Worship Book Bargains

Fellow worship wonks may be interested in these bargains, which came to my attention courtesy of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. These would make great gifts for pastors, seminarians, college students, your church's worship planners and leaders, or anyone who enjoys playing the piano or strumming a guitar.

Faith Alive is offering two new "book bundles:"

The Songbook bundle includes:
Sing! A New Creation (Book of contemporary worship songs)
Sing With Me (New book of kids' songs)
The Psalter Hymnal (A Classic; the 1987 version--most recent, grey cover)
for $36 (25% savings compared to purchasing them separately)

The complete Worship Planning bundle includes:
Sing! A New Creation
Sing With Me
The Psalter Hymnal
The Worship Sourcebook (Ideas and resources for liturgy planning)
A one-year subscription to Reformed Worship magazine
for $75 (save 30% compared to purchasing them separately)

These offers won't last long, so call now! Operators are standing by.
1-800-333-8300.

Gettin' Ready

School starts a week from today. I actually start teaching a week from tomorrow. One week. AAAUUGH!

I have syllabi to prepare, KnightVision technology to figure out, and articles and books to read. I really shouldn't assign my students to read something I haven't read, right?

Yesterday we had a "retreat" for our department. Retreats in academia do not involve ropes courses and s'mores. They involve discussing how our scholarship should impact the academic world, the Christian world, and our department. They involve walking through the faculty handbook. They involve hearing about the summers of others: making films in Ecuador, helping the Ugandan church, speaking at conferences in Oslo. Compared to these folks, my summer was downright boring. But then, you all knew that already.

So, off I go to chart a course for the next few months. Quizzes, papers, midterms, finals. Readings, films, discussions. Group presentations and individual speeches. September's comin'!

Lions and Tigers and Clergy--Oh My!

On Thursday, a van-full of friends and I drove to Detroit to see the Tigers take on the White Sox. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, so we signed up for the tour of Ford Field (Home of the Lions), which is right across the street from Comerica Park (Home of the Tigers).

Years ago, my family and I went to the Silverdome on Thanksgiving to watch the Lions play the Jets. I don't remember much about the Silverdome, but I will remember fun details about Ford Field:

--The field was built straddling buildings in the warehouse district and actually incorporates part of those buildings into the stadium. The luxury boxes, for example, are actually windows from the old buildings.

--The seats in the luxury boxes are the same seats as those found in the Lincoln Navigator. The Club seats are the same as the seats in the Ford Explorer.

--All of the food places are owned by the same company but are named and styled after classic Detroit joints, such as Poletown Sausage.

--The Field also houses office space, banquet rooms, and will soon operate a hotel. It uses natural light and street poles to give the illusion of walking around a village. It's an impressive place.

--The actual field is 40 feet below the surface of the street.

Here I am perched in the press box, part of the 3000 seats added for the 2006 Super Bowl. Kenny Chesney had a concert at the Field the night before we visited, so the crew was picking up the pieces of plywood that had covered the Field Turf.

Field Turf has 4 inches of rubber bits (old tires) and sand underneath it, and the plastic grass sticks up through this. (There's another layer of something else, too). It is very durable and a great improvement over Astroturf, which was basically carpet over cement. Athletes can extend their careers 3 years by playing on Field Turf rather than Astrotruf. Three years! Multiply 8 million dollars by three years and you're happy to play on Field Turf.

Our tour included a stop in the visitor's locker room, where I mimicked giving a rousing halftime talk. The locker room was pretty basic, but professional sports being what they are, the room is designed with 52 lockers while an NFL team usually suits up 53 players. This allows the Lions to slot an extra row of lockers in the middle of room, minimizing good halftime communication for their opponents. (I think this year they should rely a little less on this attempt to throw their opponents off their game and should think about things like, you know, OFFENSE.)

Here we are at Comerica park, up in section 338. Our gang of the day was John Witvliet, Neal Plantinga, me, Darwin Glassford, and Nathan Bierma (who kindly shared these pictures with me, since I still use 20th century photographic technology).

