Taking a step back: in a week and a half, I will start my third and final year at Duke Divinity School. If all goes as planned, I will graduate in May, be commissioned in June and then start a real job somewhere. This terrifies me, and I am compensating by overcommitting and making my last year crazy, awesome, and crazy awesome. Here are the things I have going on for 2011-2012:
- School. This is the one I'm most likely to neglect, so I need to list it first. I'm going to be completing my summer directed study on evangelism (no, my paper's not finished yet) and taking 3 courses: Preaching, Methodism (the first semester, which I skipped) and a course on contextualizing the Gospel, taught by Father Rommen, our resident Eastern Orthodox guru of awesome. I would like to have decent grades, but we'll see how that goes. In the spring, I know I have a Black Church Studies requirement as well as a Missions requirement left, and from there I'll hopefully get some electives squeezed in (finally). I'm theoretically doing the Hebrew reading group as well, though I dropped voice lessons at least for the fall (sad but necessary time- and money-wise).
- The Burch House. I'm moving back into 913 Burch with some of my favorite people! There will actually be 7 of us there until Samuel gets married in October, and we'll be back to only 2 girls, but I'm excited to move in, get settled and get into the routine of prayers, meals, etc. We also need to have another epic house party/bonfire at least once this year.
- Teaching at Methodist University. This is why I'm only taking 3 classes this fall. Somehow, I have been offered the opportunity to teach a Biblical literature course at Methodist University in Fayetteville. It blows my mind that the religion department there would entrust me with this task, and I am both terrified and excited by the challenge. I'm not creating a class, just adapting a professor's syllabus and doing my own take on one he teaches regularly. I'm hoping it'll be a good way for me to get my feet wet in real teaching, which is something I've claimed to be interested in but haven't really done beyond Sunday School and book studies. So Dukies, you won't see me Tuesday or Thursday afternoons, and when I have to grade papers, I may find deeper empathy for our preceptors than I've previously had.
- Goodson Chapel. I will be reprising my role from last year of worship intern for Goodson Chapel, helping to plan our Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday worship services. Fellow past intern Ron and I will welcome Kiki and Julie to the team and hopefully have at least as much fun as we did last year working with Sally Bates, David Arcus, and the many faculty, students, guest speakers, ensembles and more we get to collaborate with to create worship at Duke Divinity School.
- New Creation Arts Group. Despite what I said last spring, it looks like I will be in some leadership position for New Creation this year. Communications and publicity stuff comes naturally to me, so I'll be helping with some of that (including stewardship of our blog, which is evolving in content, theoretically) alongside our new leadership, and I was asked a while back if I'd be willing to continue to do music programming (i.e. pick up on David Johnston's awesome work with last year's concert series, etc.). My summer experience, particularly the Earth House part of it, has given me new energy for this kind of thing, so I'm really looking forward to continuing to be a part of the NCAG leadership team.
- Milites Christi. Here's another one of those "How the heck did I get involved with this?!" things. Milites Christi is a Divinity School student group concerned with cultivating a pastoral response to war, peace, veterans' issues, etc. In November, they're hosting an event called After the Yellow Ribbon that will be promoting some really important conversations around such things, and I'm primarily helping with a big concert happening the Saturday evening of the conference. Here's how I got connected: sometime last year, my classmate Logan Mehl-Laituri (who's spearheading all of this) said something like, "Hey, you play music, right? Do you want to open for Derek Webb?" And that's how I ended up with my name on the contract that's bringing Derek Webb to Goodson Chapel in November. Oh, and I'm reading drafts of a book Logan is writing as part of a group of people helping him with feedback as he goes.
- Vespers Ensemble. I was in the Duke Chapel Vespers Ensemble from 2006-2008 and returned last fall. I love this choir. We sing some incredible music, and especially last spring, we developed a sense of community and camaraderie that made it even more enjoyable to be a part of the group. This fall, thanks to the course at Methodist, I will not be able to sing in the weekly Thursday evening vespers services, but I will still participate in weekly rehearsals, go to Boone with them in October to sing at a church there, and join in our winter concert. Besides being my main source of musical challenge these days, Vespers has also become an important social outlet for me, particularly because its members are not all (or even mostly) Christian, and I sometimes forget how much of a bubble the Div School is.
- Certificate in Nonprofit Management. For a while now, I've been working on earning the Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke Continuing Studies. This has been my attempt at rounding out my seminary education with courses on fundraising, grantwriting, accounting, conflict resolution and more. It's been start-and-stop for scheduling reasons, but I'm finally close to completing the certificate and hope to do so before the fall semester ends.
- Commissioning. If I want to be commissioned next spring (and I do), I have to write my commissioning papers by January. Actually, first I need to apply for commissioning by the end of this month—sending in that application is on my to-do list for tomorrow. These papers cover theology, doctrine, and a bunch of other stuff...clearly, I need to sit down with the assignments and wrap my brain around them. These papers always seem to cause great anxiety for Methodist students, but I'm hoping I can manage them alongside my schoolwork without too much angst.
- CCDA. This is just one week on October, but I'm excited enough about it to include it. The Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) holds an annual event that I've heard of but never been quite motivated enough to attend. This year, it's being held in my new favorite city, Indianapolis, so the plan is to road trip up there with some of my favorite Div Schoolers, see my Indy friends, and participate in what I've heard is a pretty awesome conference.
- My music. I've scaled back gigging and have decided I'm only playing shows in Durham, but I already have two solo shows coming up in the next few weeks. Turns out that when you send incessant booking emails for 2 years, whether for yourself or not, people contact you when they need a performer. Also, I'm theoretically opening for Derek Webb. Also, I learned a new style of guitar playing and began adjusting my approach to songwriting over the summer, so I'll be adapting a lot of how I do music as I go this year. I'd love to do some more writing and recording, including continuing to pursue my interest in writing modern hymns that I stumbled upon last year. I'm actually singing a hymn of mind at my dad's church this Sunday, arranged for piano and cello by the amazing music minister there...I'll let y'all know how that goes.
- GET A LIFE!!! This is actually probably my highest priority. I want to have a life my last year of seminary. My first year, I didn't bother to make friends. My second year, I did better, and especially towards the end of spring semester, I had begun to develop some friendships that I very much hope will deepen this year. I am excited to pursue these and other new and old relationships with friends, classmates, colleagues, etc.
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