All of My Hard Work…

• May
• 31
• 2008

8:22 pm by: Jason Posted in: Updates

…and all I got was a $200 piece of paper.  I think I’ll make a tee shirt.

Well it came today.  Just about 14 years worth of work has finally come to fruition.  Yup, I am officially the owner of a Masters of Divinity in Missions from Southern Seminary.

Wanna see?

Impressive huh?

Yes this is the end of a Journey that started way back in 1994 during a service at (then named) Carroll Community Church.

Joe Duke was speaking one Sunday, and I was doing my usual deal.  My exceedingly hot and amazing girlfriend was sitting next to me, and we were listening to the sermon.  I have no idea what the message was about or what he was saying at the time, but I heard God deliver a simple line:

“You will go to seminary.”

It wasn’t a feeling, an impression, or something that seemed like a good idea at the time.  In fact my first responses was something akin to “you have got be smoking crack or something if you think that’s a good idea”.  I believe it came out as a “God if you want me to do that then change my heart”…but the sentiment was the same.

Hmmmm a bit less…”familiar”…with God back then.  That a good thing or bad?

I turned and told my date (do you bring dates to church?!?) my divine revelation, and she responded with a profound…”oh, ok”.   I don’t think she realized the extent of the decision or how long it would take to fulfil the request…neither did I for that reason.  I just really didn’t want to take Greek or Hebrew.

I started looking into it and quickly realized that seminary is a Graduate degree, and only had about 2 or 3 classes under my belt towards my Undergraduate degree.

So, after getting married, we headed out to work on our Undergrad degrees at Geneva.  That lasted about two years, then we headed back to Maryland.  Pam then found a way for us to complete our degrees on line through Hope International University, and we jumped into that.  About 10 years after I started taking classes and with a transcript that included two community colleges and three full universities, I completed my Bachelors of Science in Christian Ministries in 2004, then started to look for a seminary to attend.

I kind of happened into Southern to tell you the truth.  Cornerstone has an SBC heritage and qualified me for the discounted tuition.  There was also an extension center about 3 miles from my house, they offered some online classes, and there was little to no other options if I wanted to stay in Maryland.

So that’s how I ended up at a hyper-Conservative Reformed Seminary in Kentucky.

About 3.5 years later I completed my last class there, and submitted all the paper work (plus $200…I’m still annoyed if you didn’t catch that).  I missed the deadline for a December graduation, so I had to wait until May 16th for it to officially post.  I was out at Revolution Coffee and Art’s 3rd anniversary celebration, and Pam called to tell me that my actual physical degree had arrived.

My seminary journey had come to its end after about 14 years.

Am I better for the whole ordeal?  Do I regret it?  Yes and no.  I met some great people (especially at the extension center), and it was a direct result of seminary that I ended up out here…Southern to be exact.

I guess God did know what he was doing after all

Anyways, just wanted to let everyone know that I am in fact done with seminary and I got my really expensive piece of paper to prove it today.  If I ever talk about doing any more with seminary…I charge you all with preventing my return with any means necessary.