The game was delayed an hour due to rain, and we had lots of rain on the way home, but for the 9 innings of play the weather was lovely. The Tigers did not play well at all, including an embarassing play that made it on ESPN at night: Sean Casey hit a shot to the third baseman. The ball tipped off the top of his glove and bounced to left field. Casey, however, thought the third baseman had caught the ball and STOPPED RUNNING AND TURNED BACK TOWARD THE DUGOUT! Suddenly, 41,000 people were yelling RUN and he tried to dash off toward first. The outfielder made the throw to first and the ump called him out. Jeez.

The Sox won the game 10-0, the worst loss of the season for the Tigers. And we were there. Heh. But we had fun.

Here are Darwin, Nathan, and John enjoying the 7th inning stretch.

Of course, any road trip is as much about the road as it is about where you're going. Our conversation in the van ranged from theology and liturgy to the pros and cons of gas vs charcoal grilling. (Darwin grills his fish on a Cedar Plank and Neal is a strong advocate for beer-can chicken, in case you were wondering.) We also talked about childhood memories of baseball games, heroes, and how the players bounce around so much these days that now, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, we are basically "cheering for laundry." Let's hope the Detroit laundry can hold on through the playoffs!

In all, a great day away. Thanks to John for the great idea and all the guys for coming along. (Yes, as my friend Marie pointed out, I spend a lot of time with men. Yeah, a day with smart, funny men. This is the cross I bear. ;-) )

New Faculty Orientation: Day 2

Did you know that Calvin students tend to be more passive in the classroom than students at other institutions? Me neither. I learned today that students at Calvin are good workers, and will read what you ask them to read and turn in their papers and show up for class but they would really rather that you didn't call on them. I found this fascinating. A few of my more seasoned colleagues actually say in the syllabus "I will call on you," and explain why because otherwise students may write "You are too pushy" on the evaluations.

Huh.

I also learned that over 2/3 of the incoming class had an A- average or higher in high school. Are they all from Lake Wobegone, or what? Above average, indeed. This makes the Admissions Office feel good--Bright students are attracted to us! Put that stat in a brochure!--but it leads to a few rumbles in the classroom when these A- students start getting B's. One student actually wrote on an evaluation, "I'm an A student and he kept giving me B's." Hmm, maybe it's time for you to recalibrate your self-assessment. There's actually a session at the Faculty Conference next week titled, "What does a B mean?" (I can tell I'm at the grown-up's table now, though, cuz getting a B really tanked me when I was a student. Now I'm thinking: "Welcome to the Big Leagues." Amazing what finishing that dissertation has done to me.)

Calvin students would also rather do their own work than be asked to do a group project: "I paid to hear you speak--not the idiots in my group!" That line from an evaluation made us laugh out loud. In spite of it, my sections of CAS 140 will still have a group project. Sorry. But I'll incorporate Bruce Bergland's idea of Group Survivor: if someone doesn't perform, vote them out of the group.

Then, unfortunately, there are the sticky matters of academic honesty and plagiarism and cheating. We learned that we are to give a holler to Student Life if we discover some errant behavior, and they'll pick up the ball. Let's hope few of us have to make that call this year.

Around my lunch table there were a few of us with term positions who were chuckling over the letter from the Provost offering us our jobs. Along with the warm welcome, info on $ and benefits, there was this paragraph that said, "We don't want to cast a chill over this..." and went on to remind us that this gig is a TERM position, as in TERMINAL, and if a position opens up in our departments WE HAVE TO APPLY FOR IT JUST LIKE ANYONE ELSE. This is not a marriage. It's not even an engagement. WE'RE JUST DATING. NO STRINGS. It's not you, it's me. I just can't commit. But if you want to enjoy 9 months of being together, you know, like, hang out and stuff, that works for me.

Works for me, too. Just happy to be here. And the checks. Happy about the checks. Glad to be gainfully employed. First paydate after 3 years of unemployment is September 1. Crossing the days off the calendar...

New Faculty Orientation: Day 1

So I'm half-oriented now. The rest will wait till the morrow. It was an interesting and informative morning, even for someone who has a pretty strong working knowledge of Calvin.

