Evangelism is...

So everyone in my building received a pill bottle in their mailbox today. This bottle contained, essentially, a tract. Not a Chick tract, but something created by a Lutheran church in Barre, VT; the idea being that Jesus is the Great Physician. The office downstairs was not happy about this, and even as a Christ-follower, I tend to agree. There's also the question of legality, due to where I live being public housing, but anyway. I'm not disputing that Christ heals, but coming to Christ is a very personal experience. The person who got through to me got to know me before he even tried to witness to me. I know that the Great Commission says that we are to bring Christ to all the people and all the world, but there are a lot of people who believe that that is our only mandate. It's not. Isaiah 58 and Matthew 25:31-46 are also our mandates and are actually the whole reason why I enrolled in seminary. Your actions mean as much as, if not more so than, your words. Preaching on street corners and through mass mailings does not alone make you a Christian. Shoving the Gospel down people's throats will not win them over. Trust me. I've been there. I got criticized in a class for wanting to help people whether or not they accepted Christ. The terms "Social Gospel" and "theologically liberal" were tossed around. I was even told how helping someone if they reject Christ is unbiblical. Let me tell you something. Jesus did not always win people over with words; and when He did, it was not like what we do today. The Samaritan woman? She was rejected by the Jews, all of them, except for Jesus. He asked her for a cup of water. Let me give you examples of what people do today: 

• The group in Buffalo that used to picket outside the Capen library on UB North and tell non-Christians that they're going to hell and tell Christians that they're going to hell if they don't go to that group's church or read the King James Version.
• People with disabilities get told that their disabilities are punishment for not accepting Christ.
• The Westboro Baptist Church picketing military funerals and preaching messages of hate, which I will not repeat here, because said messages are incredibly vile.
• Groups ambush people on the streets, and now, in the mail, with tracts, and other means of evangelism. While not absolutely horrible, it is impersonal and ineffective, due largely to the image of Christians that people have, thanks to the WBC, and other fundamentalist groups.

Jesus never did any of this. He never condemned people the way we condemn them now. He didn't tell people they were going to hell. He never told women who didn't have children that they weren't going to get into heaven, either. The Samaritan woman? He merely told her He knew of her indiscretions. He did not condemn her. The tract thing is ineffective, because it is impersonal. People get a tract from a stranger, they will throw it away. "You're trying to change me...you don't even know me." They interpret it as judgment, because of what they have seen. Who can blame them? 

I tell people my story if they ask. I carry a Bible in my purse, really for me. If people see me reading and they ask, then I tell them. If people ask about my necklace or my Godstrong wristband, I tell them. Jesus lived to serve people. So do I. Servanthood is my witness. God's grace must be shown, not told.

Women in Ministry: An Excerpt (Teachable Moments)

Note: This is an excerpt of a paper I wrote for my Systematic Theology II course. Citations have been removed for formatting purposes.

What the Bible Says About Women in Ministry

                The Bible says that women are not to pray or prophesy with their heads uncovered. In addition, 1 Corinthians 14:34 reads, “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says” (NIV). 1 Timothy 2:11-12 reads, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent” (NIV). These passages are often cross-referenced with Genesis 3:16, in which God deals with Adam and Eve after the Fall. Genesis 3:16 reads, “To the woman he said, `I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you’” (NIV). This is important, because when Jesus came, it became not just the law that mattered. Paul seems to be focusing exclusively on the law. Jesus focused on grace. Where the Old Testament forbade most of society from going beyond the curtain to spend time with God, in the New Testament, God came and spent time with all of society; including women.

