welcome to the story.

I was hit again with yet another reason to quit school and do something more productive with my life. On Sunday after morning worship, I go to Starbucks and read and catch up on my school reading and occasionally do some writing. Then I head off to my small group of 11th grade guys. It just happened to be a beautiful day yesterday so I got my caramel apple cider with no whip, extra cinnamon and I was sitting outside at my table with its nice little umbrella. It was just a beautiful day. The temperature was in the mid 50s and it was blue sky sunny with a steady breeze in the air. Perfect. Whenever the weather is perfect like that, my spirit is always a little more sensitive and receptive and a little more emotional I guess. Girls get emotional when they watch a sad movie, I get emotional when the weather is good. What can I say? So I was in a great mood and was very sensitive to the "big picture". This is coming after an all day (all day meaning 8:30-5:00, but its only once a month) Saturday class on Biblical Research Methods. I'm sure there is alot that I could have learned from that class on Saturday. But after I listened to a sermon on Jeremiah for 2 hours and another hour of a lecture on how to manage my time, I left. I was tired of class. The sermon on Jeremiah was good I guess and the time management lecture was good I guess but somehow it fell short of my expectations of what a seminary level class should be. For some reason, and I have no idea why, almost every professor that I've ever had there, thinks it their duty to preach the sermon that they preached the previous Sunday morning in class. So my classes aren't spent discussing the relevant issues that are facing are churches today or any other practical matter, but are instead spent taking notes from my professor's 5 point, outline form sermon that I have to regurgetate for a test. Needless to say, I didn't think seminary was supposed to about that. I couldn't take it anymore so I skipped the last 4 hours of class and went home and studied on my own and suprisingly learned something. And it wasn't a simplisitc, redunctionist outline of Jeremiah's life. So I was already a little frustrated with school. Then Sunday. Reenter me sitting outside at Starbucks. With the beautiful weather mind you. And I'm reading my lovely book on Eschatology . . . . for . . . . school. And lo and behold, I'm surround by people. Actual people. Imagine that. And these people, surprisingly, I don't think care about the pretribulational, amillennial, or dispensationalist views that I was reading about. No, these people definitely did not care about that. Sitting directly in front of me were 2 middle aged gentlemen. They were having a conversation about life. It looked like they were having a great conversation. The only thing was that they were using the F-Bomb every other sentence. It was motherf&%$ this and motherf&%$ that. Now to my immediate left, there was a group of 4 high school students. Probably 9th grade. 3 guys and 1 girl. And these students had just got done watching a movie at the theater next door to Starbucks. The 3 guys spent the next 30 minutes making references to sex, masturbation, and other sexual comments in front of this 14 year old girl. To my right, sat a young lady who worked at Starbucks and a guy who worked at Starbucks. They were on there smoking break. The guy was obviously not a heterosexual. To say he was a flamer would be an understatement. He was full fledged. And the girl that He was sharing His break was giving Him advice on what to do about his non-heterosexual boyfriend. The guy was having a big fight with his boyfriend from what I could hear. Right next to them, kind of off-centered behind me, were two guys who were foreign. Probably Indian. These guys spoke English. And I'm taking a guess, and I could be wrong, but I bet they did not have any spiritual influences in their lives or in their Indian community for that matter. But here I was. Mr. Suburban/White/Middle-Class/American Seminary student. Out of touch with reality. Out of touch with the gospel. Spending all of my time hanging out with Christians at work and at school. Memorizing all the different eschatalogical views of the end times and replaying the 5 point sermon of Jeremiah's life in my head. Within a 15 foot radius, there were 10 people who were disconnected from God. Now I could have just walked over to each and every one of them and gave them a nice little tidy presentation of the gospel. I could have even used a tract. Maybe that would have changed their lives. But I knew that as soon as I got finished sharing with them, it would be time for me to head off to church, then back home to study for my morning class in seminary. And I would never have another relational engagement with them. And they probably wouldn't have another Christian engage them in a lasting relationship for a while. So what they needed was a relationship with God that I could have offered them through a friendship with me, but I'm too busy. I've got 35 hours of work at a church making copies. And I've got 15 hours a week at school learning about eschatology. Its a shame that I'm so disconnected from the gospel. A crying shame.