I found myself asking questions and talking more than any of the other 20+ people in the room--which won't suprise many of you, I'm sure. But some of the people who spoke piqued my curiousity about things and I'm sure I could have had an hour-long chat with each one (including the newly-beardless Jim Bratt) on such topics as trends in Christian higher education and how they compare with the trajectory of Calvin's mission, or how the strengths of the core curriculum are communicated to parents and incoming students, or why do we keep a mascot who is a male military figure usually associated with conquest and brutality and is particularly offensive to those from the Middle East? (Okay, that's more of a general question that wasn't really raised by today's talks--but I'd still like an answer).

My small group was my "division", which consists of English, Art, Foreign Languages, and Communications, and was led by the delightful Jennifer Holberg. That's another odd thing about academia: there are Deans for this, and divisions of that, and institutes for the pursuit of whatnot, and teaching fellows and research fellows and oddfellows.

I also have a bit of a theory about faculty (which will also explain why I tend to be the talker in the group): most college faculty are the bookish, nerdy types who enjoy soaking in information and would find--as one of them mentioned today--a year spent in the libaries and archives of Prague to be heavenly way to spend a sabbatical. From my experience, the nerdiness factor increases exponentially in "Research I" institutions where professors teach less and study more. I had a prof in grad school whom I just know was never picked for a kickball team and because of this now spent his/her academic life making life as miserable as possible for cool kids who were picked for the kickball team. Throwing out multi-syllabic words and citing obscure scholars and then inhaling Marlboro's at the break was how s/he could try to be cool now. (Totally did not work. Like, whatever.)

That type of person is generally absent from an institution like Calvin, where folks go in knowing that teaching--and actually enjoying time with college students--is a significant part of the job. So they are the kindler, gentler type of bookish nerd.

I, apparently, am the kinder, gentler, chattier, bookish nerd.

Welcome to Your New Job

I'm sitting here in my new-to-me office (also known as a "pod") at Calvin College, sorting through the vast amounts of paperwork that come with a new job (There's a test schedule? I'm on a committee?!). I'm also dealing with the random office-supply-hunting that setting up a new office mandates: I need push pins. Where are push pins? I need a lightbulb. Where are lightbulbs? My shift key sticks on this keyboard, which looks as if the former user enjoyed sticky beverages in its vacinity with alarming frequency. Whom do I call about that?

Having spent a year in relative isolation, surrounded by my own mess, office supplies, books, lighting fixtures, etc., moving into the brave new world that is the liberal arts college of 2006 takes some getting used to.

--"Aren't you on Groupwise?" asks someone who is trying to coordinate a meeting. What is Groupwise? "It's a way for other people to see your schedule. Then they can see when you're free to schedule meetings." Huh. On what planet would I give someone else the right to sludge up my schedule?

--"Are you getting Calvin email?" And relinquish the many lovely features of gmail? (Not the least of which is the ability to sort through messages via a search engine to find the one you missed about how to get out of groupwise.) So, no. Call me a Luddite, but I'm resisting Groupwise as long as I can and I'm having my Calvin messages forwarded to gmail.

--"Have I shown you where your mailbox is?" Yes, and I know that's code for you actually saying, "Will you please empty your dang mailbox?!"

--"Do you have your access code/password/blood type/mother's maiden name that will allow you to a) enter this building, b) login to a computer, c) change your voicemail message, or d) use any of the equipment in any of the classrooms?"

Yeah, I'm feeling a little snarky. Revealing my inner rebel streak. Revealing how spending the last decade pretty much being "in charge" has snuffed out my ability to tolerate bureaucracy--if ever that toleration was there. Time to wear down these rough edges of independence and arrogance so that I can be a good team player. I believe Yahweh would call that sanctification.

Tomorrow I have "New Faculty Orientation," a two-day crash course in thriving as a college professor in this Calvinist world. They'll probably tell me that I need Groupwise.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

Yesterday afternoon I printed out the 200+ pages that make up my dissertation. I schlepped that pile of paper home and it sat on my counter overnight. Every now and then I would look at it and think, "How did that happen?!" My advisor said it's ready to send off, and that we should schedule a defense. Hoooleee cow.

