Pre-Lenten Workshop Offered at Concordia Seminary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 17, 2011

ST. LOUIS—Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, will offer a one-day pre-Lenten workshop for pastors on Friday, January 20, 2012 called “Seeing is Not Believing: The Passion Story in Mark.”

Those following the three-year lectionary will hear Mark’s unique voice this year. Mid-week Lenten services offer the opportunity to contemplate Mark’s account of Christ’s passion, which is not part of the Sunday lectionary cycle.

Pastors will gather from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. in the Presidents’ Room on the Seminary campus. The morning will focus on an overview of Mark and exegesis of Mark’s passion and resurrection account, led by Dr. James Voelz. Following lunch (included in registration fee), weekly service themes will be explained by Seminary professors Drs. Voelz, Jeffrey Gibbs, Joel Biermann, Charles Arand, and Kent Burreson. Included in the service themes will be Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Resurrection of Our Lord.

Registration cost is $50, including all materials and lunch. A registration form can be found at http://www.csl.edu under Continuing Education. For questions, call 314-505-7486 or email ce@csl.edu.

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Week 10 in Greek

I’m going to do things a little out of order this week for obvious reasons. So here is the rundown of the material we covered the final week.

Chapter 38: The Optative Mood of the Verb

Chapter 39: Contrary to Fact Conditional Sentences and Conspectus of Conditional Sentences

Chapter 40: Reflexive and Reciprocal Pronouns, and Further Uses of autos

Chapter 41: Voelz’s Fundamental Greek Grammar in 9 weeks.

The last week for me centered around my review of parsing verbs/nouns.  Review of the subjunctive, participles, imperatives, and principal parts. Add in homework for every night made for some long days. Although, I did do a good job of stopping at a decent hour so as to not overstudy and wear myself down. I spent the night before the qualifier relaxing with Linda watching Cougartown. Mindless show to distract me from worrying about the qualifier. After the third episode I got up and went to sleep. Linda thought I was studying, but I felt the need to get a good nights rest.

Woke up around 5:30am. Got dressed and went for a walk around campus. Came home and then got ready and I was out of the door by 6:30am. Armed with only the principal parts flash cards that still was giving me issues to review.  I attempted to get into Wartburg Hall, but evidently it doesn’t open to until 7am.  So, I wound up going to the classroom and reviewed there. Started to feel un-easy so I got up for a walk and by that time Wartburg was open.  I walked in to get a Java update (Greek class joke). Did the head nod to my fellow Greek classmates who were congregating getting that last meal before Go time.

I was one of the guys who took his exam at 7:30a as I thought I would need all the time in the world. I was methodical about taking the exam. I didn’t second guess any answers I selected. I didn’t feel great about the exam, but I felt I passed. Took me roughly 2 hours to complete the exam. I missed chapel and then later found out I didn’t pass the main qualifier. I did score high enough that I was eligible enough to take the re-take written by Dr. Gibbs.

Crushed spirit and physically drained … I really had lost hope.  Like always Pastor Gibbs put his arm around the two of us who would be doing the re-take. Letting us know we were still baptized. 🙂  He also pointed out where we went wrong on the exam. Go figure I had been struggling with participles and I got those correct. It was the subjunctives that killed me along with imperatives and minor things here and there. Gibbs suggested I go for a walk around campus to clear my mind and focus on the material that tripped me up.

I did have Gibbs call Linda to explain. I just wasn’t in a place mentally or emotionally to say to her honey, I may have added on another year to our time at seminary.  Along with the fact the more I talked the more I felt material was slipping out of my head.  I basically had from 11-12:3o to compose myself, put the first qualifier aside, and take care of business.  It is no secret I absolutely fear Gibbs exams. So, my outlook wasn’t good in my mind.

