the reason why i'm here

I realized I had posted lots of pictures and stories of adventures I've had with friends in CA this quarter but hadn't posted anything about the classes I am in. Now with 2 1/2 weeks left in the quarter classes are all of what is consuming my time and energy.
Here's an overview of my classes this quarter:
-Intro. to Family Ministry with Chap Clark. This is my second Chap class and he is quickly becoming one of the best professors I've ever had. I love his teaching style (very similar to Dr. J for you Spiders reading). What I love even more about Chap's classes than his teaching style is the content. I will take a series of four classes from Chap--all Youth and Family related. Last quarter I took Youth Ministry and over the next year or so I will take Youth Outreach and Evangelism, and Leadership and Youth Ministry. Family Ministry has been an overview of what the state of the family is today, various views on what constitutes a family and finally different modes of family ministry in a church. We've looked in depth (Scriptures in the Greek and Hebrew) at what the roles of men, women, and children are in the family. Chap also gave the best sex talks I've ever heard. We've read several books (Rodney Clapp, Eddie Gibbs and Diane Garland). Garland's book is 600 pages--oh man it's taken me awhile! Our final papers for the class are to write a personal philosophy of family ministry and to design a family ministry curriculum for a church (similar to what I did for my youth ministry class). I've loved this class for it's practical implications for future ministry but mostly for the depth of theological thought on how we make decisions about dealing with families and all the sticky issues surrounding them in the church.
-Hebrew Prophets with James Butler. Having never read the Old Testament except for a verse here and there I wasn't sure how this class would be. However, Dr. Butler is quite possibly one of the most humble human beings I've met. He is brilliant but communicates that brilliance in a gentle and pastoral manner. I feel like this is rare in the world of academia and I admire him a lot for it. Therefore, taking Hebrew Prophets with Dr. Butler has caused my fear and intimidation of the Old Testament to go down. I have loved seeing the connections from the New Testament to the Old Testament, how God's promises are constantly being fulfilled. Reading the Old Testament reveals the wholeness and beauty of the narrative surrounding God's love and desire for His people. I'm excited to take my Pentateuch and Writings classes to learn more about the OT. My assignments for this class have been mostly readings (of the prophets and several commentaries). We had a midterm and have a final that forced me to memorize tons of identifications (pretty much all the key people, events, places, objects in the prophets) and write essay on key themes, ideas, and controversies. I walked away from my midterm feeling I had learned a ton. We also have a research paper in which I'm writing on female imagery in the prophets (haven't started that but it's due in a week and a half so we'll see!).
-Greek with Darren Land. This is my second quarter of a three quarter system to learn the Basics of Biblical Greek. We learned nouns last quarter, verbs this quarter, and participles are next quarter. This has been the class I've struggled with most. I am not a fan of my prof's teaching style and have had to teach myself Greek (with the help of some friends who've had Greek before). Teaching yourself Greek nouns is one thing, but teaching yourself verbs is a whole different story... I think that I've gotten a good grasp on the theory behind the grammer which will help when I'm actually using the Greek to interpret and translate the New Testament. One another note, I have the same group of students in my Greek class all three quarters so that has been fun to have a consistent small group of students throughout the two quarters.
-Foundations of Ministry. This is the forced small group that we are placed in randomly the first week of seminary. There are 7 people in my group, 4 guys and my roommate. It was a shock at first as I was in a small group with 3 married guys but I've come to appreciate our group. We meet once a week and discuss whatever topic they give us in the workbook. This quarter we are going through spiritual disciplines (journaling, lectio divino, lamentations, etc) and partaking in each discipline at each week. It has been fun to hear how each other's denominations, backgrounds, stages of life have impacted our understanding of Christianity. For this class we also have 3 three hour lectures to go to (some are painfully boring, others good). We took a psychological test (hyped up version of Myers Brigg) last quarter and got our results this quarter....interesting stuff!

There you go--those are the classes I've been in and only 2 1/2 weeks left to finish 2 research papers, 1 paper of quotes, a major final project, a 600 page book, several reflection papers and take 3 finals. Ohhh my!