Life Has a Way of Getting Busy at Times

For those of you who still check in here from time to time - my apologies! As a father of three (who have all been sick at one time this week!), a full-time parish pastor, and a part-time circuit counselor, life recently has been a bit complicated and busy. As much as I love to write, these responsibilities have always taken first place.

Next week my eldest daughter and I will be traveling to the seminary in Ft. Wayne for the Confessions Symposium. I normally go for the whole week, but considering the overall costs and the local challenges of late, it seemed best to shorten my stay this time around. However, there will be plenty of time to take in all the exhibits and book displays (never to be missed!!). I heard from Pastor Bender that his catechetical institute is releasing the second volume of Dr. David Scaer's works, and that CPH has also recently released a book on women's ordination, Women Pastors? Women's Ordination in Biblical Lutheran Perspective ($26.99). You can read more about the book in this brief description at CPH. I hope to secure a copy of both before I leave.

I will also take along my laptop and plan to leave a few summaries of the sessions on this blog as I am able. I suspect that my daughter, who has a blog over on the Higher Things site called Here I Stand, will also post, in case you would like a college student's perspective as well. Although she is currently a pre-vet student at UW-River Falls, I think that maybe I can still sway her to a church work vocation :)

If you would like to actually read the presented papers for yourself, they are normally posted on the seminary's website (along with papers going back as far as 2001.) A list of some of the speakers and topics, as well as links to posted papers, can be found here. However, I would wait until later on Tuesday to see anything posted for this year. The theme for the exegetical symposia is: "Atonement for Sin in the Scriptures: Challenging the Modern Dismissal of this Biblical Theme." For the confessions symposia the theme is: "Atonement: Biblical, Confessional, Ecumenical Perspectives."

I hope that I run across some of the readers of this blog in Ft. Wayne this week. Say hello if you recognize my face from the picture on the side.

God's blessings during this holy season of Epiphany!

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