Posting has been scarce recently, but my mind has been and currently is in overdrive. This week is finals week at RPTS so over the weekend I wrote my final. (Jen was in Philadelphia.) My last paper for Pentateuch is due this week as well. School’s been busy, in terms of Trinity and RPTS; but my mind has been on the quasi related topic of counseling and discipling students.
Recently some of my students, individually, came up to me and shared with me some issues in their lives. The effect this has had on my life is positive and encouraging. You see a month or so ago I was contemplating going to seminary full time. I wanted to get out: preach, teach, and counsel in the context of the organized church. But that subject has not been on my mind for many days and weeks. God has used these students to encourage me in the calling that he has upon my life now. What I wanted, God provided in a way that I did not see coming at all. So my mind has been filled with the topics of same-sex attraction, romantic relationships, image, family, assurance of salvation, depression, and how the gospel applies to these situations.
In doing so I’ve learned much about teaching and the importance of a relationship. I enjoy my students, and they need to know that. They need to know that I love and care about them and the reality that teaching is not “just a job.” When they do know this about me, when I chastise them for ruckus, pranks, improper conversation topics, etc. (the list is long) the words go further.
PS. this is why I am taking biblical counseling classes and reading all the CCEF stuff I can find.
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