{"id":304,"date":"2009-07-24T07:45:35","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T13:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/?p=304"},"modified":"2009-07-24T16:17:56","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T22:17:56","slug":"so-what-have-i-been-doing-all-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/so-what-have-i-been-doing-all-month\/","title":{"rendered":"So What Have I Been Doing All Month?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Four weeks off from preaching? Are you enjoying your time off? What have you been doing all this time?\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Since my main responsibility at DSC is preaching, it&#8217;s not surprising that I get those kind of questions whenever I&#8217;m not preaching, and especially when it&#8217;s several weeks in a row. Well, here&#8217;s the big picture, if you&#8217;re interested to know:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>About 12 weeks a year, someone else gives the Sunday AM sermon.<\/li>\n<li>A couple of those weeks a year are truly vacation.<\/li>\n<li>Another half-dozen weeks, I&#8217;m not preaching but the week is still filled with busy office\/admin, planning, counseling, discipleship stuff. It&#8217;s not at all &#8220;time off&#8221; &#8212; it&#8217;s really catch-up time for a lot of extra things that pile up.<\/li>\n<li>Another four to six weeks per year I&#8217;m doing research and writing for a PhD.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These last four weeks of pulpit absence are of that last category: working hard on writing\/revising chapters of my dissertation.<\/p>\n<p>Let me give a quick explanation, especially for those who are fairly new to DSC. This degree is something I started before I came to DSC six years ago. It&#8217;s been slow-going &#8212; partly because of my very average intelligence and partly because attention to the dissertation has to go in spurts. Pastoring is more than a full-time job (anywhere from 55-75 hours\/week) even without the dissertation. So sometimes, several months (as many as 10 months at a time) go by without me being able to give any attention to the degree. I simply haven&#8217;t found a way to make progress on the PhD within a normal work week. And I&#8217;m fine with that &#8212; I&#8217;m a pastor first and hopefully forever. I have no intention of finishing the degree and going off to teach in a college or seminary. I&#8217;d just like to finish what I started since a lot of time has already gone into the degree. I also think that the research and writing is hugely beneficial to my pastoral ministry.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, for the last several summers now, the elders have graciously given me a four-week block to\u00c2\u00a0intensely\u00c2\u00a0focus on the dissertation. Hence, my absence from preaching, blogging, etc., for the last four weeks. It&#8217;s definitely not been &#8220;time off.&#8221; It&#8217;s pretending that I&#8217;m a pressured grad student once again &#8212; a lot less sleep, a little less hygiene, and a lot more\u00c2\u00a0caffeine. Most days are 12-14 hours of research and writing, and maybe only a couple days off in the whole month.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This education sabbatical was once again productive and encouraging. I have only one chapter (out of seven) to write completely from scratch. Another five are written but will need some significant revision before they&#8217;re in their final form. I&#8217;m hoping (and praying!) to have the final draft done by Christmas this year. After that, it&#8217;ll take several more months (maybe another five) before all the little hoops are jumped through and I defend the dissertation. Then the dissertation will get revised for a book version that will be published by\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.crossway.org\/home\">Crossway<\/a> in late 2011.<\/p>\n<p>As with previous education sabbaticals, so it has been this last month: I enjoy the research and <em>mostly<\/em> enjoy the writing, but it nevertheless confirms my real love for preaching, for people, for the church, and for pastoring. I love where I am and what I do. I love our church.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All that to say, thanks so much for your patience while I was reclusively holed up in my study for a month.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday as we get back to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/messages\/By_Series\/Righteous_Sinners_in_the_Gospel_of_Luke\/\">our series on Luke<\/a>, specifically the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esvstudybible.org\/search?q=Luke+10%3A1-24\">first half of chapter 10<\/a>, where we see Jesus&#8217; disciples described as &#8220;Happy, Humble Harvesters.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four weeks off from preaching? Are you enjoying your time off? What have you been doing all week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,23,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}