Monday, June 4, 2012

June 4, 2012 Finally!



Monday, June 04, 2012

Greetings NRSD Cohort!
I apologize for neglecting this blog for so long. It has been a busy spring, but our garden is in, and I am ready to focus attention back to our lovely school and all of YOU lovelies. It won’t take long for July 27-29 to sneak up on us.

I finally have the books and assignments posted for those of you IPHONE gen people who don’t keep track of handouts well (J).

Our July retreat will be packed, as usual, but I am so excited for the topics up for discussion. I hope you have found a Bible handbook that will help you as we start doing our Bible survey (OT for 2 retreats, then on to NT for the last 2 retreats.) How is the Otis book going for all of you? Big stuff, but so important…

I know we are OVERLOADED with books and reading for the July retreat, but I do want to tell you about JUST ONE MORE BOOK… A dear friend of Ben & Kaaren Tyvoll’s has graciously agreed to do a special workshop on Dietrich Bonhoeffer! Dr. Joel Lawrence Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Bethel Seminary. His PhD is from Cambridge, England. He did his dissertation on Bonhoeffer, is a member of the Bonhoeffer Society, has published a book about him and teaches a Sem course on him. This link takes you to Bethel Sem, http://www.bethel.edu/stories/begin/seminary/making-links; and the second link takes you to a Wheaton Conference where he presented a paper on Bonhoeffer. 

There is a new book out on Bonhoeffer (Eric Metaxas and Timothy J. Keller, 2010) which Dr. Lawrence says is somewhat controversial because the authors “do not have a good grasp of Bonhoeffer’s theology”. A better biography is 1000 pages long (I couldn’t face it!), so his recommendation is for us to read “Life Together”. This book is about community and is Bonhoeffer’s shortest book and “easiest” read, although any book by this man is not what you would call "easy". 

What a blessing to have Dr. Lawrence do this workshop for us. This short intro does not do him justice, but we will get better acquainted with him in July. Steve and I are really excited to have this special treat planned for the school.

Remember Ben Colbenson and his Nav team in your prayers. They will be in Indonesia from June 20th – July 28th. Dayn Lukes is in Asia right now as well.

We want you all to be reviewing your first year as NRSD students. When we meet in July we will share our thoughts about this first year. And then of course a big deal is our senior projects. Each of you should have a plan for your special Senior Project. I will be contacting each of you in the next few weeks to go over your ideas with you so that when we meet on July 27-29 you will be good to go with your plans.

Another big item on my “to-do” list is to get a NRSD publicity document together that we can share with people who might be interested in starting a new NRSD class in September 2012 or September 2013. We are praying and discerning what God might want us to do. If there were enough interested people, we could start a new class this September.

So here is our request: please be praying about anyone you might know who would like the kind of school we are doing here. I will be sending you a doc you can email to anyone you might think of. Please pray for us as we discern God’s leading in this.

I promise to be better about blogging here in the next weeks. As always, you are welcome to visit, call or skype with us.

Love and Hugs,
Joan & Steve T





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