print. Of those 3, I found one used and one that can't be shipped into Canada. The other didn't show up in any of my searches (and I know where to find books). I finally emailed the advisor who spoke with the prof who assigned a different book in place of those three. The nice part is that instead of 8 books I now have 6 books, and instead of 8 reading reports I now have 6 reading reports.

According to Jim, my book guy (he runs a Christian bookstore and attends my church and delivers books to me at church), professors tend to assign books that they used in school, and the older the prof, the more likely the books will be out of print.

Oh, well. I have all the books either here or ordered, and these are the last I need. Only a few more months now.

Monday 11 November 2013

Sunday 3 November 2013

First Lines

Just for fun, here are the first lines of the books I just purchased as well as everything I'm reading right now (2 Bible studies and the Women's Discipleship class at the church). It's a lovely mix of stuff!

Prologue: "I never talk about what happened."
Chapter 1: "The day his life changed forever didn't announce itself; it just arrived."

Prologue: "Elantris was beautiful, once."
Chapter 1: "Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity."

"The train station at Pebbleton, dark and sooty though it was, glistened in the mist."

"In the chill of a predawn Monday morning, I walked down into our unfinished basement where I had a small office."

"Stones, stones, stones, stones -- stones!"

Introduction: "Have you ever had that uncomfortable feeling that you've forgotten something important but just can't remember what it is?"
Chapter 1: "It's vital that you know where we're going in this book before you begin, so in case you skipped the introduction, please take a moment to go back to it."

"Most people don't expect you to understand what we're going to tell you in this book."

Preface: "For almost two thousand years, Christians have comforted and encouraged each other with the knowledge that Jesus is their Good Shepherd."
Chapter 1: "Biblical counseling isn't just some dry academic exercise in splitting hairs or arguing over insignificant practices."

Saturday 2 November 2013