Saturday night our church held an all-night prayer vigil of worship and intercession. It was great -- about 30 adults (out of about 80 total we have in the church) showed up with their kids at 9 pm Saturday night to begin the 12-hour vigil. Most of the kids came in pajamas and went to sleep in sleeping bags in the back of the sanctuary or in a Sunday school room after the first hour or two.

For the rest of the adults, it was a wonderful time to pray, worship, intercede, and get to know each other. Around 3 am, it had the strange dynamic of spiritual intensity combined with the casual friendliness of a junior-high sleepover. Except with 35-year-olds.

It was serious and silly, desperate, laid-back, intense, honest, and absurd. It was, without question, the most important thing our church has done since I joined two years ago.

Today all the freshmen started showing up here at school. I printed out my class rosters and went to the dorms to find and welcome them, like I did last year. It was so touching -- all the excited little freshmen, all the stoic-faced parents blinking back tears -- it reminded me of when I first went off to college.

Next week there's faculty preplanning; next weekend the upperclassmen return, and then classes start.

The kids aren't the only ones starting classes -- I've decided to return to seminary, and I'm doing it this semester! About five years ago, I did two semesters at the Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. I dropped out (for reasons other than grades) and now I've gotten the urge to return. I seriously considered the pressures that led me to drop out, and I think I've accounted for them in this plan.

Because I don't want to quit teaching full-time, I started looking for seminaries with good online/distance education programs. I applied to Asbury Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Columbia Biblical Seminary. All three accepted me, but based on various considerations (cost, convenience, ease of transferring my previous credits, etc.) I decided to go with CBS. I'm enrolled in Greek I and Foundations of Spiritual Development this fall, and I plan to do two courses a semester, and two courses a summer, and finish in about four years.

I'm excited and looking forward to it!