                There are five major examples of Jesus interacting with women; all five of those women had teachable moments. The five women were the woman at the well, the sinful woman with the alabaster jar, the woman at Bethany, also with an alabaster jar, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, sister of Martha. The woman at the well was a Samaritan woman, with whom the Jews never associated. Jesus spoke to her, asking her for some water. In John 4, after He asks her for water, he witnesses to her. He does not manifest contempt for her and the fact that she has been married multiple times and is living in sin at the time of His encounter with her. The law calls for Him to condemn her; grace calls for His forgiveness, as it does for everyone. The woman then brings her people to Christ, saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” They listened to her. They said to her that they believe not just because of what she said, but also because they saw for themselves. She was no longer the sole reason for their belief, but she did get the ball rolling, so to speak. She did minister to them, as she literally led them to Christ. She did not do what the law commanded, which was to, as a woman, stay silent. She submitted to no one except Jesus. What is even more significant about this has to do with what Jesus says later in the fourth Gospel: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” The “them” refers to the people that Jesus has sent out, and include more people than the Twelve. The “them” refers to the Samaritan woman, among others. While Jesus did not explicitly tell the Samaritan woman, “Go tell everyone about me,” it was implied that she does have a missionary function. Raymond Brown makes note of this in his article, “Roles of Women in the Fourth Gospel.” He writes that the Samaritan woman “serves to modify the thesis that male disciples were the only important figure in church founding.” Jesus speaks to His disciples of the harvest, which is missionary language, as referenced in Matthew 9, in which Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” Jesus Himself never said, “Send out male workers.” He said, “Send out workers.” The idea that the workers had to be male was later inferred. Indeed, as Brown notes, the first person to see Jesus after He was resurrected was Mary Magdalene. He instructed her to go tell the disciples that He has risen. Because of this, she “comes close to meeting the basic Pauline requirements of an apostle.” The basic requirements were that one had to have seen Jesus and had to have been sent to proclaim Him. Mary Magdalene fulfilled both of those requirements. Like the Samaritan woman, she is sent out. Unlike the Samaritan woman, she is explicitly sent out.

                The other three women took the initiative and led by making their own decisions, rather than listen to what others told them to do. In Luke 7, Jesus is anointed by a sinful woman, much like the Samaritan woman at the well. The woman washes His feet with her tears, wipes His feet with her hair, and then pours an alabaster jar of perfume on His feet. The Pharisee who was hosting Jesus looked down upon this act. He said that if Jesus were indeed a prophet, He would know who the woman was and what she had done. Jesus did indeed know who she was and what she had done, but she had ministered to and blessed Him with her actions and so was forgiven. She took an initiative that the Pharisee had not taken, which Jesus notes. She loved, and so He forgave her sins. Love mattered here, not the law. This account is often cross-referenced with an account in Matthew 26 with another woman and another alabaster jar of perfume. In Matthew 26, Jesus was anointed at Bethany, in the home of Simon the Leper. A woman came in and poured perfume on His head while he was at the table with His disciples. They called it a waste, saying that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus said it was a beautiful thing she did, as she did it to prepare Him for burial. “You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me,” He said. Jesus went on to say that what the woman did will always be told wherever the Gospel is preached. Like the sinful woman in Luke 7, she took initiative, as leaders do, and Jesus did not look down on her for it.

                The fifth woman is Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, in Matthew 10. While Martha made the preparations for dinner, Mary sat and listened to Jesus. The New International Version says that Martha was “distracted” (v. 40), meaning that what Mary was doing was the right thing. Martha wanted Mary to help her, but Mary would not help. Jesus said, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Mary chose to devote her attention to Jesus instead of following the “requirement,” which was to prepare the meal. Martha served Jesus through deeds; but so did Mary, through faith, and she made her own choice, instead of doing what society required of her. A leader is someone who defies the trend.

                Mitzi Smith calls it empowerment. In her article about the story of Mary and Martha, she writes about the positioning of the story in Luke’s Gospel and its relation to the story of the Good Samaritan, after which it is placed in the Gospel. The story of the Good Samaritan involves a man who had fallen on the road to Jericho. Everyone passed him by, except for a Samaritan, who took care of him. Smith writes that the law held that women were not to have conversations with men in public; however, Jesus may have intentionally gone to visit with Mary and Martha, and did so in the home they shared with Lazarus. However, even in the home, Martha did not have a conversation with Him; rather, she prepared a meal in the kitchen. Mary, on the other hand, “has crossed the political, religious, and domestic boundaries of her time.” She is very much like the Good Samaritan in this respect. Martha was irritated, because she felt Mary was doing something that women were not allowed to do at that time. She was also irritated that Jesus did not correct Mary, for surely He must know, as a teacher, what the role of women was at that time. Smith writes that the actions of Mary and Jesus “serve as a model for empowering our sisters who do not understand the position we have taken in ministry.” Their actions show that it is okay for women to break the mold. By doing what she did, Mary taught Martha. If she had instead listened to Martha and gone into the kitchen, Martha would not have learned the lesson that she learned from Mary and Jesus. Martha took a passive approach when she conformed to what society expected of her. Mary took an active approach when she sat at the feet of Jesus. Taking that active role was her teachable moment.

