SABBATICAL: The Saga Continues

It was a good week. No crises. No fires to put out. No trauma (except when I opened the car door onto my face and almost knocked myself out...don’t ask). I went away with my wife this weekend for a much needed reboot on our marriage. It was good to be alone and talk. We don’t have much time anymore to do that with my schedule and the new job she has encroaching in on our time together. We also spent a little too much money eating out. So much for this month’s budget.

My sabbatical work is hurting my brain. As I read more and more, I find that concepts, theories and the like become one big pile of mush in my head. So this week I’ve begun to outline chapters for my dissertation. The outlines started as a simple skeleton but as new insights from my reading are gained, I take notes, plug a line into the outline and move on. I obviously will streamline the outline as I write. It works for now. We will see what happens with more information overload.

So this week, I’ve:

Begun reading four new books: “Jesus Wants to Save Christians” by Rob Bell, “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola and George Barna, “Multiple Paths to Ministry” by Lance Barker, and “LeadershipNext” by Eddie Gibbs.
Continued research gathering resources and reference material.
Met with my advisor in Auburn to go over my proposal and tools before I am “official.”
Began tweaking the proposal tools.
For fun beat “Raving Rabbids I” on the Wii, rebuilt my 10/22, and been listening to Third Day’s new album. I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Third-Day-Revelation/dp/1423459954/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231964262&sr=1-2

I also had the chance to attend Meeting House Church in Norton, MA. Meeting House is a fairly new church plant by a friend. I enjoyed hearing a message after giving them for eleven years. Though Jesus said it is better to give than to receive, it is nice to be on the receiving end once in a while.

Well back to my good week....but then again it is only Wednesday.

Originally posted Wednesday, January 14, 2009