2014 Update

Hello friends and family,

Like many blogs, this one has not been updated in many months. I hate that. No one can expect readers if a blog is not updated.  I make no promises to blog here more frequently, but here is an update at least. If you want more frequent blog posts from me, you will have to check out Reformingwv.blogspot.com.  These have been busy days, but I have mainly focused on other things.  "Like what" you ask?

• Fambily.  Kathi's PID is managed, thankfully, although her health does fluctuate within a wide, managed range.  Spencer is in 6th grade and always joyful, except when he is not.  Taylor is in 10th grade and reads fantasy books incessantly.  Josiah is a homeschooled junior but is taking most of his classes at the community college. He will probably enter Covenant College as a sophomore. He is very good at programming.  He cannot take the programming classes at the community college because his knowledge already exceeds them.  He has a working knowledge of about 7 or 9 different programming languages. 
• Doctoral Studies at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. I say doctoral studies, but that is just a way to gentrify a doctor of ministry, which we all know is not in the same category as a PhD, which I will never get.  I am working on my final project, which at this point is titled  Bonhoeffer's Predigerseminar: A Model and Inspiration for Building Community in a Fractured Presbytery.  I had hoped to graduate in 2014, but when your project depends upon the participation of dozens of other people, timeliness can not be predicted.  So I will graduate in 2015, as long as I keep plowing along, and as long as the presbytery continues to support my efforts. I have been very grateful for their support so far.
• Pastoring Trinity Presbyterian Church.   We are small.  But I love being here, and I love the people.  I am learning how powerless I am, and how much I need to pray. 
• Mediating for the Family Courts.  As a minister, I am there at the beginning of marriages, and, unfortunately, as a mediator for other families, I am there at the end, helping divorcing parents set up parenting plans for the children. 
• Working at West Virginia Northern Community College. This is my full-time job, but it is not the reason I moved to New Martinsville.  Some churches will never have pastors unless preachers are willing and qualified to work bi-vocationally. I wish more would. 
• Blogging at Reformingwv.blogspot.com.  I am less likely to blog here and more likely to blog there.  
• Starting a Bible Institute. Some Reformed guys in WV are getting together to start a Bible Institute in West Virginia by West Virginians, for West Virginians.  I have wanted something like this for a long long time, and now it seems it is coming to pass.  We will offer an initial Biblical Foundations Certificate this Fall.  More information on this will be coming soon.  
• There is always more, but this is all I can think of at the moment.