Needless to say, the time had come for the re-take. Much thanks to my classmates for letting me be during the time after finding out I hadn’t passed until the re-take to let me re-focus.  Even bigger thanks goes out to the prayers that went up on my behalf and my fellow Greek student. Couple of guys even walked through the classroom saying, “you’ve got this. Parse parse and Parse somemore.” Time pretty much time stood still during the second exam.  I finished and felt very confident.  As I walked with Gibbs for him to grade our exams. We sat in the Registrar’s office like nervous school girls. Gibbs came out made us smile and handed us our exams. We PASSED.  Almost in tears I shook Gibbs hands. 

There has been a common theme/motto on campus about Life Together and Community this year. Never in my life have I seen it in action than on the day of the qualifier. The support and prayers were so powerful. The collective togetherness of being their for a fellow brother struggling is more than anyone can ask for…

As I appeared in the quad to my anxiously waiting classmates to reveal the wonderful news.  Before I left the Registrar’s office I called my lovely and supportive wife. She was relieved and happy. I began to check my phone and for the classmates that were alreadyon the road home for the break… Surprising enough they never forgot their fellow brothers either checking in via txt messages or phone calls. Life Together at its best.  We’ve all been told those that go through Greek together form a bond that lasts throughout our times at seminary and through our ministries in the parishes.  After experience this myself, I now understand it.

Summary: I PASSED.

What is Next? Greek Readings and Hebrew…

Elementary Hebrew 12 credits: The essentials of Hebrew morphology, syntax, and vocabulary.

Greek Readings:2 credits: Practice in the “art of translation” by appliying fundamental skills in Greek to basic interpretation of biblical texts. Readings selected will lay the foundation for hermeneutics and subsequent courses.

I will attend to keep up the weekly blog. Maybe try and get them out on a weekly basis and not do 3-4 weeks in a night. Thank goodness for a good memory. We have two week break starting on Monday and we return for the Winter quarter the Monday after Thanksgiving.

 

Week 9 of Greek

1 Week to Go

We are all slowing down now. We see the end is in site, but we still have at least 3-4 days worth of material to get through before the we get the qualifier.

 

Material Covered this Week

Chapter 33: Active Forms of the Verbs didomi and tithemi (English spelling since WordPress doesn’t have Greek fonts for me)

Chapter 34: Middle and Passive Forms of the Verbs (see Chapter 33)

Chapter 35: The Verb istemi

Chapter 36: Irregular Adjectives, and Comparative and Superlative Adjectives and Adverbs

Chapter 37: Case Usages

Side Note: We spent Saturday on the road heading to Bloomington, IN. I was very distracted during class on Friday morning as we were awaiting the birth of our first nephew. He was a stinker and put his momma (Danielle) through 21 hours of labor. Well, Danielle has always been there for us above and beyond during all of our children’s births. Our Greek class prayed for the Hulsmans before class and shortly after Chapel was over Jaxson Hulsman finally decided to join the world. It was wonderful meeting my our new nephew. Linda drove while I worked on vocabulary and then slowly worked through the Sell Workbook.  After spending time in Bloomington, IN we drove back and arrived back in STL around 1am.

On Sunday, we (the seminarian fieldworkers) were finally introduced to Faith-Oakville and the multi-sites in Edwardsville and Columbia… At all 3 services. It was fun and painful all at the same time. Mainly because I was tired from the normal Greek wear down and then the trip to Bloomington.

Week 8 in Greek

This week has been somewhat of a break through in Greek even if it didn’t exactly show in exams. There has been a number of changes in my test taking. Use headphones to cancel out distractions around me. Move to a different room. Start earlier so not to feel rushed. Relaxation techniques to reduce the anxiety before the tests. Now the latest change. Move into a different room by myself so that I can talk things through verbally. This seems to be working after a quick test with Dr. Gibbs.  Huge thank you goes out to Rev. Gibbs and his wife Renee for recognizing this based on in class performance/participation.  I hadn’t given up, but I was feeling very defeated just before.

Two weeks to go and the realization that all the long hours studying, memorizing, and waking up in the morning thinking about paradigms will all be summed up in one exam. More material this week along with our cruising speed of 80 mph.  It is round 8 and Greek has definitely gotten the better of me.  I must be Rocky Balboa as I just keep coming back for more.

