While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
-Acts 17:16
Most anyone who reads this (well, I don’t guess you read it very often because I don’t write very often, huh?) probably knows about my Graceville days. It’s hard to believe that it’s been four years since I graduated. A good number of my friends went straight into seminary following graduation, and many of them went to Southern (or, as we called it, New-Geneva-on-the-Ohio). As the U-Hauls all started heading north, I began wondering: “Why don’t I have a desire to go to seminary?”
Well, after serving in a church for 3 ½ years (and attending one for almost a year) I am finally resuming my formal education-in the school that I grew up wanting to attend, and later thought I never would.
About a year ago, I went to the website of the University of Georgia just to see what they offered in the way of Master’s Degrees. Somewhat surprised, I discovered that they offered a MA in Religion. To make a long story mercifully short, I began reconsidering UGA about six months ago, and was accepted to the program in June. The last six months have been full of planning, writing, emailing, etc.-hence, the scarcity of posts. In my daily Bible reading, I came to the verse above as I began to reconsider attending UGA. If you’ve never been to Athens, Georgia before, I can tell you that you don’t have to drive very far down Baxter Avenue or Broad Street before you begin to start feeling a little bit of what Paul felt as he walked the streets of that cosmopolitan city.
I am excited about our move to Athens, even if we have to both find jobs in the next three weeks. I see the move there as being an opportunity to witness and minister (the two are inseparable) in a city that is very much interested in “talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21). Already, some ministry opportunities have presented themselves on the horizon, and only our Sovereign Father knows what will occur over the next year or so. Reading through the passage in Acts, we see that Paul engaged “his” Athenians in three arenas: the synagogue, the marketplace, and the Areopagus. Pray for us as we develop relationships in “our” Athens-in the congregation that God will lead us to, the jobs that He will provide for us, and in the University. Pray for us that we will be faithful with the opportunities that our Father has blessed us with and-above all else-that we will glorify Him.
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5 comments:
Bravo, Micah Green heads north as Micah Rose heads south (down the birthing canal). We will be praying for you guys, I'll even add a little note card to the prayer box just for you! Looking forward to your being at least within day-trip distance now. Visiting in Florida... well the intentions were always good =)
I remember Athens, but the last time I was there was 1977. It was a nice little college town then, or so I thought. A few nice bookstores, a good restaurant in the old train station.
When you get there, see if the Masada Leather shop is still open.
And thanks for visiting my site.vj
I will definitely need to check out the leather shop. I would love to find somewhere up there that could supply me with leather so I could resume my bookbinding habit. The bookstores they have are nice. As a friend once said, "they smell like old books and not hazelnut coffee." Athens is definitely larger, but it still has that same small-town/college town feel that I like.
Thank you for the post, and thank you for visiting my site as well.
go dawgs! i know you probably would have never heard me say that, but i'm a changed man! i've seen the light! i'm actually wearing a uga tshirt right now!
that's awesome bro. proud of ya.
ryan! Thanks for the post. You are a very wise man to come over to the side of truth!
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