School's Out

My great college experiment has been put on hold.

In it's place, for at least the next semester, is Porterbrook, a theological training program that I am both participating in and coordinating as part of my work with Plant NC.

My goal of getting a Bachelor of Something or Other some time before 2050 still remains but it is starting to look like I will need to find somewhere new to do my studies. 

You see, having taken one class last semester at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary I was not allowed to continue without properly enrolling. The problem? In order to enroll I needed to provide two things I was not able to provide very easily: official transcripts and proof of immunization (I assume to make sure I didn't infect anybody in my lounge room).

Apparently immunizations are required by North Carolina law, and transcripts are required to meet accreditation standards. And that all just seemed like too much of a bother for me at this point – especially seeing as I had waited two weeks to get any response from the college, by which time semester had already started.

Instead, I may well move my studies back home where I don't have to get five needles just for the privilege of taking a class in the confines of my own home.

In other news, I got a B– for Church History I. The only problem is they locked me out of the system before they posted my final exam score so I never got it, thus missing out on one final comment from the world's most unhelpful grader. I'm just going to go ahead and assume he critiqued my choice of font.

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Image by I, Timmy.

Church History I

It is finished.

I have successfully completed my first class at college.

It won't be a great tale of success, I expect, thanks in no small part to the world's most unhelpful grader, but I made it through nonetheless. And given that I started two weeks late, finished one week early and went away for a month in the middle I will be satisfied just to have passed.

Along the way I had to watch 39 lectures, read two books, complete six assignments (each of which included reading a 15,000-30,000 word paper), sit three tests and take one final exam.

And although a lot of the content of the class was interesting and useful, it was also pretty dry and for the most part the questions I had to answer bore little relevance to practical ministry and mission. 

So in order to give the experience as much value as possible — bearing in mind that it cost me almost $1,000 for one solitary online class — I chose to draw my own set of conclusions throughout based upon the material presented. Here is a small sample of the things that stood out to me.

• Internal issues, such as heresy and division, weaken the church; external issues, such as persecution, strengthen the church. Thus, we should prefer the latter to the former.
• Almost all major heresies throughout the history of the church relate to the person and work of Jesus Christ, or the nature of the Trinity.
• The most persuasive and popular heresies are usually hard to distinguish from orthodoxy.
• The celebrity pastor is not a modern phenomenon.
• Faith and politics do not go together.
• The church has always disagreed — sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons — so we should not be surprised that it continues to disagree.
• The church has made a lot of mistakes throughout history and will continue to do so.

Might I also mention that the education system is fundamentally flawed? Honestly. But that's a matter for another day.

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Image by johan.pipet.

Back To School

I'm going back to school.

After years of thinking about it, I have finally taken the plunge and will take one solitary class (Church History I) at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) this semester. And the beautiful part is I won't ever have to leave my lounge room because the class is online.

There will be three lectures each week (delivered via iTunes), six reading assignments throughout the semester, plus three online tests and one final exam.

If I survive the class and fare better as a student than I did at high school, then I hope to be able to keep at it and take 2–3 classes each semester for as long as it takes to (a) learn something useful and/or (b) finally get that piece of paper I never got round to in my 20s.

But for now, just making it through one semester will be an achievement in itself — as it's something I have not managed to do before.

And to keep things interesting, I enrolled two weeks late so I now have just 48 hours to watch the first six lectures, read 60 pages and then hand in an assignment.

Wish me luck.

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Image by LaoWaiKevin.