Sheep and Goats: Christian Treatment of the Poor

NOTE: This is a paper I wrote for my Ethics and Christian Ministry class. Citations have been removed for formatting purposes.

Introduction     

There is a woman with a green wool blanket who had to make a choice between putting food in her mouth and a roof over her head. She chose the former. She sleeps in the bus shelters on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, NY. There is a man named Broderick who sits on a bench in front of a Tim Horton’s restaurant in Lafayette Square and asks for change six days a week. People pass right by him; even Christians pass right by him, because they believe the only task that God has given them is to tell people about Jesus by evangelizing on street corners and metro platforms. It is like this in cities all over the United States. People sleep on benches in parks, in doorways. Those who are better off just keep walking, and in many cities, the homeless are punished for simply trying to survive. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, panhandling is illegal after dark in cities like Pittsburgh, PA, and Atlanta, GA. Homeless shelters in cities like Little Rock, AR, have had to decrease the hours they are open, due to budget cuts by the government. “Lodging out of doors” is prohibited in cities, including Sarasota, FL, Las Vegas, NV, and Flagstaff, AZ.  Yet those who are above “the least of these,” including Christians, keep walking, believing that it is not their problem. The truth is, it is the Christians’ problem. Jesus said, “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” Christian treatment of the poor as it stands now is indeed unethical and could use some improvement. Helping the poor could be considered an even greater witness to Jesus than just sharing the Gospel, because then, when one helps the poor and the otherwise less fortunate, they testify to the existence of Jesus Christ through their actions.

Objections

                The majority of Christians today are socially conservative. They are against abortion and same-sex marriage; and they also believe that one should work for what they get. They also believe that the only way to spread the Gospel is by telling someone about God, rather than showing them. Christians today generally believe that helping the poor is something called the Social Gospel, which has been associated with “theologically liberal, moderately reformist Protestant social thought.” Laissez-faire individualism, in which the government does not give monetary support to its citizens, and everyone earns what they have, is and has been a cornerstone of Christian orthodoxy. In fact, in the forward to When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, the author of the forward, John Perkins, writes that his “concern for the poor and social justice made many evangelicals suspect that [he] was theologically liberal.” This idea that evangelicals have about people helping the poor comes from 2 Timothy 5:18, which is a reference to Luke 10:7. They focus on the part of the verse that says, “Those who work deserve their pay. However, the context of Luke 10:7 refers to the disciples accepting hospitality while working to advance Jesus’ kingdom; they should not be so humble as to refuse any hospitality that is offered. Evangelicals take this to mean that people should not take assistance of any kind without having first worked for it. It is so easily forgotten that some people are unable to work. Examples of this in Biblical times include the blind beggar in John 9, and are still applicable today.

In addition, there is a fear of the city, perpetuated by stereotypes of the city as “an urban wasteland.” It is too crowded, too violent, too noisy, and beyond any help. Further, the objections of those who are religiously pretentious, as Walter C. Kaiser writes, are that, as previously mentioned, the first and foremost duty of a Christian is to bring people to Christ. Giving the poor a helping hand may or may not include verbally sharing the Gospel with them. These Christians believe that the most important thing for a Christian to do is to pray to God, go to church, and get other people to do the same. In other words, they believe in rules, much as the Pharisees did. It is for this reason that Christians are generally equated to Pharisees by the unsaved. Kaiser writes that God does not wish for people to follow the rules and rituals in order to maintain the outward appearance that they are believers. The habits that are correct in their eyes are not correct in the eyes of God.

