A week or so ago, I shared the semi-epic journey of bringing my Master of Theology degree to completion. It was a wild ride and I am happy to have it behind me. For whatever reason, more than a few people have asked if they can read the finished product. I can’t figure out if they have a deep and abiding interest in how 1 Peter makes use of Isaiah, or if (more likely) they are battling chronic insomnia.

Either way, HAVE AT IT. This is just the intro, but I’ll send you the rest if your interest holds.

And yet, as I was bringing the tale to a close, I suggested that there was more to the story. Indeed, finishing the ThM was only the beginning. Working on the thesis revived a long-time dream of going on to pursue doctoral study in theology. This dream dates back at least fifteen years to when I was living in Seattle, and in many ways it was the catalyst for embarking on the ThM in the first place. My previous master’s degree was demanding and rewarding, but it left a gap in my academic work that the ThM was designed to fill – rigorous original research. Had I been gifted with greater foresight, I could have navigated my MDiv in such a way that would have positioned me better for a PhD, but I was young and dumb.

Now much older and only marginally wiser, I am able to recognize the tremendous value of my time at Regent. While I may have bemoaned the exceedingly high demands placed on my research and writing, their turning up the scholastic heat really did seem to pay off. At least, that was my hope six months ago.

Around the holidays, shortly after my master’s proposal was approved and I was about to throw myself into the furnace (so to speak), I asked my supervisor what she thought of my prospects for study beyond the ThM. She had been nothing but honest with me in the past, so I had no reason to think she would pull any punches. Her reply was something along the lines of “you seem well-suited for this sort of work.” Which I think means, “you’re not completely incompetent, give it a go.”

This little nudge was all I needed to begin putting together applications to four different schools. By itself, the thought my returning in full-force to the world of academia teeters on the brink of madness. The fact that all four schools are located in the United Kingdom lands us right in the dead center of crazy. There are various reasons why the UK is the preferred route for me, but most important is the duration of the program. Because they don’t require any additional course-work (research and writing only), I would theoretically be able to complete the degree in a mere three years.

Let me go ahead and cut to the chase, I’ve been admitted to PhD programs at the universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen for study in Systematic Theology. Both schools have a rich history of solid Christian scholarship and are first-rate places to pursue the sort of work I would like to do. While I haven’t quite reached a decision regarding which offer to accept, it looks as if the Chino clan may very well be packing their bags for a three-year stint “across the pond.”

I wish I had time to go into all the details of the application process and how I was providentially met every step of the way, but that could easily turn this into a thesis of its own. Instead, there may be some value in simply making a list…

• Arriving at an initial idea for a PhD proposal
• Jumping from an emphasis in New Testament to Systematic Theology
• Securing two academic references
• The exact order in which I applied to the schools
• Highly unusual words of encouragement along the way
• Overcoming a less than stellar academic record
• Receiving exactly the grade I needed for admission

Each of these bullet-points has a wonderful story behind it, but we need to move along. The take-away is that a several mountains needed moving in order for me to both persevere in the lengthy application process and actually gain admittance. I’m not sure I would have charted the course for myself this way, but it has been great to look back and see that more than mere happenstance has been carrying this thing forward.

If you reading all of this and are feeling a disorienting sense of shock and disbelief, rest assured that you are not alone. It is exactly the way we feel. When we got started on this some months back, we knew it was a possibility. The way winning the lottery is a possibility. When it actually happened, we were more than a little caught by surprise.

Speaking of winning the lottery, we will likely need to win an actual lottery to make the dream become reality. But judging from the mountains that have moved so far, what is another Everest or two?

I wish I could tell you that this is the end of the story, but (as you guessed) there is even more to tell.

For the past six months, I’ve been working on it. And now, I’m done. Really, done.

By ‘it’, I mean my thesis for a Master of Theology degree. Finishing this has been nothing short of a miracle, and the back story on getting to ‘done’ deserves recording for the sake of posterity.

Fourteen years ago – that’s right FOUR-TEEN years ago – while living in Seattle, I enrolled in a Master of Theology (ThM) program at Regent College, “an innovative graduate school of theology” in Vancouver, British Columbia. Had I known the journey that lay ahead, I’m not sure I would have ever ventured an application. But ignorance is bliss, so I applied and was admitted.

