The Deliberate Church

Pastor Mark Dever seems to me an eminently practical man, though to the worldly wise, there is perhaps not a more difficult or dangerous road than the one he advises.  That greater burden of realism which the Gospel places upon his shoulders inspired Dever to author a series of instructive manuals to guide aspiring pastors [...]

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Love in a Headscarf

The demographics of my classes have shifted again with the beginning of the first fall session.  Although my summer classes had held a majority of Arabic speakers,  they now incorporate a fairly balanced mix of Far-Eastern and Middle-Eastern cultural backgrounds (Korea, China, Saudi Arabia and Libya).  Add to this three students from Vietnam, Kazakhstan and [...]

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The Man Who Was Thursday

Try stepping into the head of a genius for a moment and you might just lose your bearings.  That’s what happened to me recently when, one cheery morning, I decided to obtain a copy of Chesterton’s allegorical novel and consider his methods in the use of a genre I’ve always considered poetic and very powerful…  It started [...]

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Teaching International Students

A new session has begun where I work, along with the fall semester at the university.   The Center for English as a Second Language, where I have worked since May, is a place where incoming international students strive to improve their English and pass the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam before [...]

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