I get so many questions about where we’re at with our journey to seminary, moving, academics, ministry, and so on, that I guess it’s time to write a bit about what’s been going on in our lives lately.  I guess I’ll upload some of the thoughts that occupy my mind lately.

• First, our house is now officially for sale.  We’re completing a few finishing touches on the house and the yard to prepare for an open house next weekend.  This is our greatest area of need for prayer.  We trust that God will finish his work of preparing us for a move to Charlotte.

• I’ve received a wonderful scholarship from the EPC that will effectively pay for a large chunk of our personal financial responsibility for seminary.  This is such a huge blessing, but we can only utilize it by being a full-time student in Charlotte (which requires a course load of 12 credit hours per semester).

• My church has graciously decided to show more financial support for seminary students in the future, which will also greatly assist in being able to afford seminary and supporting my family in the process.  Praise God for showing us how he plans to support us through this journey!

• I’ve signed up for my next seminary class, an online lecture class called Systematic Theology I.  The course requirements include two exams and a response paper.  I’ll have four months to complete the course, although I plan to work much faster than that this time.

• Ideally, our house will sell in time to move to Charlotte in late July or early August.  If that happens, I’ll be able to take Greek I for three weeks beginning August 2nd.  If our home hasn’t sold yet, we’re going to have to consider some contingency plans.

• If we don’t move by late August, we’ll have to consider what to do about my son and his education.  He’ll be in the first grade this upcoming school year, and our options are public school, private school (where he went for kindergarten), or homeschool (the current #1 contender).

• We’re on the hunt for churches in Charlotte.  Ideally, we’ll find a place where we can worship as a family and I can serve as a paid intern.

Your prayers would be appreciated for the above topics, and anything more that I ought to be considering.  May the Lord bless you and he’s blessed us!

If you know me very well, you’ve probably heard that I just got back from the first on-campus course of my seminary experience.  Let me just say, it was fantastic!  I met a bunch of wonderful, new people for starters.  For an extrovert like me, that is particularly exciting.  I was also quite intrigued by the classroom material.  Top that off with my meetings with professors and time outside of class discussing ministry and theology with other students, and it was one heck of  an experience.  The icing on the cake was the weather in Charlotte, where it was in the 60′s for most of the week (while being in the 30′s in Cleveland).

The topic for my class was “Apologetics”, which may be defined as a reasoned defense of the faith.  The apostle Peter made a case for apologetics when he said to “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

All of us Christians have had to defend the faith at one time or another.  This would include defending against or trying to persuade a non-believer of the hope that is in you (the gospel).  It could also address any doubts that we face as believers.  Thus, apologetics is not just for theologians that want to “argue” with atheists, but it’s an integral part of evangelism on par with preaching.  Also, I should  make it clear that apologetics does not involve “apologizing”, as if we’re sorry for our Christian beliefs.  Quite the contrary!

There are essentially two components to my grade in the apologetics course.  The first, of course, is an exam… no surprise there.  The other major component is a “dialogue paper” in which I’ll have to present a real or fictitious interaction with a skeptic (non-believers or skeptical believers are equally good).  For this reason, I invite any of you that have questions, concerns, or doubts about the Christian God to share them here as comments on my blog.  I’d be more than happy to answer your questions, and it might just help me out for my course grade!

I’m starting to get pretty excited.  In less than two weeks, I’ll be in Charlotte taking my first on-campus seminary class.  Yeah, I’ve already got one class under my belt and I’m half-way through another (both are history classes), but those are both online lecture classes.  This one will be in an actual classroom with an actual professor and other students present.  In other words, I don’t expect it to be anything like my online classes.  The class itself is a week-long intensive on Apologetics (defending the faith).  It’ll be lectures Monday through Friday, and then I go home to write a paper and take a final exam.  I can’t wait to get started!

I haven’t been in a college classroom in nearly 10 years, so that’s exciting.  I loved college, but this is different.  This is seminary.  I can’t wait to meet the other students and see what they’re like.  Some of them are probably seniors, which means that they may be pastors at this time next year.  That’s so cool.  It’s also intimidating… what will they think of me?  I know it’s silly to think that way, but it’s hard not to.  I can’t wait to participate in the class discussion, and I hope I don’t make an idiot of myself!  I can’t imagine I will, but do tend to open my mouth quickly and say things before I think them through completely.