One thing I was aware of at the time of enrollment, Seattle and Vancouver are separated by a two-and-a-half hour drive (not to mention a national border), so I knew going in that I would be spending lots of time and gas (i.e. money) traveling back and forth between home and school. What seemed like a perfectly reasonable decision back then sounds like shear madness now. Who in their right mind would travel FIVE HOURS to attend a two hour class once a week? This idiot, that’s who.

At any rate, over the next few years, I faithfully covered the miles and more or less knocked out all the coursework. During those repeated trips to Regent, I fell in love with the school. Everything about it is just right. Where it is. What it is. Why it is. Who it is. All perfect. When people ask me what seminaries to consider, and I get asked pretty frequently, Regent is always at the top of the list.

The classes and the faculty who taught them helped me become a better theologian, pastor, and person. I already had my Master of Divinity, which was its own grueling labor of love, but for whatever reason my time at Regent was both demanding and life-giving in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. Despite the long hours driving in the car, sitting in the classroom, toiling over books and research papers, being there was a good thing for me.

Here’s what I didn’t know going in. Since the ThM is the highest degree offered at Regent, the school takes it very seriously. I have no idea what the expectations are for completing a ThM at any other school, but I’m painfully aware of what they are at Regent. High. Insanely so. I seem to recall one professor saying that since Regent didn’t offer a PhD, they more or less felt like it was their responsibility to hold students working towards their highest degree to doctoral research standards.

Just great. Not only did I have the challenges of family (I don’t think I mentioned that two of our four children were born during this time) and work to deal with, not to mention the ridiculously long commute, now I’ve got people expecting research and writing from me that I wasn’t even sure I was capable of.

I’m not sure how to describe the next several years as it relates to work on the thesis. “A wash” is probably most appropriate. I had an idea of what I wanted to write on – “1 Peter’s Use of the Old Testament” – but I discovered that it was far too broad a research topic. Now I realize that for most, this doesn’t appear to lack specificity, but alas it was indeed too vague.

Meanwhile, life is changing – more kids, moving across the country, new home, new work – and as you might guess, the thesis (that I didn’t really have a clear idea of how to finish) fell effortlessly to the bottom of the ‘do do’ list. Even though it didn’t command my attention, I knew it was there. Most days, weeks, and months would pass without even giving it a passing thought. At other times, its unfinished state was akin to Paul’s famous thorn in the flesh.

Then came the summer of 2008. I was due for a sabbatical and I had the brilliant idea of trying to combine writing a thesis and a once in a lifetime adventure for my family of six in the Pacific Northwest. Once again, sounds reasonable enough, right? Yeah, right.

The summer is well chronicled by my beloved, and I highly encourage you to spend some time reminiscing on the madness that we fondly called “living the dream.” But it didn’t take me long to realize that I wouldn’t be finishing that summer. Honestly, I would do good to come to the end of the sabbatical with a decent proposal. Humbled, but not deterred, I chipped away at the thesis while moving our make-shift home (a pop-up camper pulled by an aging 15-passenger van) from one place to the next, holing up in whatever library or coffee-shop I could find wherever we happened to be. And as expected, I walked away from the summer having made some progress on the thesis, but not much.

Returning home, the thesis returned back to the back burner. And to give the metaphor some sense of scale, it was on the very back burner of a friend’s house who lived across town that I didn’t see but a few times a year. I would wave at it every now and then, just often enough to remember it was still there. And the stove was off.

Once again, weeks, months, and years rolled by. Same ole, same ole.

Until something changed. And that something was a willingness to ask for help. On February 23, 2012, the day after Ash Wednesday, I awkwardly asked a group of men to pray with me during Lent concerning what the future held. There are a couple of pretty incredible stories there that I’ll have to go into at another time, but the short version is that at the end of Lent, we all regrouped and they affirmed that I should do whatever it took to finish the thesis. And their words of encouragement and prayers were exactly what I needed to face the challenges that lay ahead.

You see, in order for this to happen, at least four things would need to fall into place. First, the leadership at church would need to be willing to let me take the time to do the research and writing. Second, I would need to seek and be granted an extension from Regent. Third, I would need to secure a new thesis supervisor from among the faculty at Regent (by this time, my previous supervisor had left the school). And fourth, I would need to find a way to have access to highly specialized theological books and articles, which I knew would prove difficult because Central Arkansas doesn’t boast much in the way of theological libraries.

I honestly wasn’t sure that any of these things would come to pass. The only hope I was going on was that a group of four friends were convinced that this was the course I needed to take. And so one step at a time, I walked through the process. And one by one, the mountains moved. The church made it possible for me to devote a significant amount of time each week to thesis work. Regent was gracious enough to grant the necessary program extension. Two down, two to go.

Securing a thesis supervisor was going to be a little tricky. The most likely candidate for supervising was a New Testament professor who is something of an expert in the New Testament’s use of the Old. However, he was on study leave and therefore unavailable. Enter Mariam Kamell, a recent addition to Regent’s faculty who had recently finished her PhD work in New Testament. After a round of emails and a phone call or two, she agreed to supervise my work. More on Mariam later, but for now just ‘one’ to go.

I was fully prepared to make regular trips to Regent (at no small expense), in order to have access to the library, which is one of the finest theological libraries in North America. Then Alison suggested that I at least check with our local library to see what they might be able to do for me. My acting on her suggestion (and Lord knows that I don’t always take her advice to heart) was the difference maker. I discovered a little thing called ILLIAD. I don’t know exactly what it stands for, but the words “inter-library” and “loan” are somewhere in there, and basically what it means is that any book or article on the planet can find its way into my hands within a week or two. And I mean… any book. FOR FREE! My friends, the world had just opened up to me. I don’t know how many requests I’ve made in the last six months, but I would venture to guess somewhere approaching one-hundred.

So with the obstacles (and excuses) out of the way, the only thing left keeping me from getting it done was me. Literally, everything had fallen into place and now I had to face the unfortunate truth that I am my own biggest obstacle to getting most anything done. However, having reached the proverbial point-of-no-return, stopping now was not option. It helped that there were four guys who would have taken me to task if I gave any indication at all of not moving forward. And so, I took the next step.

It is now May of 2012, I send off the proposal that I had thought was in pretty good shape to my recently acquired supervisor. At this point, I should clarify what the “proposal” stage is all about. In most peoples’ minds, a proposal is a few paragraphs – a page at best – describing what you think you would like to write about. Someone signs off on that and then you get to go write your thing. At Regent, a proposal is a carefully researched, fully annotated, highly scrutinized, twenty-five page document detailing what you plan to argue as original research. This ain’t no book report folks. It isn’t even a summary of what you’ve learned after reading a couple hundred books and articles. It is you saying something that has never been said before about the Bible. The B-I-B-L-E. Only the most studied piece of literature in the history of the planet.

Mariam has many wonderful qualities that make her an ideal supervisor, and none more important than her honesty. After having read through the proposal, her candid (yet gracious) reply was along the lines of “you’re going to have to do better than that.” This was right before summer hit, and so her reply coupled with the irregularity of summer schedule set me back over two months. When August rolled around, I knew that unless I jumped back in now, I would probably be looking at another multi-year stand still. So I took the next step. Dove back in. Did more research. Carefully considered her feedback. And began to re-work the proposal.

I barely make a deadline for turning in my proposal to an approval committee. That’s right, a committee approves whether or not your proposal has any merit. No pressure. It came back and the hard work paid off. I was given the ‘green light’ to get moving. That happens at the end of November. The agreed upon due date is March 25^th. I’ve got just under four months to produce one hundred and twenty-five carefully researched, well-argued, pages of fresh research on 1 Peter’s Use of Isaiah (yes, the Old Testament was too broad, so it got narrowed down to just the Isaiah references).

And that’s when things shifted into high gear. For four months, every week, I churned out page after page. Once a chapter was done, I sent it off to my supervisor and she would take it to task. Comments regularly came back, “not sure what you’re arguing here,” “awkward sentence,” “where are you going with this.” I would revise. All the while, keeping moving forward. And slowly, chapters were finishing and an argument was coming together. I would stare at my laptop until it felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head. But finally, one day, I was done. Just like that. And not only done, but done with a piece of well-researched, carefully argued, and I think, important contribution to the field of biblical studies.

