study . live . teach
For the past two years I’ve held an official position at the evangelical seminary (~associate professor) in Slovakia. This has been a good arrangement as it has helped me feel more a part of the faculty and it allows for my publishing activity to contribute to the seminary’s accreditation. Financially, however, it has proved to be a challenge for us and I have decided to go back to volunteer status until we can increase our regular financial support levels.
[Read more…]I’ve always said that my main calling is not to teach at a seminary but to help the church better read and live Scripture (which includes teaching at a seminary). In 2019 my ministry expanded further beyond the seminary through theological mentoring for pastors and preaching elders, teaching an overview of Scripture for more local congregations, and involvement in the theological and ordination committee for our denomination.
[Read more…]I’ve found that our web site is a good way to keep people informed about our ministry. It’s also a good medium for my classes at the seminary, so I have pages dedicated to each of the classes that I teach complete with recordings of my lectures. More than ever, however, visitors are coming to our site to read the articles I’ve written on creation and science.
[Read more…]For the fifth year in a row I attended the annual conferences of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society for Biblical Literature. These are professional conferences where theologians present research they are currently working on. With more than 10,000 theologians attending from all over the world, it’s a good opportunity to get feedback before (or after) publishing an article or book. This year I presented one paper and organized a group on the Pentateuch.
[Read more…]It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a spontaneous road trip like the one in college where we just up and went to the beach for the weekend (from Urbana, IL to Wilmington, NC!). This August I took a semi-spontaneous road trip of similar length and duration to help Peter Malik move his family from Dortmund, Germany to Banská Bystrica. Peter will be joining our faculty at the seminary as we say farewell to one of our professors.
[Read more…]We’ve just sent out our latest newsletter where you can find out about Todd’s expanding ministry in local churches, Jana’s cousin and his family coming to Wheaton, our May visitors and of course there’s all the new photos in our gallery.
[Read more…]The Cirkev Bratská in Slovakia (the denomination we work most closely with) has made church planting its number one priority. The denomination estimates that over the next ten years we will need more than twenty new pastors if we want to reach our church planting goals. But where will those pastors come from? Many of them will be young, bi-vocational pastors with no formal theological education. How will they find time for theological education while juggling ministry, job and family?
[Read more…]One thing about being a missionary is that we have people we love in the United States and people we love in Slovakia and those two worlds don’t often overlap. When they do, there’s a certain kind of joy in making that connection. That’s going to happen this summer when Jana’s cousin and his family (Draho, Zuzana, Oliver, Johanna and Viktor) arrive in the States for some very special ministry training.
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