Tonight my dissertation is enjoying a sleep-over in the Copy Center at Calvin College. Five copies will be made and bound with a cheery amethyst cardstock cover on top. Then four of the copies will be slipped into envelopes and sent off to my committee (a.k.a. The Gang of Four). I'll keep one copy to read (and edit!) for myself to prep for the defense.

So tomorrow I'll send off an email to the Gang of Four and alert them to the packages winging their way toward Champaign and try to coordinate a date for the defense. Right now I'm thinking Oct 24, 25, or 26 as that's reading recess at the college and I'll have time to drive the five hours down to the Land of Flatness and Corn, defend, and drive five hours back.

For those of you who are the praying kind, the members of my committee are Cliff, Norm, Paula, and Robert. Pray for open minds to my work, preparation for a solid defense by me, and you can even be so bold as to pray for an openness to the Spirit, as my thesis is pretty explicit about the claims of Christianity and not all of my committee members are in agreement with those claims.

And give thanks, too. This season of my life is nearing its close, and I am relieved and grateful--including gratitude for all of you who have been cheering me on. We're almost there!

Thanks, Vern!

My current friend & neighbor and former parishioner also serves as my representative to Congress. While we tease each other over the fence about our differing views, on this issue Vern got it right:

Au Revoir, Freedom Fries
(The New York Times) Published: August 4, 2006

When Congress renamed the French fries sold in its cafeterias ''freedom fries'' before the Iraq war, Bob Ney, whose position as House Administration Committee chairman put him in charge of the cafeterias, said the change registered ''the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France.'' In the real world, it mainly allowed people to register their strong displeasure at how juvenile Congress was being. (YES!!)

In the last few weeks, as The Washington Times reported, Congress has quietly changed the name back. We could think of many good reasons for the move. ''Freedom fries,'' like the ''mission accomplished'' banner that President Bush stood in front of a few months later, is now a stale relic of a naïve time, when the war's supporters were convinced that Iraqis would be free right after they finished greeting their liberators with rose petals.

The renaming also was the embodiment of President Bush's my-way-or-the-highway diplomacy. A French Embassy spokeswoman gamely told The Associated Press at the time that ''we are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues, and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes.'' (Touche!) But ''freedom fries'' was intended to be, and was, a poke in France's eye. Harassing the French is probably not the wisest course now that America may need their help negotiating a ceasefire in Lebanon.

We would like to think that such sound policy reasons -- or just that ''freedom fries'' was so incredibly stupid -- account for the change. But the real reason appears to be that Mr. Ney was forced to give up his chairmanship of the committee because of his extensive ties to the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The current chairman, Vernon Ehlers of Michigan, seems more sensible about both intergovernmental affairs and cafeteria management.

[For another reason why his current challenger won't defeat him (in addition to the fact that this is a red county in a blue state), read this story about Vern's photo in Playboy. Really. Vern was in Playboy. Not kidding. And if you think I'm linking the word Playboy, you must have me confused with someone who doesn't value women. Or men, for that matter.]

Done! (Part I)

On Sunday night I emailed in my FINAL TWO CHAPTERS to my dissertation advisor!

I've made all of the revisions he suggested for the first 8 chapters, and when I get his revisions back for the next two, I can plug them in and send a draft of whole thing on to the other three members of my committee. Those three will have their chance to weigh in, I'll tweak accordingly(hopefully only tweaking will be necessary!), schedule a defense, drive to Champaign to talk with them for a few hours about these 250 pages, and hopefully they will shake my hand, say "Well done, good and faithful servant," and send me on my way.

My advisor and I are meeting tomorrow in Chicago to chart the course from here, so I'll have a better idea of the timeline after that conversation. But if my committee is prompt, this whole bizniz will be done by Christmas. There's a December graduation at UI, and, boy, would I like to be on that list!

WOO HOO!!

(BTW: I'll be at this conference with a group from Calvin for the remainder of the week. Don't look for any new postings from there. I'm eager to spend a few days away from this keyboard!)

