Redeeming the Time

Blogging is a bit hit-and-miss, for which I apologise to my faithful reader.  The truth is, the older I get the busier I become.

Some of you will know that, for years now, I’ve been working on a DMin from WEST.  The research and dissertation is on the evangelistic preaching of Lloyd-Jones, focussing on his long ‘Acts’ series.  Sometimes it seems I’ve been working on it longer than he was preaching it!

The deadline is September 2014.  But if I leave it much longer, I’ll miss it.  I’ve determined that I should finish my first draft, at least, this year.  That was my intention anyway; but yesterday I discovered that supervision arrangements are likely to change at the end of this year – which adds a definite ‘frisson’ to the target.

So, I’ve just begun a two-week ‘push’.  Part of the problem with a piece of work this size, running alongside a demanding pastorate, is that every time I come back to it I’m in danger of having forgotten where I was.  From now until my just-after-Easter break, then, I’ve determined to work on it each day, rising an hour earlier and doing at least an hour and a half each day, in addition to my (supposedly usual) Thursday study.  And I’m not taking on anything else, other than my usual preaching, unless specifically asked and/or it’s urgent.  It’s only two weeks; I should be able to manage that.  And I think that I can make real progress in that time.

I’m not giving up blogging, I hope.  But it may be brief, and intermittent.  In the meantime, watch out for my two articles in ‘Banner’ magazine (first one in the May issue) on evangelistic preaching – in general, that is, not Lloyd-Jones’.