Settling into New Ministry

Jenny and I are getting settled into our new apartment at the International Baptist Theological Seminary. Now that we've had a few weeks, the place is starting to feel like home. On our website, we've added a photo gallery tour of the new apartment and our offices.

Our offices are next door to each other. Jenny will work out of the English Department office. She'll be offering morning classes during the intensive English program in the fall. I will help out with an afternoon hour a few days a week. My primary ministry remains with the Biblical Studies department. I will continue to teach in the Certificate program and advise Masters and Ph.D. students. Recently, I was one of the graders (we have three for each thesis) for a Masters' thesis on the land promise texts in Genesis. The paper was written by an Egyptian Baptist, so it was very interesting to see how he dealt with these texts. I also have been advising a Masters of Philosophy student from Romania on his thesis on the book of Esther. I just sent him some comments on a chapter that I hope will be helpful. He is focusing on some literary features in the book that explore how the different people groups view one another.

In addition to teaching, we are both helping with a backlog of publications that the seminary is working to get editted for publication. They have asked us to help with this important ministry of getting good academic materials published, so they can be available to be used in seminary courses around Europe. Right now, I am working on a volume on Doing Constructive Theology in a Baptistic Way that hopes to apply some recent developments in theology in the life of today's church. Learning the editting process has been interesting, as is the material itself. It will be nice to see some publications make it to the light of day because of our help.

Make sure to take a tour of our new life here: http://www.thomasfamilyweb.net/photogallery/OurNewHome/index.html