So what happened last term?

I just realised that having given you a comprehensive account of what I got up to academically in the first term I totally failed to tell you what I've been studying since Christmas. So you've been reading about snowballs, Federation Worship and croquet, and maybe thinking that I'm not justifying my use of church funds terribly well!

The Spring Term replaced 'Reading the New Testament' with 'Reading the Old Testament' - this was a study not of every single page of the Old Testament (OT), but of the different types of writing within it. Let's see if anything went in - The OT comprises 5 types of writing - Histories, Prophecies, Wisdom...and two others. Oh dear. I'm so pleased I don't have an exam in this!

Also 'Church History' was replaced with 'Theology and Practice of Mission'. Some sample topics there: Mission and Evangelism, Mission and other faiths, Mission and the Trinity (nope, me neither...I thought the Trinity had already been converted). The essay for that one went in on May 11th.

Finally, Life and Service changed emphasis from the first term (when we thought a lot about Theological Reflection, and some Pastoral Situations) to looking at some Preaching and Sermon Writing, along with some theological background to the CoE. That gave some opportunity for us to ask some 'why do we do that?' type questions, as it's so easy for us to do or say the same thing in services without knowing really why we do them. My favourite one was a Ridley specific one- "Why is the large freestanding silver cross placed on the right hand side of the chapel panelling rather than in the centre?". The answer wasn't so much theological as practical. If it was in the centre it would get in the way of our projection screen!

Greek continued unabated - I didn't do so well in the end of term test as the last time, but the average mark was still highly respectable. Exam for that in a couple of weeks time.

The summer (or, confusingly, 'Easter') Term has no new teaching - some of the modules roll over for a few weeks, but the contact time is much lower, and we've had pretty much all the formal academic teaching for this term already. The staff are currently 'heads-down' writing reports on us for our dioceses and after the essay deadline/exam period they will furiously mark our assessments in order to get our marks back to us before the term is over whilst we occupy our time with some practical training.

The essays are going OK - my piece on Romsey Mill is 95% there, just simmering on a side-burner for a few days. Now I have to read up and write on 'the characteristics of a prophet' and design a course that isn't a blatant Alpha rip-off, all within the next 12 days. As well as fit in the next round of croquet, and start to plan an All-Age service.