I’m not really worried or nervous.  I guess I’m just full of anticipation for a situation that’s a complete mystery to me.  I’m thankful for my pastor who basically told me to go and enjoy myself and learn at the feet of Jesus.  That’s exactly what I’d like to do.  And soon!

Amidst the complexity life as of late, I have been a bit preoccupied with the thought of leaving for seminary next year.  I have a variety of mixed feelings on the matter.  It seems that my heart and mind are both in states of conflict.

Let’s start with the mind.  On one hand, logic tells me that it makes no sense to remove myself from my current ministry involvement, which has seriously ramped up in the past four months.  I’ve gotten heavily involved in some really exciting areas where I see God at work, and I’d like to be doing more of that and not less.  On the other hand, I know that I have a lot to learn to be properly equipped for pastoral ministry.  Since our local churches are not particularly prepared to develop a pastoral candidate, I recognize benefit/need for seminary.  I also know that RTS is a wonderful, renowned, and reformed school, and that there’s really no place I could go to be better equipped.

Now to the heart, which I see as at least equally important to the mind.  My heart aches for leaving my friends and family behind in Cleveland.  I am going to miss them dearly, especially those with whom I have been serving the Lord.  They have taught me so much, and I love them deeply.  My heart aches for my wife because she has to face those very same heartbreaks.  We have already begun grieving, as have our closest friends.  Our hearts are conflicted, though, because we are also extremely excited to discover what the Lord has in store for us in North Carolina and beyond.  We are very excited to move, to get the necessary training, and to live in the state that we’ve loved for over 10 years.

Ultimately, I must simply remind myself to trust in the Lord.  He’s in control.  He knows where we’re headed, both short-term and long-term.  In the moment, it’s hard to see the big picture, but as we step back and try to look at things through God’s eyes, the path seems to get clearer.  I must stay attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and be constant in prayer.  Whatever the destination, the one thing that’s certain is that we’re in for a ride!

I just thought I’d share that I finished my first seminary course a couple weeks ago, and I got the grade in today.  I got an A.  Praise God!

Up next is History of Christianity II (the Reformation through the 20th century), which is an online course.  Also coming up soon is my first on-campus class in Charlotte which will be a week-long intensive course on Apologetics in January.

Is Logos bible software a necessary part of a successful seminary equation?  I hope that I can get a good answer to that question before I venture off to seminary full-time next year.

I’ve heard a lot about Logos, and I’ve seen it in bookstores every now and then.  I am just not sure how useful it’d actually be.  I’m a tech guy, so I’m definitely on the side of the fence that would promote using technology to glorify God.  But how much of a difference maker would Logos be?

I have yet to write a seminary paper, deliver a sermon, or study for an exam, but I can see how useful and powerful a cross-reference tool could be (those could all happen soon, though!).  For an M.Div. student, I could see the value of being able to view instant translations to the original languages and topically search for biblical and supplemental references.  Aside from spending hours searching and sifting through books and articles at the library and on the web, I don’t see any other similar resource to Logos.  Am I wrong?

I’d love to hear the thoughs of some other seminarians and recently called pastors as to the usefulness of Logos.  In the meantime, I went ahead and applied for a $1000 seminary scholarship from Logos that I stumbled upon while browsing at goingtoseminary.com the other day.  Every seminarian, at the very least, could use a $1000 scholarship!

I’ve written a letter explaining the whirlwind of developments surrounding my family lately.  It’s the very same stuff I have written on the Seminary page of this blog, but I decided to publish it into a PDF document for easier distribution.  Here’s a link to the file…

http://jason.piteo.net/docs/newsletter.pdf

Please feel free to share this file with anyone interested.  I want people to know what’s going on in my life, primarily because I’m so excited to serve the Lord.  We also want people to understand why we’re following this path, where it’s leading, what it all means, and ways to help.

I got the CD in the mail today for my first class, History of Christianity I.  It’s an online class through the RTS Virtual Campus.  Lots of people have asked me how this is going to work, so let me explain.

I called the registrar on Monday and signed up for the class.  She had this CD sent to me, which I received today.  (side note: the CD was postmarked from Cleveland, TN… it went from Cleveland to Cleveland)  In the meantime, I had obtained my 6 required course textbooks and one “suggested” textbook.  I got most of these from a student that’s already finished the class.  I found him on Facebook. The one book he didn’t have I found on Amazon.

