The Gross Blog

  • OUTSIDE THE LECTURE HALL

    Upon further reflection on my seminary days, I realized there was one part of my education that really stuck with me – and it was way outside of any in-class lectures. I spent one January term completing a practicum at a nearby mental hospital, shadowing the resident chaplain.  It was heartbreaking and fascinating.  I met people who were nearly catatonic and others who couldn’t sit still. I met “Jesus” and I beat him at ping pong. I was suspected of being an alien but then exonerated when my accuser decided my eyes “weren’t purple enough”. And imaginary voices commanded one…

  • THINKING LIKE A TEACHER

    In 2019, Scott Adams published a book called Loserthink.  On page 1, he defines “loserthink” as “absurd and unproductive reasoning” that you hear “if you use social media, or you make the mistake of paying attention to other people’s opinions in any form”.  He laments the fact that “we don’t teach thinking in schools” and so people aren’t very good at it. All spot on, but what is interesting about his book is the solution he proposes: getting broadly familiar with the types of thinking that are encouraged and developed in various professions.  Each chapter explores what the average person…

  • THE SEMINARY PROFESSOR’S MODEL

    In my twenties, I spent several years at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. The best and most lasting benefit of that time was the friendships I made. I know I was also processing theology and growing spiritually, but I would go on to experience much greater growth on those fronts in the succeeding years. When I think about the classes themselves, I remember loving a class on missions in particular – although it was long before I considered entering missionary work personally. The professor’s name was, somewhat ironically, Whiteman.  And he was one of the better teachers I had…

  • TEACHING FROM THE PULPIT

    In order to find out what has already been written about the pastor as teacher, I am going to need to do more than a search on Amazon. But that’s where I started. And it does leave me wondering what is out there specifically to help a preacher approach the pulpit as a teacher. My initial search on Christian teaching turned up plenty of books about “Christian education”, but these are focused on teaching faith in a formal school setting: Many others are aimed at an audience of Sunday school teachers. Sometimes pastors are included in the audience. Teaching to…

  • HABIT FORMATION LITERATURE

    One of the basic tasks for an effective teacher is equipping the students with the resources they need to study the subject matter further independently.  This is why a prominent feature of my youth retreat plan is the sharing of practical information concerning habit formation.  The literature on this topic is fascinating and has been growing in recent years.  There’s not much that is specifically Christian in this realm though.  James K. A. Smith touches on habits broadly in several of his books, connecting habits to character development and spirituality. Richard Foster’s classic, Celebration of Discipline, has some practical advice…

  • TEACHERS NEED TO CONSIDER LOGICAL ENTAILMENTS

    My brain is not functioning well tonight and I need to get up early in the morning – a Saturday! – to help serve at a Men’s Breakfast at a church here in town, so it doesn’t seem like an ideal time to force myself to think about Literature Reviews and all that sort of stuff. I will say that I have continued to watch videos produced in the aftermath of Kirk Cameron’s switch from the “hell is eternal conscious torment” camp to the “conditional immortality” camp and it’s driving me crazy. (Those videos might well be the reason my…

  • METANARRATIVES

    One of the chapters in my dissertation will be a “Literature Review”. Here’s the guidance I have been given on this section:  “The literature review should summarize the contributions of the key figures working on your topic. This chapter demonstrates your competence in the field by articulating the standard approaches to thinking in your area of research.” For now, my prospectus just needs a single paragraph summarizing what shape I anticipate this chapter will take. My difficulty in getting started on it is that there are at least three aspects of my project that have their own literature. Maybe I…

  • THE PLAN

    Before I go any further in developing the background research for my dissertation, I should explain as concisely as possible what my ministry plan actually entails. My ministry model is a retreat for high school youth called “Framing Your Faith”. The goal, in short, is to provide effective teaching -> leading to deep comprehension -> leading to self-directed study.  To put it in classroom objectives form: By the end of the retreat, students will be able (1) to summarize the biblical metanarrative in their own words and (2) identify biblical themes within specific practice passages of Scripture and (3) analyze…

  • NEXT STEPS DUE IN JANUARY

    Here are the two components of my next assignment in preparation for my dissertation: 1. Research Strategy (Methodology) This part of the prospectus presents how the different areas of research come together to form a coherent whole. Which biblical texts will you work with and why? Which historical figures or historical periods will you study and why? Are there particular areas of theology that you’ll need to address? You should justify each component of the project (e.g., biblical, historical) and articulate why it is necessary to successfully complete the work. What does each area contribute to the whole?  2. Chapter…

  • REAL LEARNING THRIVES ON QUESTIONS

    YouTubers continue to produce videos lamenting Kirk Cameron’s rejection of hell as eternal conscious torment. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call it a “freak out”.  And, honestly, I find both the videos and the hundreds of comments under them to be discouraging and embarrassing. The “arguments” for ECT and against annihilationism are constructed so badly. To be clear, I would welcome any attempt to argue for ECT intelligently from Scriptures, but this would involve wrestling with all the passages that imply the human soul is not naturally eternally and that the wicked are ultimately destroyed. Instead, over and over…

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