Here is the material covered this week…

Chapter 29: The Subjunctive Mood of the Verb, part 2

Chapter 30: Contracted (Contract) Verbs in -aw

Chapter  31: Contracted (Contract) Verbs in -ow

Chapter 32: The Imperative Mood of the Verb

Week 6 in Greek

We are officially past the half way point.  We’ve been informed that evidently we’ve been going at around 35 mph up until this point. Now, we are going to speed up to 75 mph and maintain it until the end. Dr. Gibbs was at a Pastor Conference. So we had Dr. Lewis instructing us for the day. I think many of us had forgotten how different instructors potentially can be in regards to how they approach their classes. This may have come at the right time to prepare us for post Greek. Post Fundamental Greek Grammar means Fundamental Hebrew is next up along with Greek Readings.  Dr. Gibbs wasn’t kidding as things really did speed up this week.  Funny thing is the material presented this week didn’t faze me, but actually solidified most of the material leading up to this point. So, this was a good week for me learning and putting all the pieces together. While my test aren’t exactly demonstrating that which is really bringing me down, I actually get the how to read and parse.

I officially attended my first Student Association meeting on Wednesday. Funny, how I’m up every morning early to review before class, but my body knows class isn’t until noon on Wednesdays. So, scheduling a Student Association meeting for 7:30 on a sleep in day makes for an unhappy body. Needless to say I learned a lot from the meeting and how things work from that side of campus.  I look forward to helping out and given feedback that represents our first years feelings. BTW, Dr. Meyer has somehow figured out how to be hilarious and scary at the same time. I don’t think anyone notices it, but the students.

Oktoberfest was last night and even though it was cold outside, there was a huge turnout.  We even had some folks dressing the part of Oktoberfest. Oddly, enough I didn’t know any of the songs. Then again what do you expect from a guy who grew up in the city who is like 1/8 German. LOL  Quite the experience and like all things here at seminary, I’m better person for experiencing it.  Afterwards, we had some of my classmates over with their wives. Which brings to mind a few things…

We don’t know how to talk about anything, but Greek, the future of the church, doctrine, and theology.  Our wives get annoyed with us when we do the aforementioned in their presence. We can speak quite loudly during these discussions even when we are agreeing with each other. Finally, that our wives are truly patient, loving, understanding, and beautiful women.  Thank goodness we married them before they knew what they knew better. LOL

Almost forgot, I finally met Rev. Poulson in person yesterday and we talked for a bit.  Nice putting a face with emails. He also told me when he was going through his formation he had to take Greek and Hebrew at the same time. I believe he attended the seminary in St. Catherines. That in revelation may cause me to never complain about Greek again. Literally.

As usually here is the material covered this week in Greek:

Chapter 20: Focus upon Connection/”Present” Tense Participles

Chapter 21: Focus on the Action/”Aorist” Active and Middle Participles

Chapter 22: Genitive Absolute, and Focus on the Action/”Aorist” Passive Participles

Chapter 23: Miscellanea 2

Sorry

I am so sorry for not updating the past couple of weeks. Take that as a hint to just how stressed and busy with Greek that past couple of weeks. Hopefully, I will get some none Greek work done today.

Week 5 of Greek

This week started out much like the week before. Linda was gone for a Seminary Wives Association (SWA) retreat.  The kids and I spent some much needed time together. Hannah and Jonathan had soccer practice in the morning so that is where we were bright and early. From there we spent the day in the house either studying or sleeping.  Sunday is review the vocabulary day for me before the quiz on Monday.  We had quite a few number of prepositions that could mean different things based on the case (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative). Fun times this week. I wasn’t as tired and I felt I grasped the material better than the week before. However, I’m still a little bit behind due to the lack of energy and comprehension the previous week.  Just means I will continue to put in extra work to catch up.

On a side note as far as I know, I’ve been approved by my peers along with 3 other seminarians to become first year reps.  So, I will 1 of 2 representatives for the 1st yr married students. More to come on this as my first meeting is next week.

