sTw's Blog

No, I didn't do it on purpose. Yes I did almost cry when it happened (almost I said). I took it to the Apple store in Dallas and they were able to recover everything (music, programs, calender, records, school files) except over 2 years worth of pictures. Ouch huh? Tell me about it. So if I've ever emailed you pics or something before, email then back to me. I'm gonna go through my blog and save those, so at least I'll have some in my library. (tear, a man tear though)

On the bright side... I finished my third semester at SWBTS. Here are my projected grades (I say projected b/c SWBTS doesn't actually post grades until about 8 weeks after the semester is over. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. word from the registrar's office is, it's b/c the teachers are slow to turn in their grades, if at all. these are my grades according to what I've been keep track of them with, which should be fairly accurate).

B = Systematic Theology II
A = Administrative Leadership for Ministry
A = Student Ministry Essentials
3.6 GPA (whoot whoot!)

Gotta go pack. later.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

Here's a video we put together for Youth Ministry Lab 2008. It went down on April 4th and 5th here on campus at SWBTS. It's the 40th anniversary of it. It's basically the largest Student Ministry Conference put on by students in the nation. Here's a taste...

In the video you'll see Jeff Johnson Worship Band (who's song "Ruin Me" I dare you to sing to God. dare you!), Sandstories by Joe Castillo, and Francis Chan who you just need to go download. His speaking kicked my butt. My favorite paraphrase from him that weekend was, "If you were on a desert island and all you had was your Bible, would you have the same views, beliefs, and theology then, as you do now?" In my interpretation, what theology do we have now that is extra-biblical and what beliefs do we have that are so diluted b/c of the thousands of influences we take in? If Jesus really is who He says He is, then why am I so hesitant to really give Him all of my life?

Ouch huh? I know. Me too.

You'll also see shots in there of other things, such as Dr. Johnny Derouen teaching a breakout. You'll see'hear him talking about stats of every 4th generation. Amazing! He's my teacher this semester for Student Ministry Essentials, basically the most impactful class I've taken yet.

Labels: School, SWBTS

Posted by Sean Walker at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments

One year down! Two years left (probably)!

Here's the line up of classes this semester.

1. Administrative Leadership for Ministry with Ashley Allen
2. Student Ministry Essentials with Dr. Johnny Derouen
3. Systematic Theology II with Dr. Malcolm Yarnell

For the third semester in a row someone has covered my tuition. All 3 times it was someone different. It's amazing!

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments

It's 10:30pm on Sunday December 9th. We're in the middle of finals at SWBTS and I'm writing a paper of the proper method for the formation of christian doctrine. I noticed how different the temperatures are in Lafayette and DFW. Crazy. It was in the 70s here less than 24 hours ago. I thought that only happened in Lafayette, but I guess not.

Labels: School, Weather

Posted by Sean Walker at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

Today is a year in Fort Worth. December 2nd, 2006, my brothers drove me to Fort Worth. It's flown by. Thanks again to everyone who supported me getting here and who are continuing to support me while I'm here.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

"You are not always protected from the hard things in life. You will have the difficult times in life. What God will do is not protect you from, but secure within those times, for there is never a moment when you are separated from the love of God, and the harder life gets, the greater the outpouring of God's love becomes in your life."

Dr. Chuck Kelley, who is the President of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, spoke this morning on Romans 8 and Mark 14 preaching on the difference between eternal security and eternal safety and what in the world is going on when life just hurts. It's so good!

Click here to watch it.

Click play below to listen.

Labels: Faith, Jesus, School, Sermons

Posted by Sean Walker at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

Spreading some more blog love... I found out today that there is a site that links together bloggers who are at SWBTS. It's basically a links page to SWBTS professors and students. So if you want to read some of my professors and fellow students blog's, click here.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

One week of classes down. Fourteen more weeks to go.

After a week of classes, the mood for me is definitely, "let's do this!" Meaning, I'm loving classes and being here on campus. All of my classes appear to be pretty difficult, but are definitely doable b/c I seem to have great teachers in all of them. Really tough classes with really boring professors are hard for me. But even if the class is hard, as long as I have a good, engaging, well-spoken teacher, I'll do fine.

I did change one class though. I got out of my Christian Home class, which is about marriage and sex and the like, and switched to Old Testament 2. The reason... My Christian Home teacher said he had a 1-on-1 meeting with our Seminary President, Dr. Patterson, and Patterson told him to make sure that this class wasn't an easy A and that the students took it serious. So, what that meant was... 100 pages a week of reading... a 25 page paper... and Another 4 page paper. All for a family studies class. Now I can handle that load for a biblical studies class like Hermeneutics to Systematic Theology, but it just seemed unjustified for a family life class. Realizing as soon as he said that, we were about to become his ginni (sp?) pigs so that he could prove to Patterson that he could be a tough teacher, I dropped that class and signed up for Old Testament 2 with another professor, and it is half the work load. I don't think a family studies class should ever be double the work load of an OT class. Crazy.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

We started classes for the Fall 2007 Semester today at SWBTS (SWiBiTS as we call it) or Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It's good to be back in classes. This summer I didn't take any classes b/c my work schedule didn't allow me to. I've never missed school before, and this summer I did. It's different when you're studying a topic that your life is based upon and that you plan to teach as your career.

