Two weeks ago we had a groundbreaking ceremony for the new facility we will construct nine blocks away from our current location.  It was a great occasion.

First, the weather cooperated.  It had snowed a couple of days before, but on the Friday the sun came out and the ground was dry except on bulldozed ground.  Our maintenance people put down a tarp to keep the ground dry despite the snow.  Then they made two plank walkways for the shovelers so they could make it to the good dry soil.

Second, all of Shanda’s planning worked perfectly.  The trolley for guests from the current campus, the van for the cabinet, the cleared parking lot, the press present, the great crowd (perhaps 200 or so), the scripts for Pastor Ron Norman as chair, for Al Nies as board member and building committee member, and for the president, the shovels from the Sioux Falls Area Foundation – everything worked.

Third, some wonderful friends and neighbors showed up.  Staff, students, pastors, Augustana College people, alumni, community people, USF people, Sanford Health people – just lots of people.

Special recognition went to some of the dignitaries who attended and participated in actually turning the shovels.  Dr. Rob McClelland, executive director of the NAB Conference from Chicago, was present.  Rob Oliver, president from Augustana College, participated.  Evan Nolte from the Chamber of Commerce came and hoisted yet another shovel (he gets to do a lot of these kinds of activities).  Representatives from our architects, RSA, were out in force with Danielle Heider, the main design architect taking the shovel, and the construction company, Jans Corp, with Duane Rippentrop as project manager doing the honors.  Others involved included Jackie Howell from the NAB Heritage Commission, Dr. Doug Anderson from Sioux Falls Psychological Services, and Rebecca Hjelle, current student council president.

David Link from Sanford Health Systems joined the shovels.  Sanford Health, especially Kelby Krabbenhoft and David Link, have been the best neighbors, helping us along the way to viability.  Their presence was most appreciated.
 

Fourth, the event symbolized a new beginning.  As each shovel went down into the kind of gooey dirt and then turned it over, a small physical act started a year long process of building new on that property for the future of the seminary.  Perhaps the preceding year is reflected in the shovel entering the soil and the turning spoke to the year to come.

Any way you look at it, we have started.
 

My thoughts on the event lean toward analogy with a wedding.  Lots of preparation goes into just a few minutes of actual ceremony.  But, indeed, it is a beginning.  We have started.

Introduction
I am speaking on the Tuesday before Lent begins, called “Fat Tuesday.”  The theme in chapel over the whole year is focused on Jesus, this next period on Jesus and Lent.  But officially it is not Lent yet.  Still, I am choosing to speak on it so that we can prepare ourselves for the days ahead.

Lent covers 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday (the Saturday before Easter), not counting Sundays.  It is a time for penitence, prayer, fasting, and charitable acts.

The February issue of Christianity Today includes an article entitled “The Future Lies in the Past.”  It discusses the maturing evangelical “ancient-future movement,” led until recently by Robert Webber who died in the fall.  It is an attempt to admit that we in today’s world do not know all the ways to draw near to our Lord.  So we look to those who have gone before us for guidance, such as in the practice of Lent or Advent or lectio divina or fasting or meditation or silence, or all kinds of traditional and historical practices of the church.

Thus the scripture readings for the 1^st Sunday of Lent become our focus (you can read them yourselves if you are catching this on my Blog):

·        Exodus 24:12-18 (cf. Ex 34:29) – Moses on the mountain; cloud; glory (16); 6 days; Moses entered the cloud for 40 days/nights > Word revealed

·        Matt 17:1-9 (cf. Matt 16:19) – Jesus; Peter, James, brother John; Peter and 3 tents; cloud and voice as at baptism, “My Son, the Beloved One . . . Listen to Him!”

·        2 Peter 1:16-21 (keys) – eyewitnesses of his majesty; attentive to prophetic message.

I would love to take the time to speak on each of these passages in detail.  But for my purpose today I want to take a look at what they have in common.  What do we find in common in these lectionary readings?  What do they say to us when read together?

Here are some of the elements the three passages share.  Only two events occur with Peter reflecting on his experience in the gospels.

• Mountains: Mt. Sinai, deep in the Sinai peninsula, finds Moses coming up to meet with God.  In the gospel account of the Mount of Transfiguration we have difficulty identifying the mountain (actually the same could be said about Mt. Sinai).  Traditionally, Mt. Tabor has been identified.  More likely the mountain was north of the Sea of Galilee, perhaps on Mt. Hermon.  It was a place where the persons involved could be alone.  That is a difficult thing in our culture – real alone time.