August Exodus

I woke this morning and went through a mental list of all of my friends who are on vacation right now. Just about all of them. Really. This is the time when the city empties out and people flock to beaches, state parks, and cottages. Early August = no one around.

I can't remember when I took summer vacations when I was in the parish, but I do remember standing up on some warm summer Sunday to look out at a swiss-cheese congregation: holes everywhere. And then, as the Back-to-School sales kicked in and practice for fall sports started, the ranks of the pew-sitters would swell again. A wee dip over Labor Day, and then the full contigent back after that.

So a shout-out to all those pastors who are preaching to less-than-full pews this month: be faithful. We've all been there. Try some new things: close off the back pews, sing acapella, let an emerging piano student take the offertory, preach a shorter sermon and sing a few more hymns. Try to preach without notes. Or if you always preach without notes, try writing out and preaching a manuscript. If the sanctuary gets really hot, move the service into the basement. Prop up a fan right next to you. Have two glasses of water at the ready (glasses, not bottles; this isn't a sporting event).

Try something new in August, cuz, hey, who's gonna know? And you just may discover something that works better than what you've done before.

Unless, of course, you're on vacation now, too. Not that I'm bitter. Really. Writing a dissertation is a lot of fun, too. Uh huh. Yep. You betcha.

On Reading Sermons

I spent about 25 minutes chatting with Matt Vande Bunte of the GR Press last week, giving him insightful and pithy quotes for his piece on pastors who blog. One of my quotes that lands in the article? "I think reading sermons can be incredibly boring."

That's a good public quote to make for someone pondering a career as a homiletics professor, don't you think?

What I meant was that, well, yeah, reading sermons can be incredibly boring, but that's because sermons aren't intended to be read. Preaching is an oral medium. Sermons are oral events. They should be written for the ear, not the eye. Short sentences, sentence fragments, and less-than-perfect written grammar are all par for the course in a sermon. I want to hear the inflection of the preacher, catch her passion, slow down for the pregnant pauses, laugh out loud at the well-delivered pun.

You don't get that when you read.

I like to listen to sermons, though, and I do that often: while I wash the dishes, while I drive, while I clean the house. (Upon reflection though, I realize I haven't done this as much as I used to. Spending the first six months of the year listening to almost 100 student sermons took the appeal out of listening to them in my spare time.)

But for those of you who enjoy reading sermons, you can check this list for ideas. I've occasionally used collections of sermons as devotionals, Barbara Brown Taylor's in particular (Episcopalian=short sermons, good for evening devotional times).

For those of you interested in listening to sermons, there are many, many churches who post audio files online. There is also Preaching Today, where a monthly subscription will get you two sermons and a workshop or interview sent on either a cassette or CD. They mail the manuscript, too, so you get the best of both worlds.

And, of course, there's the Center for Pretty Good Preaching which keeps adding sermons to its podcast list. That's why you bought that iPod in the first place, right?

We're all about your sanctification here at P2TC. Go get holy.

Like Water Through Cupped Hands

Back on June 20, Garrison Keillor wrote this in The Old Scout:

"White custardy clouds in the blueberry sky and here I am, sprawled on a chaise on the porch, ambition leaking out of me like water through cupped hands. Ambition has left the building. Hello, summer."

I sit here with Chapter Nine tapping its fingers on the desk, awaiting my go order, and all I can do is shuffle papers, click on websites, order Sunday home delivery of The Times, and consider which beverage to consume next. I've taken down a broken blind here in my study, left from the previous occupants. I've read the news from around the world. I've gotten all caught up on the latest on Floyd, hoping our Mennonite boy from PA is telling the truth.

But the dissertation? Heh. "Ambition leaking out of me like water through cupped hands."

And this is not good as it is August now. August, with the last part of the month filled with New Faculty Obligations. Orientation and Department Retreats and WhatNot. And, hey, I've got three classes to teach, two syllabi to prepare, and one very short month in which to get ready.

And this dissertation, hanging on to my heels, begging for attention. Mostly done, but not quite. So near and yet so far.

Come on, Mar'! Get off the dime! My inner coach rails at me. So I sit. And write. My blog.