I'm humbled at the beginning of the semester b/c again people have come through and paid for my tuition. I approached this fall trying to save as much money as I could through the summer, but knowing that it wouldn't be enough to pay tuition, I repeatedly prayed and asked God to come through. And He did, through some amazing people, all of which won't tell me their names. I hope one day they will.

So here's what's on the table this semester:

Systematic Theology 1 w/ Dr. Yarnell
Church History 1 w/ Dr. Yeats
Christian Home w/ Dr. Greenoe
Spiritual Formations 1 w/ Dr. Mitchell

It's 10 hours.

So, please pray for me. It would be much appreciated.

And thanks again to those of you who have helped me financially and especially relationally to be here. I'm humbled by you.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

Here they are, as promised.

You have a lot more motivation for school when the only reason you're there is b/c amazing people helped you pay for it.

So the best way I can say "Thank you," is by making the best grades I can.

So, Thank You!!!!!

(the "P" is for Passed. It's a completion grade, not a letter grade)

Labels: People, School

Posted by Sean Walker at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

My first semester will be over in 9 days (5-9-07). I have 2 finals and a nice-size paper due in those 9 days.

My paper is on Sola Scriptura. I might post it, depending on how confident I am in it, haha, we'll see.

I am loving school. I won't lie, my first month of classes was scary. I was real unsure if I was suppose to be here mainly b/c the workload seemed too great. But after I learned how to eat an elephant (one bite at a time) things improved and I really started to enjoy my study here.

Here's the reason I'm posting, was so that I could have an excuse to post this quote that I came across in my research for this paper...

"The Cross alone is our theology." -Martin Luther (not King Jr. haha)

I'm hoping to post in the near future some amazing things I've learned and other things about faith in Christ that I've rediscovered and therefore re-owned. But until then...

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

So obviously the amount of posting I do now that I'm in school has dramatically decreased. My apologies, but that is the way it will most likely be for a while.

So here's what's been going on. I need your prayers. I've made a big shift in my strategy for finishing school. My original game plan was to take a full load of classes and work part time. But after being here, learning what it cost to live here, and not having a job yet, I'm realizing how much debt I'd have to incur to finish this degree in 3-3.5 years. A big factor in that was that I did not get the Outback Steakhouse job. They offered it to me but I did not pass the menu test. I was hesitant to tell people I was offered the job b/c I knew I still had to pass the test before I officially worked there. And so I crammed for the test, but didn't pass.

I knew that I would have to incur some debt to get this degree, but I soon realized how much debt that would be. So I started calling some older guys that I go to for wisdom and asking them, if going into debt for the sake of getting through school in 3 years was worth it. They all said the same thing... don't.

So then my other option is the one that I've now switched to... Work full time and take classes as I can afford them and finish school in a 5-6 year time frame. And if I'm going to be working full time, and for that many years, then I obviously want to invest that time into a church ministry. So... I started circulating my resume this week, and am now looking for a full-time ministry position.

This may not sound like a big switch, but it has been a tough week trying to make these big picture type decisions. My financial situation is insecure and I've been on my knees more than ever this week asking God what to do. I'd COMPLETELY appreciate your prayers as I proceed with this decision.

Classes have gotten a LOT better. The first week was completely overwhelming b/c of the load and the language. I swear I couldn't understand a thing my teachers were talking about the first week of classes, but it's gotten a lot better. I've gotten caught up on most, not all though, of the lingo and scholarly language that they talk in.

Other than that, I'm just enjoying the weather, and hanging out with my new friends here and missing my old friends and family back home.

Here are some pics from this weekend. I helped out a Disciple Now at a church called Fielder Road Baptist Church in Arlington, TX, about 20 minutes from campus. Heath Hudspeth, who helped me out with Middle School in Lafayette, moved to TN a couple of years ago and went to a church there called German Town Baptist Church where he volunteered in their student ministry. There Heath volunteered fora guy on staff named Mark Cole who is now the Student Pastor at Fielder. I was telling Heath about my new game plan for school and he gave me Mark Cole's number and Mark invited me to lead a group of 8th grade boys for their D-Now weekend. It's been since November since I've gotten to hang with students so needless to say I had a blast being around them. Here are a few pics from the weekend...

The last pic is of my long lost little brother named Zak(He is one of the most hilarious people I've ever met. He had me laughing the whole weekend). We look alike, we talk alike, we like the same music, we told the same exact jokes, and the best part.... We're both lactose intolerant! We're long lost bothers, we know it! :)

Labels: Church, Ministry, Pics, School, Update

Posted by Sean Walker at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

"God, are you sure you called me to seminary?!" Haha!

That's the question I asked myself at 2:45am Tuesday morning as I finished an open book quiz that was due by 8am Tuesday morning. 1 quiz... 4.5 hours of reading. I can't wait to see what it's going to take to prep for the final.

