Today was my 8th Theological Summit - a one day, one credit hour course that I take each term. Some Summits have been boring, some have annoyed the heck out of me, and some are just awesome... fortunately, this was one of the awesome ones! :)
The worship music today was provided by a local church's praise band, and they did an awesome job! They played a lot of familiar praise songs and provided a great worship atmosphere, for all 3 sets of worship songs they played.
The theme for the year's Summits is "What is the Church?" and today's topic in particular was the church of the present. There were two presenters, both of whom were former students of the seminary, one graduated in 2004 and the other in 2002. Their presentations were both very good but both very different. The guy who presented has planted a church in the Washington DC area and has had some ups and downs there due to spiritual warfare. The woman who presented pastors a small elderly church in a small Pennsylvania town. Both of them had unique perspectives to offer and did a good job presenting them.
For the third "lecture" session we got to watch a movie - complete with popcorn and seats in the balcony of the auditorium! The movie was North Avenue Irregulars, a Disney film from the late 70's. It was a comedy, and it really was quite funny, but also illustrated some interesting points about the church's role with social justice.
We had a bunch of table discussion times following each lecture (and the movie), and I had a pretty good table. Of the 8 Summits I've been to, I've had one of two professors for 6 of them, including today! But my friend Kimberly was also at my table, for the first time ever and we've both been to 8 Summits, plus a guy that I know pretty well from having a bunch of classes with him, and the professor's assistant who has helped him with some classes. So it was a pretty good group and we had some good discussion.
The food was good too, of course, though I wouldn't consider the lunch to be spectacular... chicken sandwich, mashed potatoes, salad, and fruit, but at least they had brownies and M&M cookies! :) I stayed for the optional pizza dinner afterward of course, and had some good discussions with fellow classmates. I also discovered that one of the new students this term is a lady who used to go to the church I went to in college! She didn't recognize me but I introduced myself and explained who I was and I think she remembered me then. It was interesting to hear what her life has been like since we both stopped going to that church.
So overall it's been a really good day, but tomorrow it's back to the "real world" of work for me. Fortunately it'll kind of only be a 3-day work week for me now! :)
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