Last weekend, I had the privilege to attend convocation in Vancouver. I’ve never been one given to ceremony, fanfare, or sentimentality. However, walking across that stage brought to conclusion something that was definitely worth marking and celebrating. It was a watershed moment that I’ll always look back on to remember that sometimes the faithfulness of God takes many, many years to recognize. In our “on-demand” culture, I feel like this is a much needed reminder.

Like I said at the outset, it is nothing short of a miracle. And by and large, the miracle came in the form of people. People who gave exactly the sort of support and encouragement that I needed at exactly the right time and place. Maybe one day, I’ll learn that lesson for good.

And yet, my friends, getting to ‘done’ is not even half of the story.

I don’t think I’ve made a more unusual end-of-year playlist. Hopefully, it is explained at least in part by the liner notes.

Until next year, enjoy the MUSIC!

It is that time of year again. Man CD time. Most of you here already know what this is all about. For those of you who don’t, the concept is simple enough. A group of men turn in a song that they enjoyed (the most?) over the past year. The songs are then compiled and arranged, then lo and behold – Man CD.

Ok, that’s about it. HERE is the link to the goods. HERE is a link to a pdf that just has the track listing and who submitted them.

I feel the need to explain my submission. I don’t believe it was anything close to my favorite song, but I did feel that it was an appropriate lead off song for the group of men who put Man CD together. Honestly, the VIDEO is better than the song… sort of.

As I was preparing for some teaching I’ll be doing this Sunday, and I came across this great quote in Miroslav Volf’s Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. I can’t believe that I didn’t include it a few months ago when I was doing my round-up of Volf-isms.

Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

Once we accept the appropriateness of God’s wrath, condemnation, and judgement, there is no way of keeping it out there, reserved for others. We have to bring it home as well. I originally resisted the notion of a wrathful God because I dreaded being that wrath’s target; I still do. I knew I couldn’t just direct God’s wrath against others, as if it were a weapon I could aim at targets I particularly detested. It’s God’s wrath, not mine, the wrath of the one and impartial God, lover of all humanity. If I want it to fall on evildoers, I must let it fall on myself – when I deserve it.

Also, once we affirm that God’s condemnation of wrongdoing is appropriate, we cannot reserve God’s condemnation for heinous crimes. Where would the line be drawn? On what grounds could it be drawn? Everything that deserves to be condemned should be condemned in proportion to its weight as an offense – from a single slight to a murder, from indolence to idolatry, from lust to rape. To condemn heinous offenses but not light ones would be manifestly unfair. An offense is an offense and deserves condemnation.

Nice cheery thoughts to get you ready for a Happy Thanksgiving!

Recently, I was having a conversation with somebody about education reform in our state. For whatever reason, it is actually a conversation that I find myself in pretty regularly. In these conversations, I repeatedly reference a talk given by Roland Fryer that I heard several months ago. It was at one of those leadership conference things where you hear something like eight speakers in as many hours, and his was the only presentation that I remember at all.

Fryer is a Harvard economics professor, who has taken a keen interest in education reform. The presentation he gave was fascinating, and I’ve repeatedly tried to track down the talk with no success. However, there is plenty of other stuff out there by him, and it might be worth thirty minutes of your time to figure out what he’s all about.

The thing that I remember most from his presentation was this one thought…

We know what steps to take to reform education in America, but for the most part policy-makers simply aren’t interested in change.

My guess is that this applies to a whole lot more than education.

Don’t pretend like you haven’t missed it. I know you have. This is the “live show” edition of Four for Friday. Two of these artists I’ve seen recently. One group I plan to see soon. And it would be great if K’naan came to Little Rock sometime, but I’m not holding my breath. Enjoy.

Matisyahu – Tel Aviv’n // Had the chance to see him about a month ago. Lots of fun!

GRiZ – Smash the Funk // I went with a few friends to see this guy open for Big Gigantic a couple weeks ago. Honestly, one of the most interesting musical performances I’ve ever witnessed. Whether you like it or hate it, as one of my friends said, “this is the direction music is heading.” Yup.

Bear Colony – Flask Retort // They’ll be at the Rev Room in about a week.

K’Naan – Is Anybody Out There? (feat. Nelly Furtado) // Not local.

