Theological Summit - Summer 2009

Yesterday was the Theological Summit at seminary, which is the kick off to the new term.  It was the third and final Summit of this academic year, in the general theme of discipleship.  This particular Summit's theme was Making Disciples who Make Disciples.  Overall, I got much more out of it than the last Summit, and it was a great day of fellowship, reflecting on God, and studying His Word.

One of my biggest beefs with the previous Summit was the lack of music in the worship times; to me, table discussion is not worshiping God.  This time was somewhat better, though only one of the three worship times had music that was familiar (or even easy to sing!).  As always there was communion, which I think is so cool that all 37 different Christian denominations of us can partake of together, even served by a former Lutheran pastor!

The other awesome thing about Summit was that the president of the seminary was giving the last lecture session.  But, he decided to ignore nearly all of his previously made slides in order to give us students a time to discuss and reflect as a group.  He did still get to his theme ("The Global Commission in a Winebrenner Context"), and it was a great talk by a gifted speaker.  At the end, he transitioned into the final worship time, which included (optional) foot washing.  Foot washing is one of those things the Church of God holds in high regard, though it's technically not a sacrament.  To start it off, the president washed the feet of one of the students; a very powerful moment.  Following that, my friend Kimberly washed my feet, and I washed hers.  During the foot washing, some of the guys just started singing familiar songs; hearing a bunch of men singing "Jesus Loves Me" during that was a really cool experience too.

Some of the material presented in the first two lectures was repeat for me.  The professor I had for Church in Mission class last summer discussed a lot of what we had learned in that class, and the professor I had for Discipleship class last summer presented the highlights of the class in a nutshell.  But she also included a new aspect, of having a few of the class members share their personal stories of discipleship; each of them have very moving testimonies.  One faces persecution when he returns to his home country and constantly fears for the lives of his parents and grandparents there; one was able to start changing his church into a true discipleship community; and another gave up his job for the sake of desiring true discipleship and the sacredness of the Scriptures.

It was an awesome day, but I was definitely emotionally and mentally drained by the end of it!  I rode my bike there, and after I got home Bill had an errand for me so I could ride a few more miles for that.  It felt great to be physically active after sitting all day, but yet not need to use my brain for much!  The reflection paper for Summit is due on May 19, but I'm hoping to get it written either tomorrow evening or on Saturday, because it's much easier to get done when it's fresher in my brain, plus it's nice to have it done and out of the way.