Tuesday, August 26, 2008

School Days


Monday marked the beginning of 4th grade for Ms. Trae Alexandria. And this is a picture of Trae at the end of the day. She survived day one...only 181 to go!
On the walk home from school today, Trae proudly announced that she'd signed up for the Cross Country team at Maple Creek. I'll give her kudos for her desire...but cross country never even remotely appealed to me. I think she's got more of the health nut of her mom in her.
Monday morning, Mandy, Trae and I spent a lot of time praying for this year. We want our daughter to do more than simply acquire knowledge -- we want her to be a light on her campus. We are asking God's protection of her innocent faith and his strength for her to be bold, in her own way, for Jesus.
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Trae's not the only one back to school this week.
Thanks to an offer from the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, the graduate school arm of Fresno Pacific University, I am returning to school. MBBS offers full-time central Valley ministers a free course in their graduate seminary. I am accepting their offer by taking a course each Thursday evening from 6-9 p.m. The course requires the reading of seven books with reviews and class discussion. Here's a peek at the syllabus for the course. What's intriguing to me the discussion of the church within various cultural contexts and how the church can be a viable agent for conversion within the culture, not vice-versa.