Here is the information we covered this week:

Chapter 15: Relative Pronouns and Three-Case Prepositions

Chapter 16: The Infinitive of the Verb, Part 1

Chapter 17: The Infinitive of the Verb, Part 2

Chapter 18: Third Declension Consonantal Stem Nouns

Chapter 19: Third Declension Vowel and Sigma Stem Nouns, and Third Declension Adjectives

Also, on Friday night Linda and I participated in the Contemplate event via the Discussion Panel. Oddly enough, we are this event one year ago and couple of days. It truly was a pleasure to participate and talk with some of the seminarians we will see in a year from now. I remember how we felt at the event and we tried to speak from the heart about preparing yourself for the move and life change itself.

Got a quick conversationw ith Rev. Nunez earlier this week as he was on campus speaking at the Hostel event.  I haven’t actually seen him in person since either 1996 or 1997 on Concordia Ann Arbor campus when he was a guest pastor for one of the chapels.

Week 4 of Greek

I’ve just finished another week of Greek. One more week and I’ll be at the halfway point. This week was not a good week and Greek was not nice to me at all. The week started off with Linda being gone for latter part of the weekend to travel to Michigan for President Hoesman’s retirement party. Then on Monday night I went on pager duty and wound up with one of the worst outages in my time at Verizon Business. The initial page came through at 8:15p CST and I didn’t get down with the outage until 6:15a CST on Tuesday.  Needless, to say that set the tone for a bad week. Exhaustion played a large part in this being a bad week. Due to being so tired I just couldn’t retain the knowledge that was being taught. I honestly felt like there was a cloud around me all week long.  Needless, to say my test grade reflected it as well. Just means I have to work harder to catch back up and get back on track.

Greek is indeed a thinking man’s language. I think a better description would be a 1000 piece puzzle that you have to take little parts and put them together to see the picture. Keeping with the boxing as a description for Greek in the 10 round exhibition. Well, let’s just say the hits just came from everywhere. Lesson taken away from this week is, sleep is your friend.  Another thought taking away from this week is even though I felt defeated, I survived, got back up, and ask for more.

Here is the material covered in Week 4 of Greek.

Chapter 10: Personal Pronouns

Chapter 11: Passive Voice Verb Forms

Chapter 12: The Verb “To Be” and Further Uses of the Article

Chapter 13: Miscellanea 1

Chapter 14: Contracted (Contract) Verbs in -ew

Week 3 of Greek

Another week is in the books. This week went over much better than last week did. However, this week we started off with a Vocabulary Quiz. I did wonderfully on the quiz and I’ll be beating myself up for the ones I missed. We followed up with a quiz in the afternoon which I did surprisingly well on. Took my time and nailed the quiz as well.  Now this is probably going to be the way Greek goes the rest of the way.  I did well on quizzes and tests for the week, but Greek really threw me for curves with new material. Just trying to rationalize some of the ways Greek does things with English will drive you crazy. Likewise, the vocabulary is starting to get weird with its spelling and definitions. Hard to explain if you haven’t had Greek, but I’ll give it a try. It’s a joke I’ve used for years when folks ask for suggestions on what to name their children. Spell the name Bob, but pronounce it Michael.

We had a short week due to the Theological Symposium (Tues/Wed) off from class. I chose to take this time to fine tune Greek and get some much needed rest. Especially, since I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a while now.  Oh yeah, I also had my first experience with Kaldis with the guys after the after noon session of Greek. Good place to study, work, and wait for the kids to get out of school.

I did okay on test, but made a stupid mistake that cost my 6pts. Still no clue how I circled the wrong answer. I parsed the whole sentence and somehow selected the wrong one in a rush. I’ll be banging my head on the wall for the next day or so about that one. I guess I should feel comfortable about the grade. However, I’m not one for settling and don’t plan on becoming one who does settle.

Life is busy and hectic. I didn’t make it to my morning workouts at all this week so that really bites. I’ll get some rest this weekend and get back on track. I’m trying to get just one week where I get my vocab memorize, understand the new material, nail the quizzes, work, and get my workout in without killing myself.

