From here to there...(Part 1)

For the next couple of posts, I'm going to tell the story of how Kim and I (and Robert Joseph) ended up going to Colorado for school. So sit back, relax, put your feet up and enjoy the lovely tunes of the troubadour.

The story starts, as all stories do, at the beginning. I had wanted to go to seminary for a while, but looked at my options in New York since Kim and I had just gotten married and recently bought a home. Of course, there was one thing standnig in the way of me getting a graduate degree: the fact that I never got my undergrad degree.

I had left Hofstra University in 1995 because of a lack of funds, mostly as a result of my own laziness and foolishness. The sad part was that I was only 6 credits short. Two classes. Yep: two...But the time had come for me to finish my degree. So, off to Hofstra I went and in the Spring of 2006, 16 years after I started, I finally graduated with a B.F.A. in Theatre, with a focus on Performing.

Kim had begun asking me where I wanted to go to seminary because she knew the direction I had decided for my life, one of the pastorate. After looking at the skills and gifts that God had given me, I had decided that the best way to use them was in full-time practice of preaching and teaching. So I looked at what was in the New York area.

Alliance Theological Seminary had some good things going for it. Ravi Zacharias, one of my favorite teachers, had been a professor there for a while. The main school was relatively close. And they had a satellite campus in the Empire State Building.

Bethel Seminary seemed interesting, but nothing ever really developed with that.

Union Theological Seminary was not an option, even though it is a mile from our house. Way too liberal. Which is a shame because some great people of the faith have attended there, Bonhoeffer being one.

And then, about a year and a half ago, Kim asked me, "If you could go to seminary anywhere, where would you go?"

We'll end our story there for today.