• Cloud:  a cloud settles on the mountains, described as the “glory” or “majesty” of God.  It is a heavy presence that Moses needs to wait six days before entering on the seventh.  At the transfiguration, a bright cloud appears and God speaks from it.

• Fear:  the people below saw the cloud and fire and feared (cf. Ex 20).  Peter, James, and John feared the voice that interrupted Peter’s proposal to build three tents in honor of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.

• Revelation:  Peter says it is a light shining in a dark place.  Moses face was changed (Ex 34:29); Jesus was transfigured – perhaps the most magnificent glimpse of the Kingdom on earth in the Bible.  The instructions in the Torah were to lead Israel.  When they were not obedient to God’s revelation, God punished them.  Now Peter points again to the revelation of God’s Word.

What is all this saying to us?

Peter made a wrong perception in the midst of his life-changing experience on the mountain.  He equated the three transfigured before them.  God corrected him, not by putting Moses or Elijah down, but by correctly lifting up Jesus.  “Listen to him,” God the Father commands.

That is the phrase I wish to draw your attention to from these three passages.

• “Listen to him” – St. Benedict’s Rule begins with the word, “listen.”  It is a word we fail to remember.

• We get caught up in classes, assignments, theological knowledge, family issues, doing church, Lenten practices and services, chapels, kinds of music, biblical truth, ancient-future movement, emerging church movement, contextual movement, and the list for each of us could just go on and on.  We are too busy doing God’s work to “listen to him.”

• Don’t forget God’s words to Peter – listen to him.

Conclusion:

It is not by mistake that the Book of Common Prayer always includes a Gospel reading.  Dallas Willard has enjoined us to always be reading the gospels for understanding what Jesus said and did.

Lots of things jump out of the gospels.  For example, E. Stanley Jones, missionary to India and USA in the early decades of the 20^th century, says in his book Conversion that Jesus did three things by habit.  We should learn from his habits – (1) He stood up in the synagogue and read the word of God as was his custom; (2) He turned aside to pray as was his custom; and (3) He taught them again as was his custom.

During this Lenten season let me ask you to commit yourself to read the Gospel of Mark.  This is the reading suggested for this year and you will join a myriad of others reading Mark along with you.

While you are doing this, put aside all the trappings of whatever comes into your life and “listen to him.”  Your life will be changed.

Read the following scriptures slowly as you commit to what I have asked you to do.  May the Lord bless your Lent preparation by the power of his resurrection as you listen!

^RS Matthew 7:24 ¶ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵ The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

^NRS John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also.

^NRS Matthew 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

^NRS Ephesians 5:1 ¶ Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,

^NRS Romans 13:14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ . . .

Orientation began yesterday, January 31, for new students for the spring semester at Sioux Falls Seminary.  Fifteen or so students began the process of learning more how classes fit in to their program, what they can expect, how to do research, and so on.  Rather quiet in the beginning, their assurance becomes a tangible thing as the day advances.

Of course, next week they will experience “syllabus shock,” a very tangible weight of doubt whether they can complete all the work in the fifteen weeks.  They have access to all the course syllabi today in a room in the Education building, but it is not the same thing as sitting in class and going through what is expected.

One year, in Old Testament Literature, a student read the syllabus in class and fainted.  Dr. Gordon Harris was beside himself.  That had never happened!  Hopefully the confidence gained in orientation will carry over to the opening days of class and there won’t be a repeat of the faint.

The beginning of the semester corresponds with Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent.  Mardi Gras is that time when a person indulges in life before the forty days of Lent when the focus will be on fasting, prayer, and charitable acts in preparation for Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter.  Lent extends from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, the day before Easter.  The forty days do not include the Sundays because they are like little pre-Easter days.  The Eastern Church has a little different schedule.

What a great time to begin a stage of life’s journey like ministry preparation.  Moving into a time of focus on Jesus’ ultimate gift permits us to reflect on our sacrifice as his servants.

All of us can take the next forty plus days to recommit ourselves to a focus where our life is lived to the full to accomplish what God wants to do through us.  As Dwight Moody said, “The world is awaiting a person who will be totally committed to Jesus.  I wish to be that man.”