Why It is Biblical to Look After the Poor

In the forward to When Helping Hurts, John Perkins cites Matthew 25:31-46 and 1 John 3:17-18. The passage in Matthew 25 contains the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus puts the sheep at His right hand, and the goats at His left. He tells the sheep that they fed Him when he was hungry, visited Him when he was in prison, invited Him in when He was a stranger, cared for Him when He was sick, gave Him water when He was thirsty, and clothed Him when He was naked. The righteous who were the sheep asked Him when they did those things for Him, and He told them that “when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it for me!” (Matthew 25:40 NLT). Likewise, he said to the unrighteous, the goats, that they did not do those things, and that “when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me” (Matthew 25:45 NLT). Further, 1 John 3:17-18 reads, “If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion – how can God’s love be in that person?” (NLT).

There are examples in the Old Testament as well. Deuteronomy 15:11 reads, “There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and other Israelites in need” (NLT). Further, Isaiah 58:6-7 reads, “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help” (NLT). These verses illustrate what is called “true worship,” according to the New Living Translation. The first five verses of Isaiah 58 condemn those who worship God, but ignore their fellow man, something that is commonplace with conservative Christians today, as they consider those Christians who fight for social justice and the poor “theologically liberal.”

Urban Ministry: Its Necessity and Its Purpose as a Witness for God

In his study of the New Testament, Ray Bakke found that the church is meant to be “an agent in the world.” He notes that in the books of Luke and Acts, the focus is on riches, poverty, justice, and women, which make up the agenda of urban ministry. Many Christians, both historically and today, think of only the poor on the other side of the world or south of the equator as the ones needing help and needing God. However, Harvie Conn writes that “missionary compassion no longer demands border crossing; theological reflection can no longer be done from the balcony at a safe distance.” One issue is that there are those who do not want to get their hands dirty, so to speak. John Hayes writes that poor communities are “places we try to avoid.” People are afraid. They also think they are above those God is trying to use them to help. By letting their fear and preconceptions control them, they are not seeing what God wants them to see. The other issue is that people are unsure what to do. The situation is all around them instead of on the other side of the world. Urban ministry requires more than just sending money and supplies overseas, or going to Africa on a missions trip that would last about two weeks. However, there are people who go to the Third World on long term missions; the only thing that is different about urban ministry is the location. As with Third World missions, the purpose of urban ministry is still being a witness for God through words and actions.

Ministry to the poor in urban areas is vital for both the people and the city itself. In To Transform a City, Eric Swanson and Sam Williams give six reasons for engagement of ministries with cities. These reasons include the idea that cities have a transforming effect on people and are fertile ground for creativity, thinking, and receptivity, meaning that new ideas circulated rapidly in urban areas, through communication effected by the closeness of the people; cities can also help people live efficiently and productively. Cities are also valued by God, and as such, the “early Christian movement was primarily urban.” What Swanson and Williams mean by a transforming effect is that once people go into the cities, they would not want to go back to more rural areas. They write that these people “learn to adapt to a new way of life.”

The early Christian movement was primarily an urban one, because as it is noted in To Transform a City, “if the goal is to `make disciples of all nations,’ missionaries need to go where there are many potential converts.” Toward the end of his life, Paul made it his goal to get to Rome, which was the most powerful city at that time. All of his letters were to the inhabitants of cities, some of them places where his missionary journeys took him: Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, Galatia, Colossae, Thessalonica, and Philippi. He also went to Antioch and Athens; however, God called Paul to write to the first seven. There are cities mentioned by name in the Bible, including Jerusalem, Babylon, and Tyre; all were warned, chastised, loved, and lauded, as God does for His children. Therefore, cities and the people in them are not to be ignored. There are those that say that the Great Commission is the most important task for believers, which is why they say that urban ministry and helping the poor is not important. However, others affirm that it is actually the greatest commandment, that “you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind…A second is equally important: `Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39 NLT). Author Robert Lupton notes that it is out of place to consider bringing people to Christ as more important than loving them, as Christ Himself said that the greatest commandment is to love God and love others. Bryant Myers writes that this commandment is motive to help the poor, and a framework for urban ministry, or transformational development. It is about relationships, not law, and about “who we must love, not what we must do.” Mark Gornik compares the church to the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were looked down upon in Biblical times. Yet when someone had fallen to the ground, injured, and everyone else passed him by; except for the Samaritans. Gornik challenges the church to “be neighbor to the beaten, bruised, and left behind.” Christians need to answer this challenge; they need to figure out how to minister in urban spaces, because ministering to the urban poor is different than ministering to those who have everything they need in a physical sense.

