Over the years it has been suggested to me quite a few times that I should produce some regular content in the form of a podcast or vlog. It seems some people enjoy the way that I explain things which is always encouraging for a teacher to hear. Yet it is also intimidating to consider because I follow a few really polished podcasts and have generated regular content in the past, it is a lot of work. One podcast I enjoy, Advent of Computing with Sean Haas, even graciously gives you insights into his process of organizing and preparing that series. I believe what I’m considering here is best taken as a serious project treated it almost like a part-time job (at least in the beginning).
Sorry for dropping off the planet just as things were getting started. I had a good reason, let me tell you the story.
As I was prepping for running my new Christology course I ended up having a conversation with my friend Michael at church. I had been chatting with him about doing some teaching for a lay school of theology that he works with and I was completely unaware that he taught at Algonquin’s School of Advanced Technology up the street from my home. My teaching background and former career are both in IT, which he did not know. So when that came out in a conversation he strongly urged me to apply for a couple permanent positions there as well as for sessional teaching. So I did.
This fall is going to be exciting, but it will be a lot of work getting there. I spent a day in the studio at Saint Paul University recording lectures for my upcoming new course THO3164: Jesus the Christ and the Language of Christian Hope. I am really pumped because this course lets me do a deep dive into material that in the past was only a small part of courses I’ve taught. We had workers outside while we were recording and I know they could hear my projecting voice because at one point they started singing “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” We had to pause a few times. But we did manage five lectures, only 25 to go!
It has been quite a few years now since I’ve pastored a church. During this time I’ve reflected a lot on what I did wrong and what I did right. I still have a lot of fond memories of the good things we, as a church, did in our city and even beyond our city. The road trips to do teaching workshops, exploring notions of justice in community, training up leaders who went out to serve in other congregations, and even the deep enduring friendships that we cultivated. These good things definitely have their counterpoints in the things I wish I had done differently. Some of these things we got right in the beginning, but somehow, they were overtaken or misaligned by the demands of pastoral ministry. As a result we’ve had to work through a few relationship stumbles from those days and there are still a few we have yet to work through, especially from the last couple of years of Freedom Vineyard. As these reflections percolate in my heart I thought it would be helpful to me, and possibly others, to reflect on them here. I want to reflect on the first idea, more ideas will come and more will come on each idea I am sure.
Back from a great conference in Kentucky, the Society of Vineyard Scholars. It was the culmination of a marathon of work, so I have not been able to blog much at all. Later today I will negotiate a new teaching contract, so things are not settling down for me either. We tend to take off on the weekends in the Summer which is great, but I usually try to disconnect from my work and blogging. I’m sure I’ll be back at this a bit more intently in the fall.
June we’ll be back at the polls here in Ontario voting in a new provincial government. This year the political climate is quite strange. The PCs have selected Doug Ford as their leader (I’m going to resist the urge to candidate bash here) which seems a strange choice to me. The Liberals seem to have ticked off the more vocal and volatile conservative base. The NDPs and Greens are once again framed as being inconsequential. It should not be surprising that even in our last election there was a rise in the number of rejected ballots and I suspect that trend will continue. (You can vote non-confidence in Ontario and if enough do the election of a riding is redone with new candidates!)
This last week and again this week I am providing pulpit supply for St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Richmond, ON. What a great congregation. I ended up getting some of the information I needed to prepare the service midway through last week, which made for quite a busy week. This busyness was compounded by the realization that Presbyterians really work to put together their liturgies!
I have been very busy, but in a good way.
Last week I talked about prepping for a couple job applications which I am hoping will lead to a full time teaching position. Not teaching theology, but something that will be satisfying and make teaching theology part-time a sustainable enterprise. With a bit of back and forth between me and a friend, I think I have put my best foot forward. So now I wait (I’m also waiting on another application that I sent out months back, so much waiting.)
I am chasing down a job lead this week, doing my research and trying to put my best foot forward. It is very time consuming. I’ve only been working part-time since I graduated which is not a sustainable arrangement. So I’m excited at each prospect that opens up, but I also find myself wrestling with the angst of stepping out in this direction of faith. See back when the tech bubble burst (2000) I was fairly burned out, in tech you must continually re-invent yourself and I was facing one of those moments where the role I had moved into was changing very fast. I completed 13 different certifications from 2000 to 2001 and I was looking at a raft more if I wanted to keep going in that direction. I did like the challenge of continually re-inventing myself for most of my IT career but the role I was doing meant lots of travel and we were finally settled enough to start a family. It seemed like the perfect time to shift gears, even just for a bit, to get some theological education, a dream of mine from my early years in ministry.