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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/12/2008 10:50 AM (GMT -6) |   | Corey, if this isn't appropriate, I'll remove it. No problem. Or I can push it down to the Private Section. Just thought I'd get some help from you all.
Some of you know me personally in offline relationships. Others of you only know me on this board. This is for everybody who wants to kick in some advice.
I’m in the middle of a career change. After 23 years of foreign missionary service in the Arabic speaking Middle East with the Assemblies of God, last August I resigned my missionary appointment so that my kids could have stability and benefit of being in one place (and High School). They needed that (after being drug around the world by me for their whole lives). My wife and I felt like it was the best choice for them. Even now, one year later, I’m convinced it was the right choice.
We’re still with the Assemblies of God (I’m still an ordained minister with them), and after resigning our missionary appointment I looked into finding a staff position locally, where we live, so that I could remain in ministry, etc. Nothing came up. I had to find employment. So I took this job with the Military as an Arabic interpreter/translator. A one-year contract that ends today actually, Sept. 12th. But I’m extending to the end of the year.
Right now I’m enrolled and set officially to begin on a PhD in systematic theology at London School of Theology. My research topic has to do—surprise!—with the nature of divine-human relationality, personhood, freedom, etc. All the stuff D and I have been arguing about here on the board for a year.
I’m reconsidering all that, and I’d like whatever thoughts any of you might want to offer.
1) The past few years of endless philosophical debates over systematic theology that I’ve had a) make little practical difference in my view, 2) have changed nobody’s mind, 3) have eaten up hours of my time now that I think about it, and most importantly 4) are hardly understood by very many people at all! I’m so fed up with carrying on conversations that average, struggling, Christians couldn’t share in if they wanted to because the language that the conversation demands people to know is so philosophically off the friggin’ charts! At some point you just gotta stop and ask yourself: WTF? I understand it, yeah. I can connect it in relevant ways to life IN MY OWN MIND. Well, OK. I can do a PhD in this stuff. But your average Joe Christian who’s not there and who’s just trying to figure out his faith in the real world? Come on. D will say he’s been able to make perfect sense of it to those he’s disciple. Then he should do a PhD in it, ‘cause I can hardly make sense of this to myself.
Greg Boyd’s PhD dissertation is a friggin masterpiece. Know how many people have read it? Less than ten I suppose. I think I was the 9th or 10th member in a small club of people who have read his doctoral work. And not many people I know could even understand it if they read it. I think it’s been many years since Greg’s even read it. If I do a PhD in this stuff it’ll be a purely academic exercise, drawn out over 5 to 6 years. I can’t stand the thought of working that hard on something, making some unique contribution to my field, and have it sit on a shelf like that. I don’t even wanna chance it. I wanna speak to REAL people about a REAL faith and I wanna speak in terms people generally understand. Something more practical. Something that will figure into what I actually DO.
2) I’m a good listener (most of the time). I care for people. I love hurting people. And I test out (as INTP) as counselor/teacher. The PhD is ‘in’ me, sure. The teacher, yeah. But there’s a pastoral side of me that wants to help people LIVE, not just stand in a classroom and deliver lectures.
3) Recently you can’t imagine the different people who have written me with problems. They don’t write to counsel, but it turns into that. They have questions (some theological, but only to the extent that their faith really motivates or explains some behavior or problem). We get to talking. I open up and explain God/faith, etc. to them in simple terms and they’re like, “Oh my God. That’s so beautiful. You should be a counselor.”
4) The PhD will take me close to 6 years to finish. The counseling degree? 3 or 4 years. And in the end, I think counselors find employment more easily than guys with PhD’s in systematic theology. It’s more difficult to imagine myself sustaining the drive and passion necessary to stick with researching ONE anally specific philosophical question about God than it is to sustain a counseling program. The latter seems more practical and so easier to keep at it. (Did I just say that?)
5) Teaching at NCU the two years prior to taking this job in Iraq showed me something about myself (haven’t told ANYBODY this). I ‘like’ teaching in front of groups in a classroom. I really do. BUT I flat out ‘love’ going one on one with people (or very small group discussions).
So I’m thinking of dumping the PhD and the whole pursuit of systematic philosophical theology. I’m pretty disheartened by it when it goes so far into speculation and metaphysics. Time to redefine things. I’m thinking counseling. Go for a second masters in Counseling and serve the world one on one instead of in the classroom.
Am I crazy?
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/12/2008 3:42 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/12/2008 3:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Any idea where that Ground Zero post is, Mark?
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/12/2008 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | That's OK Corey! No hurry. I just thought Mark might have printed out a copy of that thread and then framed and mounted it where he keeps burning candles and incense going round the clock and where he bows in prayer before it each night!
You know. Something like that.
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 9/13/2008 3:47 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Brother Tom,
First . . .
I, as have others, have watched you post here for several years now. SEVERAL years! Two important results - perhaps more important than any others - have resulted from your posts here: a) you have grown intellectually and intelligently in magnificant ways; and b) you have influenced others in far more ways than you can imagine. I am one of those people.
I remember, Tom, when I first got on this board and began reading your posts in those early days. You were a student who asked questions and contributed what you knew. Today I watch you as a teacher, equally intelligent and learned as anyone else in those theological areas about which you've spent so much time thinking and posting. You could never do a formal Ph.D back then that would compare with one you could do today if you hadn't spent so much time here. So whether you do a formal doctorate, your years here have not only made you an awesome contributor of wisdom and teaching, they have refined your wisdom in ways that simply could not have come about from too many other avenues of learning. You have indeed mined a lot of gold, Tom. A lot.
Second . . .
You already have your Ph.D. in the Open View. I got my B.A. in it the same way you got your Ph.D; by having spent so much time on this board. I don't regret a minute of the time I've been here. I had to come to the conclusion, though, that I can never go as far academically as others (I'm simply not that smart), but I made peace with it. I no longer desire to do a formal education for ministry. Any education I may do down the road will be strictly for my own enjoyment.
Perhaps, then, you don't "need" a formal Ph.D., as you are beginning to realize, in order to do what you have found to be your first love. If counseling one-one-one and in small groups is what rocks your world, Tom, then that is probably what you should start praying about most (with regard to a career). Me? I am best when teaching weak or unlearned Christians who need to find light at the end of the tunnel, who just need to find some discipleship and teaching that can help them to feed themselves. I don't need a degree to do that. I wanted that degree badly early on, but, as I say, I made peace with the reality that I am not to go that route. So now I am praying for ministry as God has it in mind for me.
I'll keep you in my prayers, Tom. As one who hasn't even found a career in ministry yet, I can understand something of your desire to get this squared away. More than anything, however, just don't fret. Trust in Him. Lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him and He'll direct your path (but you already know this!).
For the Master,
Keith
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/16/2008 12:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Yes, I'll always have the Forum!
Thanks guys.
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Pentz
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 59
| Posted 9/22/2008 9:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | As one of your students, I loved the time spent one-on-one with you asking advice towards what to do concerning missions and other related issues. I know a number of other students who would agree with this and I would love to take any Sys Theo or or other ICS classes. Jess and I will be praying for you and your family. Be safe. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/23/2008 11:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks N! Hugs and kisses to you and Jess.
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