So Torn

WARNING: Long post ahead!!

I don’t know what to do!! This debate has been going on in my mind for about ten months now. I’ve been looking at graduate schools for about that long and after looking at about forty seminaries (not an exaggeration) I’ve narrowed my options down to two choices: Truett Seminary or somewhere else out of Texas. Well, as you can see, after ten months of searching I haven’t gotten very far.

When I first came to Baylor in 2001 I would look out my freshman dorm window of South Russell and watch the new Truett Seminary building and chapel being built and get excited about where I saw myself once I graduated from Baylor. Little did I know that three years from then I would be itching to get out of Texas. I am longing to experience something new. I’ve been in the Bible belt for way too long, and though I love it and I love the fact that I am a Texan I can’t help but wonder what else is out there for me to experience that I can’t get in the comfort of my Baylor home. I’ve tried to “scratch” my itch by going on trips like my Spring Break trip from North Carolina to New York, but that has only irritated the itch more. The itch is not something I can describe very well. I know it’s not a whim. I also know that it’s not something that I just have to do before I die, but it is something that I want to do for myself. I don’t want to shelter myself all of my life because I think that life experiences are invaluable. Though I don’t doubt that I will gain so much from going to Truett, I know that my life experience willl be somewhat similar to what it has been in my undergrad.

When I look at my pros and cons list, I don’t get a lot of help in my decision either. Truett has a lot of what I’m looking for. Here is my list of pros for Truett.

1. It is on the campus of a major university where there are countless opportunities for ministry job to get into while I’m going to school. My main interest in this is the chaplain program with Campus Living & Learning. Since I have been a Community Leader for two years, I have seen a lot of the good and bad of the chaplain program and I would love to be apart of it.

2. Truett also offers the Dual-Degree program in what I want. Most of the dual degree programs that I have found offer the M-Div with and MA in Social Work. So far, Truett is the only school that I’ve found that offers the MA in Counseling. I am pretty confident that I am going to do a dual-degree program (because I want more classes in Religion) and I want it to be in some sort of counseling or psychology program.

3. I am going to be able to get a head start at Truett. I have been accepted to start taking classes this year and I will also be exempt from several of the core since I am a Religion major at Baylor. I don’t know if I will be able to have this head start at other seminaries.

4. My surrounding community of people that I have loved and treasured is here. I know that many of my friends will be gone, but I still have many companions that will be here, including the amazing church that I am so anxious to be more involved in. I am ok with finding a new community of people somewhere else but I know that there is still so much more that I have to learn from the people that I know here.

So there are only some of the pros to staying at Truett. Here are some of the pros to going out of state, (in particular, up north or either coast):

1. Life experience.

Yeah, that’s the main thing. I know it seems so simple, but it weighs equally to all of the pros for staying at Truett. I know that I will be stretched so far out of my comfort zone and I want that. I will certainly be stretched at Truett as well, but not in the same way that I will be stretched if I move halfway across the country from all family and friends.

I can’t figure out how to reason this. The answer to my decision, (like so many other things) doesn’t fit into a formula. But I am ok with that. I know that this shouldn’t be an easy decision to make, but I still wish that it were.

God, please give me guidance and wisdom to make this decision.

My Sermonette

So, I had my first chance to “preach” yesterday.  I marked ‘preach’ off in quotes because I wasn’t behind a pulpit or even podium and a mike was optional.  (I opted not to have the mike because I wanted to test my projecting skills, which worked out pretty well.)  It was quite exciting for me.
 
I was asked to give a devotional (which I would rather call a sermonette because of its length, about fifteen minutes) for the first day of the three week training program (know as Summer Institute) for Campus Living and Learning which is where I am an intern.  The training is mainly for all of the Hall Directors, other CL&L associates, and all of the central office staff.  That for me is intimidating enough simply because I know each of the hall directors well enough to know how they would critique what I would have to say.  But add on top of that, the Dean of Student Life, Eileen Hulm, the Dean of Campus Living and Learning, Frank Shushok, and the chaplain of Baylor University, Todd Lake, and I thought I’d be a nervous wreck.  However, despite the potentially intimidating people, I was pleased at the outcome.  I think that I was well prepared, and I was able to present without my nerves acting up too much.
 
The most frustrating part for me was the preparation.   I had been pretty dry for a few weeks, so coming up with a “sermonette” was like trying to pull a river out of a dry well for me.  God was faithful though and He provided as I prepared.  I’m not so dry anymore either.  I am anxious for more opportunities to stretch myself and get practice in preaching or whatever you want to call it.  I like to call it preaching, but that’s just me.  ;-)

Blogging Perfectionism

I started this blog at the very beginning of the summer thinking that I would have time to post about once a day. Well, as you can see, time has not been a commodity found in abundance for me this summer, and I was a bit too optimistic about how much of it I would have. As a result, I ran into this dilemma of wanting to blog about something, but then not getting around to it until something else happened that I wanted to blog about. I wouldn’t want to blog about the latter event or thought until I blogged about the former event or thought, but I wouldn’t have time to do both, so I would get overwhelmed and not blog at all. Later on, I found the fact that I was stressed about blogging to be quite humorous so I’ve had to convince myself that my blog doesn’t have to be perfect. I’ve gotta learn to loosen up on a lot of things. So, while I try to enjoy the rest of my vacation, I'm going to try to catch up on my blogging in no particular order.

On a side note, but still related to my blogging perfectionism, I like to type up my thoughts in Microsoft Word before I post it, so I can check it more easily for spelling errors. I find it humorous that Microsoft Word doesn’t like the word “blog.” It doesn’t matter if I use it as a noun or a verb, it insists on underlining it in red. Can you tell that I am easily amused?