So much for the easy life...Day 12

So...It was the fall of 2003 and I was beginning a two year course of study at the Calvary Chapel School of Ministry. Some of the first year classes were beginning Greek, biblical counseling, practical ministry, teaching the Bible verse by verse and weekly teaching by Chuck Smith. There was also a weekly chapel that would be taught by a second year brother and worship would be led by students as well. And on Friday mornings a pastor from a Calvary Chapel affiliate would come in and share his experience as a Calvary Chapel pastor. Sometimes this would consist of a personal testimony or what God was doing in their life or church. Whatever the topic, this time was what I felt to be the most rewarding and informative of anything we learned.

One of the things that I came to realize rather quickly as a first year brother was that this was not going to be an easy road to travel. The homework load alone was rather daunting. But we needed to be faithful to get all of our homework done. Even if we simply turned in a piece of paper with our name on it acknowledging that we know that the work needed to be done by that time. We would still have to get the work done eventually if we wanted to graduate. Funny thing is, it wasn't usually the book work or reading that would catch people up. It was the five years of Chuck Smith's teaching that we were required to listen to that caught up to the students. This was not uncommon at the School of Ministry or at the Calvary Chapel Bible College as well. For me however it wasn't that bad, especially since I had a portable MP3 player that I kept in my pocket at all times. All Chuck...All the time baby. 8) I was fortunate in that I was able to get through the series by the middle of the third semester. Nothing against Chuck...But I was sure glad to be done with that assignment.

At about the same time I had begun feeling a certain conviction that I needed to become better acquainted with my Bible. And so I began with the one area that I hadn't ever really spent much time in. The Prophets. And so I started with Isaiah and worked my way all the way through the book of Revelation. And I did this with the help of my good old trusty mp3 version of the Bible. After about 32 hours of listening, which was about 1-2 weeks over all and I had accomplished something that I had been wanting to do but was unable to find the motivation. And so I did it again...And again. Three times in total. Isaiah to Revelation. I actually felt like I was getting a pretty good grasp on what was going on in the prophets.

Initially I would have thought that my repetitive listening of the scriptures would have confirmed and enlightened what I had been learning by having listened to all of Pastor Chuck's teachings through the Bible. And it did to some extent. But more than that, it left me feeling like there was something bigger going on. Some kind of meta-narrative. That is...A bigger story that was going on that was made up of all the other little stories throughout. Something that is missed when the Bible is broken up into weekly teachings. And this was about the time that I was having to start my required course of study on eschatology/end times for the School of Ministry.

My so called simply life at Calvary Chapel was about to get A LOT more complicated...