To that end, there is a book, Not Just a One Night Stand: Ministry with the Homeless, written by John Flowers and Karen Vannoy, which illustrates how Christians are to minister in urban areas. In the preface, they write that there is more to urban ministry than just handing out food and blankets. They write that more understanding of the issue is necessary, and that it is necessary to partner with others to move forward. There is a film starring music artist Michael W. Smith as a pastor of a mega-church in the suburbs. The film is called The Second Chance and there is one scene in which the pastor of an inner city church that is connected with the mega-church comes to the mega-church to speak to the congregation. He says that it is not enough that the congregation sends money to the inner city church. He tells the congregation that if they are not going to go into the inner city and see how people live there, then they could keep their money. This is what Flowers and Vannoy are getting at in Not Just a One Night Stand. They write about letting the homeless stay in churches, staying with the homeless on the streets to experience what they experience. This is what they say effective urban ministry should be. It is a practice of putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, so to speak. One needs to become familiar with the people and the neighborhoods of the city, including the history and politics of the city. Robert Lupton reaches the same conclusion in Renewing the City, when he writes that merely physically relocating to an urban center is not enough. One cannot simply move the church into an urban center and keep the same practices that they had when their church was in the suburb. Suburban churches are primarily concerned with saving souls; urban churches are concerned with not only saving souls, but saving lives as well, and when a suburban church becomes an urban church, their practices need to reflect that.

There is a caution, though. Flowers and Vannoy write that the poor are skilled at manipulation. It is “a survival skill for the poor and marginalized.” Christians are cautioned to not succumb to the lifestyles of those they are trying to help. This fear of manipulation and “sinking to their level” is a common objection of those who are against helping the poor and fighting for social justice; however, there is a right way to help those in need. Provide food, shelter, clothing. If someone needs help with rent or transportation, have them work for it. Flowers and Vannoy write that most are willing to work; they are just not given the opportunity. Work would provide more than money for the urban poor. It provides “dignity and respect for those who rarely receive it.” Manipulation by the helped does not make the poor any less deserving of being ministered to. Fear of this manipulation gets in the way of the love God wants people to have. In at least one case in the Bible, love is translated as charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13 of the King James Version reads, “And now stays faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Randy White writes in Encounter God in the City that one must not misuse the city. The city can be misused when the missionary’s commitment fails. People who volunteer their time in city centers need to finish what they start. People need a vision “as big as the city.” Additionally, they need to know the situation before they help. Duane Elmer proposes a similar idea in Cross-Cultural Servanthood. If one is going to help someone, they need to respect dignity and not automatically assume that someone needs help, especially if it is something small that is affordable without help. Additionally, White writes, there is a desirable attitude to be had when confronted with cross-cultural differences. Like Elmer, White writes about openness, acceptance, trust, and adaptability. The openness is to new situations; acceptance is toward these new situations and cultural norms; one needs to trust that they will be taken care of in the mission field, a rebuttal to the objection that urban ministry is too dangerous; and adaptability refers to adapting to the culture of the mission field. This attitude will result in a successful urban ministry.

Urban to Suburban

The issues of urban ministry are spreading into the suburbs as well. Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert write that people would travel into the cities to practice urban ministry, much like people travel to the Third World to minister to the people there. However, there is an increasing trend of the urban poor moving into the suburbs where more affordable housing can be found. Moving into the suburbs, however, does not raise them above the poverty level, even though they may have at least one minimum wage job per person. They require some of the same ministering that they would receive if they lived in the city center. The only difference is really that, due to their employment status, the new suburban poor are less visible than the urban poor.