This week’s material covered for Greek was the following:

Chapter 8: Aorist Indicative Active and Middle Verb Forms

Chapter 9: Aspect, and Imperfect Indicative Active and Middle Forms

Evidently, Chapter 9 is when most greek students freak out.  One vocabulary word can express 6 different meanings.  Where is coincidently, where some of the bible translations get so screwed up. It is totally up to the translators choice on how to translate things. Sigh

Simple Past: I left

“Connected Past”: I was leaving, I used to leave, I began leaving, I tried to leave, I repeatedly left, and I did leave.

Also at Chapel today I met one of the Board of Regents, Ulmer Marshall Jr. from Mobile, AL. He seemed very happy to see me, but I’m sure many can guess why.  We did have a good conversation and a number of things.

All the “Connected Past” are translated from the same “word”.  That is where I will leave off for this week. I have few things to do, then work, then study, then BBQ in the Woods.

Week 2 of Greek

From here on out I will use a 10 round boxing match to describe my week in Greek.  This week definitely started out with Greek throwing a haymaker to my noggin. More of a wake up call to my brain.  Not that I wasn’t studying the material for very very long periods of time. As you can study all you want, but it has to make sense.  At this point things hadn’t made sense as of yet. So, the beginning of the week’s test and quiz really hurt.  It’s early in the quarter and it is better to get that out of the way now. Another part of the problem resolved around me paying too much attention to vocabulary and not enough attention to the rules of accenting.  Well, the knock on the head humbled me and I responded later in the week with better grades on a quiz and test.  Actually, finishing off the week on a good note.  What did this week teach me?  Well, it isn’t going to be easy. Actually, I went Gibbs asking for tutor. Something, I don’t think I have ever done in my life up until this point. Not that I haven’t had times when I should have asked and didn’t. However, I’m older and some would say wiser.

Thankful, Dr. Gibbs stayed after class to review an quiz and we went through it slowly.  Turns out I know the information and how to come to the answer, but my brain is working to fast.  What does that mean? We see a word in a sentence in English and we know exactly what it means because we have learned it (hopefully) during our education in school.  Well, that doesn’t work when you’re learning a new language. At least not for me it doesn’t. So, I need to take things slower with parsing for it to click.  If he hadn’t done that I may have been tolling around until someone caught what I was doing wrong.

This round has ended and we’ll have to go to the cards for a ruling on who won the round.  For right now I think it is pretty close to a draw. For those of you who have had Greek in the past this is what was covered this week.

Chapter 3: Present Indicative Active and Middle Verb Forms

Chapter 4: O or Second Declension Nouns

Chapter 5: A or First Declension Nouns, and Elementary Prepositions

Chapter 6: Basic Adjectives and the Article

Chapter 7: Future Indicative Active and Middle Verb Forms, and Deponent Verbs

Greek Quote of the Week: Precious Moments is the new anti-Christ…. Baby Jesus is NOT cute. 🙂

Overall life is a challenge and still growing accustom to my new schedule and making sure everything fits in. Settling in with a small study group between classes in the basement of the library to go over material.  Also attended my first Prof n Stein. Dr. Voelz talked about a number of things, but I’ll focus on this main point.  While we are in spiritual warfare, we shouldn’t stop to realize the blessings around us. I don’t know if he meant to or not (I suspect he did), but he really emphasized the campus them of “community”. Don’t be so into the books that you forget there is still a mission field on campus and off campus.

The week ended on a good note, with International Student Cook Out in “The Woods”.  The downside of the event was students were forced to pick between supporting the soccer team or attending the cook out. Also, it seems events in “The Woods” come across to be only family oriented. Nothing could be farther from the truth and its a shame guys miss out on grilling and wonderful conversation. So, if you haven’t attended one, attempt to and see for yourself.

The SWA (Seminary Wives Association) is about to start the field day event that was postponed on Labor Day weekend due to rain. So, I’m off to support the wives, have fun with the kids, and watch as people run around while being sprayed by a firehose.