I registered for my second to last quarter today. I have some ministry requirements to fulfill that have been put on hold while I’ve taken courses on New Testament and related issues. That said, it’s not that I’m not interested in the ministry courses. It’s just that I have a bit of tunnel vision with my academic plans, so I have had to focus on New Testament, early Judaism, and Christian origins. Without further adieu, here are the classes I’ve signed on for next quarter (the course links take you to descriptions, the teacher links to their homepages at Fuller):

• The Congregation as a Learning Community with Mark Lau Branson. Ths class fulfills the “Christian Formation and Discipleship” requirement for the M.Div. From what I understand, Branson has good Anabaptist leanings!
• Grief, Loss, Death and Dying with David Augsburger. This one hits the “Pastoral Counseling” requirement. Forget Anabaptist “leanings,” Augsburger is a great Anabaptist leader and scholar. You may have seen his recent book, Dissident Discipleship. I think half my church has read it.
• Making Doctrine Live with Marguerite Shuster. This class is one of the three classes needed to fulfill the “Preaching and Communication” requirement: one class generally on Homiletics, then two practicums. This would be my first practicum. Actually, I tried to stay with my current professor for Homiletics, Doug Nason, but both of his practicums were taken. I’m waitlisted for those, so I might switch over if space opens up. All the practicum listings have only 8 or 9 spots. We all preach (or speak) twice in the quarter and give comments to the other preachers/speakers.

And for the final elective of my Fuller career:

• Advanced Hebrew Grammar with Jeremy Smoak, who is, according to the website, a post-doctoral fellow at UCLA’s NELC department.

So it should be an interesting quarter. In the summer quarter, I hope to take my final preaching practicum in communication, fulfill two church history courses (with “Medieval and Reformation History” and “Post-Reformation and Modern Theology”–the latter taught by Richard Muller), and take “Intro to Islam” as an IDL. Then, I’m all done with this seminary thing! It’s hard to believe.