new church life: september/october 2015
when he finally entered Theological School.
He says “this had been working hard in the back of my brain ever since I
started to teach at the College, and one day, instead of going down the stairs
at Pendleton Hall, I went as if in a dream up the stairs into Dean Andy Dibb’s
o ffice.”
He told Andy, “I’m here to tell you that I want to go to Theological School
in a couple of years. I’m just telling you in advance.”
“What happened next was sort of a dream. First Andy said, ‘We don’t want
you in a few years; we want you now! And we have a special program you may
be interested in. You will be with seven or eight other second-career theologs.
How does that sound?’
“Well,” I said, “I need to talk to my wife.”
“Naturally Maggie said what any sane wife would: ‘No.’ But she knew deep
down inside that this is where I was always going to end up anyway and it was
a hopeless battle. Less than six months later I was commuting from Kempton
to Bryn Athyn for Theological School.
“I remember crying quite a bit during my first year. The doctrines were
so powerful and the truths so beautiful I would just break down into tears.
The other students were very patient and compassionate with me, waiting for
me to recover before moving on. It was an extremely rigorous program and
having just been in a Master’s Program at Chestnut Hill this felt every bit like
a doctoral program, in quality and workload.
“Classes were excellent, discussions were deep and meaningful, and the
submersion into the doctrines was overwhelming. There is so much there
it was really impossible to get an overview or even begin to touch on every
subject. Theological School is merely a ‘gateway drug’ to a lifetime of studying
these life-giving truths. The way the doctrines are written it’s hard to grasp
everything there is on one subject, as each subject seems to be revisited in
different numbers depending on the book of the Heavenly Doctrines you are
studying.
“When I was younger and raising a family, Maggie was the one who would
wake up Sunday morning and say, ‘We are going to church.’ I was working,
raising a family, and despised this interference with my short weekend time.
Yet we would always comply. I totally understand why people don’t go to
church, but now I understand the great importance of going!
“Now in my fifth year (as a pastor) I really get that if people would read the
Heavenly Doctrines, not just one or two numbers at a time and then put them
down, but really read for two and three hours at a time, they would begin to
love these books and see that they are truly the Word of God speaking to us.
“I remember writing a sermon and right in the middle of my studying I
realized that so many things I had been reading had sort of collided all at once,
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