Dear friends,

Week #2 (Dec. 8-14) was spent largely finishing up our fall intern class, with papers, dicsussion & final evaluations AND carefully reading Jonathan Leeman's excellent manuscript on a theology of church membership.  Let me break the week down for you a little more.

Monday, Dec. 8, a nice walk with Greg Gilbert, haircut, reading Jonathan's manuscript, lunch meeting with a neighbor, pastoral meeting, dinner with Bobby & Kristen Jamieson, evening with the Chang's & read intern papers.

Tuesday, Dec. 9, dentist & traffic consumed the morning.  Afternoon with my good friend David Henderson, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, West LaFayette, IN.  What an encouraging brother!  And inbetween reading Leeman manuscript & last set of intern papers from this class.  (Next classes first papers are due in Dec. 20!!)

Wednesday, Dec. 10, more Leeman reading, lunch with Andrew Sherwood (to talk about 9Marks--by the way, great job on the Christmas greeting video, Andrew!), pastoral meeting, attended Wed PM Bible study.

Thursday, Dec. 11, our last intern discussion with this class. Our regular Mark-Michael-Andy-Deepak lunch (me and the church's 3 associate pastors).  Sweet fellowship.  Finished Jonathan's manuscript.  Final evaluation with Josh Scherer.  (Pray for Spike, a new friend I got to meet.  Pray that I would faithfully share the gospel with him.)  Prepared some comments for the annual 9Marks volunteer dinner & went to it.  Always the best Christmas party!  Afterwards, reviewed Jonathan's manuscript with him.  This book is so much more important than any book I could work on of my own this sabbatcial.

Friday, Dec. 12, final evaluation with intern Matt Smethurst, final intern lunch at Fuddruckers (great time!), final evaluation with intern David Dewberry, reviewed some dates with Connie of invitations my committee had encouraged me to accept, went bowling with the interns, Connie & I had dinner with friends.

Saturday, Dec. 13, read some Dave Powlison, helped Philip with a new lecture in the evangelism core seminar, lunch with Ken Barbic to go over his evangelistic address for Sun night.  SORE LOWER BACK FROM BOWLING!!  I TRIED TOO HARD!  Napped.  Worked on Spring 2009 sermon card, concluding that I will probably preach 15 sermons through Revelation in the Spring & Summer of 2009 (Lord willing).  Good dinner with Mike & Diane.  Worked on Revelation & preaching ideas some more.

Sunday, Dec. 14, Core Seminar, morning service (good chat with new friend Mike Cole afterwards), friends over for Afghan lunch.  Talked to Philip some more about his evangelism class.  A pastoral meeting, followed by our annual Carols on the Hill service--excellent, and well attended by visitors.  A wonderful, fun reception afterwards.  David Dewberry joined Connie & me (thanks, Pete!) for dinner afterwards.  Then David tried to help me with my back.  Said goodbye to the 2 interns who are leaving--Josh Scherer and David Dewberry.  It's been a privilege to have had them here for the last 5 months.

And that's week 2.  As the second week has ended, I'm beginning to feel that I might end up getting very little done on this sabbatical, but, on the other hand, a little extra rest, Jonathan's book & this intern class are all wonderful investments.  Now, off to Williamsburg with Connie!  Thanks for your interest and prayers.