On the CD they sent me is a syllabus, 80 page course outline, and 32 lectures recorded in MP3 format.  Each lecture is around 45 minutes long.  The course is split up into 12 lessons. For each lesson, I read approximately 50-100 pages from one of the course textbooks and listen to 2-3 lectures.  During the lectures, I plan to take notes alongside the outline using Microsoft OneNote.

Grading for this class seems pretty straightforward.  Required is a big 10-15 page research paper (35%), a midterm exam (30%), a final exam (30%), and a 200 word “course application paper” (5%).  My exams will be proctored, probably by somebody at my church.  Apparently the school sends my proctor an e-mail with the exam and I get three hours to complete it.  I’m pretty sure the exams are online.  As for the papers, they just get e-mailed to the school when I submit my final exam.

I’ve got 4 months to complete the course, and I’m going to get started today!

I discovered something really cool a few months back as I was contemplating and praying about the idea of going to seminary… RTS on iTunes.  This provided me an opportunity to actually listen to real course lectures from some of the renowned professors at RTS.  They even provide a syllabus to show you the requirements for the courses.

To this point, I’ve casually enjoyed listening to lectures on Systematic Theology and Church History (everyone’s dream leisure time, I know).  If you’re pondering seminary and you’d like a quick taste of what the learning might entail, or if you’re interested in learning about some of the subjects available, I’d highly recommend checking it out.

For over six months now, I’ve been compelled to think about the possibility of enrolling in seminary.  If you know me but haven’t talked to me for a while, your reaction to that may be jaw-dropping or it might make sense, depending on your perspective.  I’ll be honest, it’s taken me some getting used to as well.

Let’s take a few steps back so I can explain how this all came about.  To begin, I’ll have you know that I’ve believed in Jesus ever since I was a child.  I had knowledge of some of the basics of Christianity, and I held firm to those beliefs.  My faith was very limited, though.  I laugh at myself when I think about how my former belief that the Old Testament was a bunch of fairy tales.  Adam & Eve, Jonah, Noah’s Ark, come on…

Nothing much changed until I started to attend Bay Presbyterian Church, at which point things started to slowly sink into my heart.  After having had some issues with anger and a minor addiction, I began to recognize the sin in my life.  For the first time, I had a desire to change.

Fast forward to Fall 2007, a difficult time in my life.  My wife and I had a strain in our relationship that weighed heavily on our hearts.  It was even affecting our children (Anthony ’03, Abby ’05).  It came to a point where we had to make a choice of how to deal with the problem, and we ended up looking to the Lord and our church for the answer.  Praise God, he answered our prayers!

Since then, things have been moving relatively swiftly (although at times it seems like life is going in slow motion).  God has given me the gift of having a good deal of support and encouragement throughout this process.  God has also placed me in some intresting situations that have enabled me to practice some of my spiritual gifts.

That leaves me with the question of what to do next.  There are many possibilities of varying degree.  For some people, God’s call is for them to be beacons of light in the secular world.  Personally, that would likely mean staying in the computer service industry and ministering to the people I encounter regularly.  I’m embracing that reality right now, but I don’t think that my heart is in it.  It’s not part of my 10-year plan!

I am beginning to believe, more and more, that God is guiding me down a path to become a pastor.  All at once, that’s exciting, inspiring, intimidating, and scary.  Will I actually be able to teach, preach, councel, and lead?  I might just find that out.

In the meantime, I have a decision to make.  Before that, I’ll be praying a lot and seeking much wise councel.  Thankfully, I have the support of my wife, my family, my church, and my friends.  I’m not going to follow this path alone.  So how am I going to decide?

Well, I guess I have to weigh all of the factors and make a logical decision.  Certainly, that’s part of it, although I must trust God’s guidance above all other things.  I will be amazed to see how He works out the details, though.  How will we pay for seminary?  Which school should I attend, and will we have to move?  What will come of my computer business?  How will my family deal with the schooling and the career change?  Will I be able to learn the material well enough to teach it?  Will I grow closer to God in the process or will I fall into the rut that I hear so many seminarians fall into?  Would I be a good pastor?

I’ll be seeking to answer these questions and more over the coming months and years.