The Lord’s Supper: Five Views // I realize that most people are unaware that there are more than two view, but I was somewhat surprised to discover that there are no less than five! Over the last few years, I have been moving from a memorialist (symbol only) understanding of this observance to a more sacramental (real presence) view. Of course, I don’t have it all worked out, but I think that’s probably as it should be… with the Lord’s Supper as well as most theological truth. If you’ve got it all figured out, let me know… you’ll be the first.

Next up is The Awakening of Hope: Why We Practice a Common Faith // I think I mentioned this one a while back. Somehow a group of guys I meet with on Monday mornings agreed to read this with me. To say that it has provoked some interesting conversations and several “eye-rolls” is an understatement. So not everyone thinks the “new monasticism” is a wonderful expression of the Christian faith… their loss.

Now we are venturing more towards my true “nerd” center. This one is for a what is turning into a lifetime project of research and writing on 1 Peter’s use of the Old Testament. Hengel, a German New Testament scholar, passed away a few years ago. He was one of the most influential theologians of the past century. I know you’ve never heard of him. He was German, so maybe it is understandable. He’s no Francis Chan. This book was one of the last that he published.

You have stopped reading by now, so it doesn’t matter, but this one is also for the thesis. For what it is worth, I think Beale’s understanding of the way in which New Testament writers utilize the Old is probably as close to “right” as it gets. Hopefully, the approach he recommends is what I’ll be using in the months to come.

At camp, we usually show a short video as students are gathering in the meeting space. They are often dumb, sometimes amazing, occasionally humorous. Without futher ado, here they are…

A capella Gangnam style:

Manly men rapping:

It is amazing what human beings can do:

A Star Wars and Motocross mashup:

I like skiing:

A few extras:

Outtakes from the crazy bike video:

Bottles beware:

Can’t get enough Gangnam:

Here’s to sub-par blogging. See you soon.

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These remembrances provide small glimpses into who my father was in the quieter “joys” of his every day life. In his study, he was able to pursue his curiosity as well as his creativity. Through his cooking, he expressed his routine daily care for the people in his life. Wandering the mountains, he was free to enjoy the beauty and majesty that a moment-in-time can afford. These things have become his legacy to me. While his joys remained a secret to me for a long time, it was not because they weren’t there to be recognized. The problem was my inability to recognize them. I have only recently been able to discover these things to be true about him through my recognition of the way these same pursuits have “charmed” me.

I suppose this means that I have now come full-circle (which I understand is a very Zen thing to do), in that I no longer strive to be unlike my father. I am growing in my recognition that while we are all tragically flawed in various ways, there is also much that is wonderful in each of us. One of the unfortunate consequences of focusing exclusively on the negative is that we miss out on the opportunity to embrace all that is good.

The Christian tradition of which I am a part makes much of the notion of grace. Indeed, many would say that it lies at the very heart of Christian teaching. That somehow, in and through the Christ, we can discover forgiveness for all the pain and suffering we inflict on others as a result of our brokenness and selfishness. It was this idea of forgiveness that drew me to Christianity over twenty years ago.

And yet, in the last decade this theological tenet has shifted from simply being an idea that is endorsed to a reality that is experienced. Through my openness to living in that grace-filled reality, I have come to recognize that my father is just like the rest of us. He (and I) are broken human beings in need of grace and forgiveness. And as much my father is in me, when I extend grace to him I discover that I am likewise extending it to myself.

“He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
Malachi 4:6

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Much like the essay, the time spent at the memorial weekend was irenic. I don’t know why I would have expected anything less. Buddhists are sort of known for being peaceable enough folks. Even though I hadn’t seen some of these people in thirty years, I was surprised with how easily names and faces came flooding back to me. New friends were made. Old friendships were rediscovered. But mainly, I was grateful for the rare and wonderful opportunity to – in a way – go back in time and see familiar people and places with different eyes. Hopefully, these eyes have grown to be a little more humble, more understanding, and more appreciative. And hopefully, seeing the world this way will become my new “normal.”

Ok, that’s a whole lot of personal out there. Don’t be expecting this to become a regular thing around here. Much more of this and I’ll be needing a Xanax prescription. Thanks for taking the time to read. Hopefully, it was a window into who my father was… and who I am becoming.