Back to School

For those who thought they would never see the day when I would go back to school, I did it... I have signed up for my first class in the Antioch School of Church Planting and Leadership Development. My first class is on Monday April 7th. While this may not be news to a few, it is a really big deal for me. Here's the story:

I graduated High school at 17 years old and that fall I shipped out to Rochester Institute of Technology, a huge university in New York. (I only describe it that way because most people thought I was just going to a community tech school someplace, to this day I have only told one person I went there and they actually knew what it was.) I was nowhere near ready to be 10 hours from home with no real support system or many real friends around me. I was way out of my league. It also didn't help that my first, and only, semester there drained my Dad's retirement fund. Needless to say I dropped out, actually I transferred to Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. MECA was a little closer to home but I was still nowhere near ready to be out on my own in the city. Liberty took over and very soon my life was a complete mess.

I decided not to continue my formal education that spring and instead headed off to work at a summer camp in New Hampshire. I kicked around at home for the next year, working with the youth group at my home Church, working in a warehouse during the day and as a janitor at night.

Later that winter I got a job working for a builder who was part of our Church which was a great experience, I think he might have saved my life. I worked for Ken through the summer and decided to take up getting educated again. At this point I really didn't have anything to lose, except more of my parents money...

I started BICS that fall (that's Berkshire Institute for Christian Study) in Lenox, Massachusetts. After a year of painful study I graduated with a certificate in Bible and Theology and resolved never to do that again. BICS was a one year program designed to teach students discipline and give them a firm theological foundation before continuing their studies at other colleges or universities. I decided that I would have none of that and resolved to go back home, be a carpenter and a good parishioner. I remember telling the president of the school that I was going to be the best pew warmer I could be. (man, I was such a schmuck!)

I did end up going back home and working construction for a few months but I settled in a machine shop in town after realizing that it gets really cold in the winter time in Maine and that's not a lot of fun for builders. It was during my stay in the shop that I met my wife and eventually got married and started a family. I did work for a while at the shop that my Dad has worked in for almost 40 years but that didn't last very long, working nights is definitely not my thing. My Mother-in-law actually hooked me up with a job at another local shop which worked out great, I stayed there for over three and a half years but a funny thing happened on my way to retirement... I got called into ministry, youth ministry to be specific.

We sold our house and put most of our things in storage waiting for just the right position to come open which eventually did. We moved to Meredith, New Hampshire in July of 2004 and I started work as the Youth Pastor of Calvary Bible Church. We stayed there for another three years working for the Lord and growing in many ways. Our family was up to five members now with three little boys, two dogs and a handful of fish.

In the spring of 2007 I had a conversation, albeit brief, with the president of BICS while they were on choir tour and visiting our Church and he told me about the Antioch School. He said "I know how you feel about education and now that you have a family it would be nearly impossible to go off to school someplace but I think that this Antioch thing might just work for you." Boy was he ever right!

Since that time we have moved again and I have taken on the role of Associate Pastor of my home Church in Oxford, Maine where I will be using the Antioch program to learn while involved in a ministry context. The courses are specifically designed to allow people to study to show themselves approved while continuing their involvement in the ministry that God has called them to.

So, as it turns out, I was right all along! You just have to be patient, God will give you just what you need when you need it!

(Just kidding, I wasn't right all along, but if you are patient and wait on the Lord He will make a way when there seems to be no way!)