In the first week of January my wife and I attend the annual meeting of the Fellowship of Evangelical Seminary Presidents.  Over the last seven years we have been blessed to enlarge our world by engaging in conversation, refreshment, and growth with other leaders who self-identify as evangelicals.

This year again was a blessing in our calendar.  It is first and foremost a “fellowship” so agendas are kept out of sight.  Usually someone guides our growth time (Doug Birdsall from Lausanne Movement for world evangelization shared this year).  Dan Aleshire, ATS executive director, gives his perspective on theological education and its future directions.  Evangelical seminaries now make up 60% of the student make up of all 240 ATS accredited seminaries.  Although they are more conservative in theology, evangelical seminaries tend to push methodological boundaries more than mainline or Catholic schools.  They are more entrepreneurial.

By and large most evangelical seminaries remember that they are servants to the church.  There are times when a seminary needs to be prophetic and speak into the life of culture, including the church.  But our primary purpose is to meet the ministerial preparation needs of the church.

Most presidents at the meeting live similar lives.  As a result each one understands building relationships with people of wealth for partnering in ministry, knows how difficult some issues are with faculty or personnel or finances, realizes the balancing act of family, church, and seminary, and feels the weight of responsibility for their particular ministry.  Physical difficulties attack many.  A few years back one president died of a brain tumor.  His successor and his wife have suffered their own physical struggles.  Some have experienced marital troubles.  Some have been fired by their boards in ways that still haunts them.  Renewal by sitting on the sand in the sun in conversation with people who understand your journey better than many proves possible.

We learned that three couples in our gathering of sixty or so would not return next year.  Several patriarchs did not return this year because of retirement.  New attendees are embraced so that they will feel aided in their lonely journey.  Spouses share at deeper levels and get more personal than their president spouses.  Of course, they go back to the room and bring their spouse up-to-date.  Out of the eighty or so members, not all attend.  Their dues help pay for our time, a fact all are thankful for.  But they would be better served by attending and opening up their own journeys, the good and the bad, the easy and the tough, so that God could minister to them as he has done to Barbie and me.

Next year we go to San Antonio, a place we have not been.  Of course, it is a long way to the beach, but hopefully it will be warm enough to sit by the pool and share renewal with each other as needed.  A real blessing from God.  Thank you.

I have a friend in California who wrote the administration of NABS back in the early seventies to complain that he did not understand how we as an evangelical institution continued to identify with August Rauschenbusch.  His reasoning came from what he believed were Professor Rauschenbusch’s liberal viewpoints on the so-called “social gospel.”

I am currently in the process of reading August’s autobiography (he only finished half before his death; then it was finished by his son, Walter).  It is an intriguing work, translated by Don Madvig, former Old Testament professor at NABS, from the original German, and soon to be published by the NAB Heritage Commission.  Rauschenbusch was born in 1816 and died in 1899.

Rauschenbusch’s schooling and spiritual journey testifies to the best in German learning.  His father, a Lutheran pastor, started him at an early age on a classical education.  He learned Latin, Greek, French, Hebrew and English early on.  He wrote German poetry.  His university included the best in theology at Berlin and later at Bonn.  He studied with Hengstenberg (conservative) and Vatke (liberal) along the way, names revered or hated in Old Testament studies, among others. 

He journeyed from deepest skepticism to a conservative pietism (a brand of Lutheranism that believed in adult conversion), much to the chagrin of his parents.  With his conversion he prepared for the pastorate and took over his father’s church when he died.  His revivalism did not stand him in good stead with the presbytery.  After nine years pastoring and leading revivals in Westphalia region, he felt called to follow the two million or so immigrants from Germany to the USA.

In the US, he went to work for the American Tract Society and was a great help to immigrants.  He wrote hundreds of tracts in German and oversaw around 100 German speaking itinerant workers who went to German communities around the US with the gospel.  He became convicted that his revival speaking among what he called “non-converted” German Lutherans only met with moderate success because of infant baptism.  Most German scholars of his time believed that immersion was the biblical mode of baptism, but also believed that the church doctrine had moved beyond it.  Rauschenbusch became convicted that he needed to experience immersion as an adult.  When he was baptized in the Missouri River it caused a large stir among German-speaking peoples because he was so well known.

Without reviewing the whole book for you, let me encourage you to buy it yourself when it is published.  Let me also turn your attention to the 30 years in which he taught at the German department of Rochester Seminary.

