{"id":2695,"date":"2021-09-25T02:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-25T02:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2695"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:38","slug":"a-good-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2695","title":{"rendered":"A GOOD SIGN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since I don&#8217;t really know exactly why I am pursuing this doctorate, I have been really nervous about how relevant I might find the two years of courses laid out before me.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when I saw the titles of the first two classes I will be starting in October, I wasn&#8217;t necessarily reassured: &#8220;Sacramental Spirituality and Disciple-Making Leadership&#8221; and &#8220;Holistic Renewal of the Church&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, most of my classmates, I assume, are pastors of local churches. But me? I am a former youth pastor and current 8th grade English teacher who has recently developed an interest in persuasion, human psychology, and habit formation. In fact, as I have given a bit of thought to what my dissertation might tackle, I keep coming back to the possibility of exploring what the science of habit formation might have to say about practicing spiritual disciplines like prayer and Scripture reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yesterday I got online and ordered the five texts that will comprise the &#8220;Sacramental Spirituality&#8221; class because I want to get ahead on the reading if possible. I have no idea what kind of workload these classes will entail. Amazon had two of the books on my doorstep this afternoon, and I immediately sat down to gauge my interest level:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/20210924_165815_HDR-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1438\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/20210924_170408-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1440\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since I don&#8217;t really know exactly why I am pursuing this doctorate, I have been really nervous about how relevant I might find the two years of courses laid out before me. And when I saw the titles of the first two classes I will be starting in October, I wasn&#8217;t necessarily reassured: &#8220;Sacramental Spirituality [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2698,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions\/2698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}