What's even funnier than that question alone, was that after talking to more people after class, was that I wasn't the only one asking God that, haha. Of course it was wayyyyy late into the night and I really don't question my call here, haha, I was just shocked at the amount of reading required in this one class.

So this post's purpose is basically to say... Blogging will most likely be cut back dramatically.

But you never know, I met get some blogging done during a boring class :)

But on a serious note, I would appreciate your prayers for me and school and work. I did land a job at Outback Steakhouse here in town. I'm in training right now, but as soon I pass the menu test and complete training, I'll be waiting tables there about 20 hours a week. I'm intentionally not working at a church here for the beginning of my time here b/c I want to get out of that church bubble and be around non-chirstians more. So please pray for my witness their with employees and customers. And please pray for school. It's going to be a tough semester as I learn the ropes here and try to figure out what the hek my professors are talking about. I truly covet your prayers.

Other than that everything else here is going well. I'm still doing a lot of church hopping and loving it. I'm going to try to blog about that and interesting things that I learn in class as often as I can find time.

'Till then... peace out!

Oh, everyone was asking me if I made a snowman when it snowed last week. I didn't, but my neighbors did...

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

I had orientation today. Classes start Thursday.

Orientation was interesting. We opened up by singing a couple of hymns. That was the first time in probably, i don't know, maybe 10 years, that I've sung out of a hymnal.

For the first time I got to hear Paige Patterson, the seminary president speak. I really enjoyed it. He said some interesting things...

"Seminary is going to be your boot camp for ministry. And I'm your first drill Sergent."

"I want you to graduate from here exhausted."

"We're going to push you just short of a mental breakdown. But don't worry, we're going to stop and pray for you right before you have it."

Of course he was joking when he said the last one... I hope.

He also said some awesome things about keeping spiritual disciplines while we're here and how inportant that was. I really enjoyed listening to him. He seems real down to earth.

Classes start Thursday. Here's what I'm taking...

1 hour of Spiritual Formation II with Dr. Williams
3 hours of Biblical Hermeneutics with Dr. Wolfe
3 hours of Basic Old Testament I with Dr. Mitchell
3 hours of Contemporary Evangelism with Dr. Mills

Labels: Funny, School

Posted by Sean Walker at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

Fort Worth is amazing. I love it. 95% of the roads here are at least 3 lanes wide. I feel like I'm on a race track. Everything is really close. I'm a mile away from I-20 so I hop on the interstate pretty much every day and go one or two exits down and they have just about everything.

The campus is beautiful. It's HUGE for a seminary campus.

My brothers Michael and Tim were absolutely huge in helping me move. We got in to town around 2pm and got the uhaul unloaded in no time b/c Mark Rinberger and Joe Garner came and helped.

My place is small but definitely doable. It's 1-bedroom duplex on campus that rent is very inexpensive for.

Work is kind of on hold for the moment. I'm trying to get a job waiting tables and I've got some restaurants that are hiring but they just can't train right now b/c of the holiday rush, so The two places I'm hoping on working at are either Outback Steakhouse, or Saltgrass Steakhouse. I'll find out the 1st week of January which one hires me.

So right now in my free time, I'm running errands, Christmas shopping, setting up my place, running and working out at the Rec Center they have on campus, and watching movies every night. It's definitely different then when I was back in Lafayette working, where I rarely had time to watch any TV or chill for more than a day.

I'll be back in Lafayette in less than a week for Loren Carriere's wedding, then stay in town for the holidays, and then be back in FW the first week of January.

I've met a bunch of people. I've met pretty much most of Mark crew here at the seminary. Of course they're a blast. Ultimate frisbee was kind of crazy with them... Running around outside at 10pm on a Sunday night when it feels like it's about 5 degrees outside.

I think my body has already become more tolerable to the cold here. It's not too different from Lafayette this week but 2 weeks ago it was much colder than LAfayette, and the first 5 days here I had no heater b/c it's a gas heater and the gas company hadn't come out yet, so I snagged a mini heater from walmart and used an electric heating blanket I already had to make due. The first night was rough, but after that I got used to it. And now that I have heat, I haven't even turned it on yet.

I think I've found the church I'm going to commit to. I'm still doing my church hopping on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, but I've been consistently going to a church called LifeChurch.tv, which is also their web address. They feel just like East Bayou. It's great. They meet in a school so they set up and tear down every sunday for their corporate worship service, and then they do it again for their youth service on wednesday night. I'm amazed what they do. But it's just how church works for them, they don't even seem to think twice about it.

I think's that pretty much it that's been going on. Things will really pick up when I come back in January and begin work and begin classes.

I'll try to get some pics up soon too.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments

I guess this makes it officail huh? :)

















It's not the best pic in the world, but you can tell who it is.

The move went well. I still have a lot of unpacking to do. My "to do" list was huge as I prepared to leave Lafayette, and now it's just as big as I get settled in and prepare for next semester.

Sorry no post recently. I'll post more soon I hope.

Labels: School

Posted by Sean Walker at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments