It is finished

It is finished ... well at least the teaching part. I have now officially completed all the teaching sessions for my first semester at uni. Now all I need to do is a million and one assignements and things for exam revision it feels like ... but I'm getting there. The first part is complete.

Looking forward to Christmas now I'm cured of my scroogeness. Will be a wonderful time. Really excited about Erin, Katie and Josh coming over too. It will be so good just to spend time with them hanging out. Sharing Scotland with them will also help me see it again in new ways too, with a new freshness.

As well as all the uni assessment stuff to do over Christmas really need to get down to writing all the stuff for going back to Warm Springs. Have some of it in my head just now - it just needs to come out. Thoughts so far:

Intro session / Session one: Livin' Loud (theme), 1 Timothy 4:12 (text), story / narrative (preaching style)
Session 2: Speech (theme), James chapters 3-4; 5:12 (texts), teaching (preaching style)
Session 3: Life (theme), Micah 6:1-8 (text), interactive / doing - using World Trade Game as well as Pink song in session (preaching style)
Session 4: Love (theme), 1 John 3 / 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (texts), experiencial (preaching style)
Session 5: Faith (theme), Mark 5:21-43 (text), narrative / experiencial / doing (preaching style)
Session 6: Purity (theme), text undecided as well as preaching style
Session 7 / final session: Surrender (theme), Isaiah 53 (text), experiential / doing (preaching style) - session will also include communion and commissioning out again.

As well as doing it thematically, which I'm not sure now was maybe the best way of working, I'm also going to experiment with different sermon preaching styles which should be interesting. Aim is to have the intro session, session 3 and session 5 written by the New Year. The final session is already written. Going to be an interesting journey and adventure.

Better go now though, and have fun with some Mark commentaries for my sermon assessment ... looking at Jesus calming the storm, not what I'm going to be doing in Warm Springs. Is great getting to grips with a passage and asking God what He might want to say out of it now ... lovign it!