Soma

Brian’s post today was an impetus for me to make a clarification here before I go much further in the context of this blog.  As a pastor, I spend a good amount of time thinking through issues that pertain to marriage/family/relationships/etc.  In addition, however, between now and the end of the year my focus in that area is only going to be hightened.  And here’s why:

I have gone back to school (through a form of distance learning) at Southern Seminary and am going to be intensely studying Biblical Counseling (what you and I would call “discipleship”) for the next three years. The whole goal of this personal investment for me and my family is not so that I can be some sort of professional counselor in the church (the idea of that frustrates me), but for the purpose of equipping all of you with the Biblical knowledge and wisdom you need to be able to disciple each other and provide Godly “counsel” when those around you are going through any kind of situation or circumstance.  A great read to get your feet wet with this idea is the book Brian mentioned last week, but I’ll write more about that soon.

The degree that I’ll be getting (the nature of which is inconsequestial, but the name of which you may hear) is called a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.).  Some clarificaiton is in order because if someone says “Scott is getting a D.Min.” really quickly it sounds a lot like “Scott is getting a demon”…which is thankfully not the case.

I offer all of this information as a gigantic caveat for this reason: the first class I’m taking is on marriage and family.  Which means, I’m going to be reading somewhere between 3,000-5,000 pages on the subject over the course of the next few months.  So, if it seems like I am writing about an inordinate amount of ideas and books which pertain to relationships, at least now you know why…and know that it’s not because your pastor has been possessed by the cupid demon.