October 23, 2011

Greetings, Cohort! I have had a good weekend of review, prayer and processing our first retreat experience, your evals, and the schedule that I had initially set for the 2 year certificate program.

The next retreat on January 13-15, 2012 will be fun because we will see how the changes we make goes, and what else we need to tweak.

I will be contacting all of you in the next two weeks to see how you are doing with everything, but if you have questions or concerns PLEASE call, fb, skype or COME OVER. Remember your NRSD is for you, it needs to fit you, it needs to answer needs you have for knowledge, coaching, and a deeper experience with God.

Be proactive in designing your school experience to make sense for your life. Steve and I are available to do all we can to help you do that. Remember our offers for in between retreats Prayer school, Bible study.

• Check the assignment page of the blog for the new books to order, and what you will need to study to prepare for the next retreat in January. The prayer book by Dutch Sheets will change your life, it did mine. I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to journal as you go, underline and make notes in the margins… something that fits for you that will help you personalize and process the teaching.

o Note the journaling exercises I have posted for you to use as you read and apply what you read…

• Grenz’s book on Postmodernism is the best, or at least one of the best out there on the subject. It is a little heavy going, but I hope you can also try to personalize it as you go. You are not assigned chapter 6 as I found that to be the hardest read even though I have had undergrad and sem exposure to these philosophers. You are welcome to read it, I just don’t want you to give up because of chapter 6. Chapter 7 is Grenz’s personal take on the objective overview he has given you in chapters 1-6
• Another point… Several of you want to be able to do a paper to process the Systematic Theology topics. I will make a Position Paper form (outline) and post it on the NRSD blog assignment page as well as attach it to a fb message as a doc.

· Notice that under the “NRSD Assignment Page” here on the blog I am posting several journaling exercises to help you process the prayer book, per your suggestion. Good idea, and I hope we can share some of our observations in January.

· Next retreat we will have more time to do break out discussions and small group projects around Sys Theo and Bible study.