A recent lead article in the Sioux Falls Business Journal reported how difficult Sanford Health Systems is finding the recruitment of research physicians for its upcoming surge in research.  Strangely enough, I can empathize with their efforts because when the seminary attempts to recruit students or faculty we face some of the same problems (even though the salary scales are miles apart).

But Sioux Falls is a great place to live in lots of ways.  We have many of the amenities of larger cities (symphony, parks galore, malls, variety of housing levels, private Christian colleges, good schools, etc.) without most of the problems.  It is definitely a great place to raise children.

However, my intention in this blog entry is not to play the part of the Chamber of Commerce for any hapless readers.  Instead, I wish to expound the regional and spiritual benefits of attending or working for Sioux Falls Seminary.

Benefit 1: pace of life.
Let’s face it – the pace of life here is potentially better for spiritual health.  The Gospels recount how Jesus would often turn aside to a lonely place to pray, restoring his energy and recalling his goals in the midst of busy days preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God and healing the sick.  The busy factor in Sioux Falls is just as strong as the rest of the world.  But somehow the pace is more conducive to a healthy rhythm of life.

We tend to drive slower than the rest of the country.  My mother (now deceased) demanded on one of her visits that I drive faster.  My speed was too slow for her.  Events receive guests early or on time by and large.  Seldom do you see a mass of late arrivals and early departures like for LA events.  Daily occurrences of foul hand gestures between strangers seldom occur (I can only remember one such communication over the last 24 years although other people tell me they have witnessed it more often than that).

Even the weather tends to cooperate to slow things down.  A snowstorm or thunder storm arrives and everything shuts down or slows down.  Things still seem to get done with such enforced breaks.

This pace allows more reflection.  For a person’s spirituality, pace is crucial.  If we would listen, God will speak to us.  Our environment here lends itself to a healthy pattern.  Of course, we need to take advantage of the benefits of our pace of life.
 

Benefit 2: friendly, caring, honest people.
In Sioux Falls people remain friendly, caring, and honest, qualities often missing in other places.  When we moved here in 1984 I was always surprised when people out walking would greet me.  That never happened in Denver or LA.  Usually a can of mace would be hidden in a person’s hand and certainly no friendly greeting would be forthcoming.

Neighbors here still try to find out who is moving into the neighborhood.  They look out for each other if someone is ill or goes out of town or is absent from the family on a business trip.  Some people do not lock their homes unless they are going out of town.  I have left the trunk of my car wide open by mistake when golfing for four or five hours and nothing was missing from the trunk or car.  My wallet was in there.  Extra golf clubs and golf balls sat open for all to take.

When one of our friends gets sick, meals are brought in.  When a son or daughter graduates or achieves a milestone, everyone celebrates, providing gifts and food, but most important, presence.  When a service club produces wheelchairs for third world countries, the sharing of the gospel is just as important as the wheelchair.

For faculty this environment is nice for family.  For students it gives hope that such community remains possible in a world that mostly goes the other direction.  However, when a student leaves seminary, they may not serve in such a setting.  In our equipping of students, we take into account the “real” world.  In the meanwhile, this environment nurtures and grows students.

Benefit 3: real ministry contexts.
Sioux Falls and this region provide real ministry contexts for students in their preparation for a lifetime of ministry.  When I was in seminary in southern California I preached twice in class.  Since I served a church on staff, I also got a couple of opportunities to speak during my time in school.

By contrast, most of our students find a place of service where they preach every week, do the “marrying and burying,” and provide the pastoral care for a church.  Some students in this region have only had student-pastors serve them since 1949.  By the time our students leave for post-seminary service, they have a wealth of experience in a context where faculty are nearby and can help out when necessary.  Some churches give student families a parsonage.  They are supported with some income and a housing arrangement, all with ministry support resources nearby.

This region provides an incubator for ministry preparation.  And we are only making more intentional ministry contexts like these ones.

Bottom line – except a few months of cold temps (that we love to brag about anyway) – it’s just a great place to live and minister, especially in fostering close relationship with our Lord.

Last week four of us traveled to the Pacific Northwest to share our plans for the seminary with two small groups of friends.  Two of the travelers were employees of the seminary’s foundation, Ben and Nate, and one was a former trustee, Peter, who co-chairs our “From Here to There” campaign.