In A Heart for the Community, the movement of the urban poor into the suburbs seems to be marked by race. It is also marked in history by the construction of housing projects in the cities as part of the housing boom after the second World War. There was a time when racial minorities were not to be found in suburbs. Now, it is common, as projects in urban spaces are being closed down, forcing their residents to move into the suburbs; however, suburban churches have been resistant. Megachurches have promoted “numerical church growth,” quantity as opposed to quality, as it were. This has resulted in segregated churches in the suburbs. Slowly, this is changing, as suburban churches are being mobilized toward the same mission of their urban counterparts. There are six Biblical principles of mobilization: believers are called to do good, according to Galatians 6:2, which calls for the sharing of burdens; God’s transforming power is revealed through believers serving the hurting and the poor, according to 2 Corinthians 4:7 and 2 Corinthians 13:4, meaning that He shines through believers; according to 2 Corinthians 12:9, believers experience God’s presence through relationships with the poor, as “my grace is all you need” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT); Isaiah 58:6-8 describes how God promises to protect those who serve the poor; and, according to Ephesians 2:10 and Isaiah 43:21, God designed each person in a unique way to serve His kingdom. Suburban ministry to assist the hurting and poor is similar to urban ministry in terms of who the churches are trying to reach, and the methods the churches use. One key difference is the use of education. The value of serving “is a biblical mandate that every church should embrace.” Urban churches see this every day, and thus generally do not remind their congregations from the pulpit every Sunday, as happens in suburban churches. The reason for this is that the suburban poor are generally less visible than the urban poor. The suburban poor may have minimum wage jobs and places to live, while still having trouble putting food on the table or clothes on their backs. They may have trouble paying for electricity or heat. They may have trouble with transportation, as transit in the suburbs can be sporadic. Poverty in suburban areas is different in some ways, but it still exists. The suburban poor, and even others who are not poor, deal with the same issues that are dealt with in urban areas, including drugs, teen pregnancy, and broken homes. Suburbs do not automatically imply prosperity. They do not automatically imply perfection.

Conclusion

Just as suburbs do not automatically imply prosperity, the poor do not automatically imply unimportant, both urban and suburban. They are important. They are important to God, and they should be important to churches. The woman with her two children, all of them going hungry, who escaped to Amherst, NY for a brief respite from the gutted building that passed for their home in the west side of Buffalo, are important. God calls for Christian treatment of the poor to be compassionate and just; the Biblical evidence is overwhelming. It is time for God’s children who seek to serve Him to take notice of His children who are suffering.

So far, the 2012 wrapup

`Kayso, now that school's done...just waiting for grades...I can really react to the craziness of the NFL offseason. You know, it really hurt when the Steelers cut Hines Ward. It hurt, because he was the last Steeler from the Steelers team of my childhood. They're all gone now, and it's so sad...I really wanted Hines to go out as a champion, like Jerome did. What softened the blow, I think though, is what he did today. Out of respect for the fans, he retired as a Steeler. He took the high road. Pittsburgh cuts him (and Dan Rooney's in Ireland going, "WAT!?"), and although he doesn't retire at first, he eventually does take the high road. I just think that what the team did was really low, after Hines offered to take a pay cut. They let Jerome do that, why not Hines? 

Next, Peyton Manning. Um...he's a Bronco now?? Yeah. Um is right. And Brandon Jacobs and Mario Manningham of the Giants. Wasn't Manningham the one who caught the game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl XLVI? I'm confused...

Lastly - school. I have most of my grades, except for one. That's taking a little while, not sure why. But I took five classes in one subterm, because I didn't want any surprises when I got down to Virginia (the last subterm ends a day before graduation). And felt not quite myself for a good part of that. I got through it, though, ordered my cap and gown last night, and it's off to Virginia in early May. I have a couple of my papers that I think I'm going to post for anyone who's interested. My Christian ethics paper on urban ministry, and my Systematic Theology paper on the role of women in the church, both of which pertain to me directly. I'm at my parents' right now, recovering from surgery, but I'm going back to my apartment tomorrow, so I'll do some reformatting and post those for you guys (I don't think Facebook accepts footnotes). And again, for those of you who maybe didn't see my sermon from the fall semester, here's the link if you want to see it -

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmt6bj_tearing-the-veil_lifestyle