When I return to the Pacific Northwest I feel like I am returning home.  I was born in Corvallis, Oregon, when my dad was finishing college at Oregon State.  He went there on a baseball scholarship and the GI bill.  We lived in Seaside, Oregon, for a short time, probably a year and a half, and then moved to Seattle where my sister was born.  I don’t remember anything from those years, although I thought once that I remembered a Dalmatian dog attacking me.  My mother told me before her death that it was an event that happened in Richland, Washington, in my first grade, and it was two Dalmatians who barked at me through a cyclone fence.  Second grade was in Spokane, Washington, then third back in Corvallis.  We moved a lot as my father was promoted.  Fourth grade found us in the Bay Area in northern California where we moved to southern California in eighth grade.

I wasn’t done with the Northwest, however.  In November of my senior year in high school we moved again to Oregon, to Beaverton where I finished twelfth grade at Sunset High School, one exit before our hotel in Beaverton.  Although I moved back to Anaheim two days after graduating, surfing my way down the coast with a friend who dropped me off to make a new life for myself, I spent those six months exploring Oregon and Washington as only a footloose, bored high schooler can.

Since our first meal event was in Beaverton I had a chance to walk for an hour over roads I once drove over.  Back in 1968, the roads were two-lane country roads through farm land.  Now they were four and six-lane roads through mile after mile of houses, stores, and apartments.  Hillsboro was ten miles away; now it runs into Beaverton or vice versa.  To cross an intersection on foot is risky because the light isn’t long enough to make it that far without running.

The weather was beautiful.  Mid-sixties, clear skies, cool evenings.  Our event went well with six people attending.  They are “intimate gatherings” with people to share inside information on our ministry.  Walter attended.  Now 85, he described me as a seventeen year old at his church, Bethany Baptist, back in 1968.  Nice singing voice, he said.  How were my parents?  He also said to Peter, a retired physician that he remembered a young Boy Scout receiving his Eagle award in the church he attended when in college in Grand Forks, ND, in 1949-50.  Was he the same person, he asked?  He was.  Amazing!

Several old friends attended, too.  It was great to see them and to know they have played some part in our ministry over many years.

Tuesday morning we drove up Interstate 5 to Tacoma for our next intimate gathering with fourteen people.  Most of the drive only showed hints of the beautiful countryside because of fog and light rain.  After all, how do you think it got so green and lush.  We didn’t glimpse Mt. St. Helens or Rainier.  As we arrived at our hotel in SeaTac, the clouds cleared a little and we caught a glimpse of Mt. Rainier in a shroud.

In the evening, our second event went well with many good questions and high interest in the new building and changes in ministry focus.  The next day was spent with a couple of informal appointments, a visit to Pike Fish Market, and attendance at the Sonics versus Memphis Grizzlies game.  It was a wonderful day with clouds closing in in the evening.  By Thursday we were headed home.

Seattle has spread out, too.  The downtown has been upgraded and renewed, but some of the area around the Space Needle has not changed since the World’s Fair in 1962.  On the south side of downtown, new sports complexes have emerged.  My imperfect memory thinks there used to be endless railroad tracks in that area.  Boats shuttling passengers and autos go every direction across the sound.  The ferries are modern and fast.  It seems to me we see lots of sea planes in the sky at all times of the day, but it may have been so in the past and I just don’t remember.  And, of course, some of the best seafood and clam chowder in the world can still be found.

John, a friend and former colleague, tells me that the Northwest has the lowest church attendance in the U.S., but it has the highest rate of spiritual interest.  Its spirituality may not be directed to the true God, but God’s people should help people with this high level of spiritual interest find a real deity to answer their quest.

As I drove over the roads, I recalled that my favorite fantasy writer, Terry Brooks, lives in Seattle for part of the year.  His latest trilogy (with two volumes out so far) revolves around a future Seattle and Pacific Northwest where human history is coming to an end because of the forces of evil.  This trilogy is a prequel to his famous Shannara series.  You can see where his characters travel and sleep and combat evil.  Someday elves, humans, and mutants may find peace in the Northwest.

Journeys to familiar places heighten your ability to see.  Somehow sights that are familiar, like Mt. Hood or Rainier or Mt. St. Helens or the Three Sisters, loom bigger, more dramatic from the plane, while other sights jump into significance that were barely remembered from years ago.

Even more startling is how constant change is.  New buildings, communities, businesses, schools.  More people, more cars and trucks and planes.  More of everything.

I guess our news about our ministry finds parallels with our trip to Oregon and Washington.  Changes keep occurring while many things stay the same.  It is refreshing to see the new and the old with eyes made sensitive by the passing of time.

At the seminary this week we hosted our annual Missions Fest.  The focus has been on the fact that a majority of the world’s peoples connect with oral telling rather than print medium.  Of course, it would be wrong to refer this trait to only non-literate peoples because many in our North American culture, though not illiterate, also respond to visual and oral media better than to print.Our third son, Aaron, struggled in school through high school.  In college he was on the honor roll.  He told me once that if his education could have come through the “Simpsons” he would have done a lot better.  Indeed, he has memorized every line of dialogue of every episode without trying to do so.  He is probably correct.  His vehicle to learning requires two components: an oral/visual component and an experiential component.  Aaron responds to story and oral telling.

One of our speakers, John Walsh, shared that some oral cultures will memorize up to 175 stories from the Bible.  They will be able to tell the stories and provide appropriate applications and implications that match any Biblicist or theologian.  They do not read at all.

When I was in grad school at UCLA I shared the classroom with colleagues from rabbinical backgrounds.  Many had learned the whole Hebrew Bible by memory.  They could quote from almost any passage we referred to (and in Hebrew).  Some could do so on many passages from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) or from the targums (and more than one tradition of targum, too).  Telling and re-telling the stories as a central part of their upbringing led to such prodigious feats.

We also had a presentation from a drama team from Northwestern College (

Two of the biblical stories presented by the drama team came from the Elisha cycle in 2 Kings.  Since I wrote my dissertation on these stories, I resonated with the presentations.  Sometimes the biblical stories are viewed as simple and short.  I found that in fact they are quite complex in their brevity.  Scenes shift from one verse to another.  Time speeds up and slows down at key moments of the telling.  Characters may not dwell on interior thought to a huge extant, but they do display complex traits fitting to full characters.

Even literate people forget that writing is simply a mnemonic device, a means to help you remember.  What looks brief in biblical telling is so because the original peoples knew the stories and filled in the details in their telling or in their remembrance.

A whole world awaits the telling of the greatest stories so that they may come to a saving knowledge of our God.

I share with new board members that I ask primarily that they “engage” with our ministry.  After all, they are the responsible people for the seminary; we work for them.

The Fall 2007 Board of Trustee meetings finished on Saturday, October 20, after two days that demonstrated how a board should function in “engaging” in governance process.  What a great time to review the last six months and project where we are going.

We introduced five new board members, four North American Baptist Conference pastors and one local realtor.  Even they engaged in the process by asking great questions and contributing wisdom at key places.  One board member noted, “It sure is great to have new trustees because they look at everything with new eyes.  We take so many things for granted.”

One reason for the good meetings came from the positive reports we brought.  Student numbers are rising with 50 new students this fall (not all full-time, of course).  Ministry Impact Fund contributions are ahead of last year by a substantial amount.  The “From Here to There” campaign has had a great start with significant dollars pledged by staff, faculty, administrators, and board of trustees.  With three “Intimate Gatherings” under our belts, one in Kansas, one in Sioux Falls, and one in North Dakota, important partners in our ministry are considering what they will do to support us.  In all my travels people are excited about the momentum that seems to be growing and the positive changes that are coming.

We shared the state of the new facility plans with the board.  They are pleased with the plans to date, but suggested we make the entry area “pop” more so that curb appeal rises.  Our architect is coming up with some ideas for the building committee meeting next Monday.

The move of the library into the Mikkelsen Library at Augustana

At each step of our journey of change, we seem to gain affirmations of God’s approval.  Indeed, to God belongs the glory.  We are dependent upon him completely for how he is turning around our ministry in the upper Midwest region.  The

Progress on contextual learning was reported.  Cory Seibel and the faculty are making good steps to define how we walk and will walk alongside students as the focus of their education shifts from the classroom to the site of ministry.  The move to a new paradigm of learning drives many of our decisions aimed at the future.

Many other things came up for discussion and conversation in the course of the meetings.  Suffice it to say that it is wonderful to have such partners in our ministry of equipping servant leaders for the ministries of Christ.  A thanks goes to our Board of Trustees and their leadership.