I can't believe it's already the end of July. Tomorrow, I head into California for a week plus a few days, and school starts up again in less than a month. It feels like my summer was shorter this year.
I spent a lot of time this summer working on the math remediation program. I've got 5 out 6 classes completely written up with notes and exams. I was hoping to have them all done, but it's just not going to happen. The good news is that the earliest that Module 6 will be needed is the last 5 weeks of the Spring semester. So I can push that off until Winter break.
On the first day to work when I get back to Vegas, I'm going to have to do a quick training for the program as well. It's a little bit scary, as we've got five sections but only two confirmed instructors (of which I am one). The good news is that I've got all of the prep work done. I have the notes all printed and in binders, I have all the exams prepared (but not printed), and I have the spreadsheets set up so that it will load easily into WebCampus. It "should" go smoothly. Only time will tell.
I'm teaching a new class this semester, which is a discrete math class. I'm treating it like a combinatorics class, mostly because that's what the previous instructor did. I like the textbook (A Walk Through Combinatorics) and I think it will be a fun class. I haven't done this sort of stuff in a while, so I think my problem-solving will be a little bit rusty. But I should be able to fake it well enough. I'm trying to do problem sessions for both this class and the abstract algebra class that I'm teaching. I tried to do this with analysis, and I'm working to make it a more effective system. We'll see how it goes this time around.
I'm also trying a two midterm, no final exam approach. I think it will work well for algebra because you can't really do well on the second half of the material without being grounded in the first, so it's like having an implicit final exam. I think it will be similar for combinatorics, but that one is not so clearly cumulative. But I decided to bite the bullet and just try it to see what would happen.
I've been appointed the head of the search committee for the math position. I've never done this before, so it's going to be a learning experience. The first thing I've got to do is to try to bring our application standards in line with what the rest of the math world does. This will take some research, and some of it has already been started, but I won't be able to look at it until after the retreat. I don't think it will be that much work, but I need to make sure we do it right.
Basketball has been fun. We were one game out of first place, but fourth place in the league, based on a 3-way tie breaker. There were three times with a 9-5 record. We had a non-transitive 2-0 head-to-head record (team A beat team B twice, team B beat team C twice, and team C beat team A twice). So the next tie-breaker was points scored. Our team plays a slower offensive style instead of a run-and-gun, so we simply did not put up the same numbers as the other (younger) teams did. we won our first playoff game, and I'm going to miss the next one (or two) because of the retreat. I can use the rest, because I got pretty beat up over the season. I don't know if I'd be able to maintain this level of activity during the academic year, so I might have played my last competitive basketball for a while.
Church stuff has been interesting. We had VBS last week, and I was doing stage support. I did a lot of VBS when I was in San Diego, and I have to admit that I kind of missed it. The fundamentals happened, which is really the only thing that matters. The kids had fun and they learned Biblical lessons (Saul/Paul in Acts). I had fun as well, which is an added bonus.
I've also started a conversation with Pastor Chris. There was a business meeting held last weekend, and I guess there wasn't anything said that was ground-breaking. We talked money for a while, and I can only give a tepid response to what I heard. It will require some tough decisions to be made, and I'll feel more confident when those decisions have actually been made.
I also spoke with Pastor Chris for a while about big picture things. I summarized the problems into four points which all indicate the same central issue:
1) For those we invite to church, we don’t have a clear path for them to follow to get to know us and for us to get to know them.
2) For those who are new Christians, we don’t have a clear path for them to follow to give them a solid foundation of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
3) For those who are more mature Christians, we don’t have a clear path for them to follow to help them find ways to be challenged to grow deeper in their relationship with God.
4) For those who want to use their gifts to advance the kingdom of God, we don’t have a clear path for them to follow to learn to develop those gifts and then put them to use.
In other words, we've got an adult discipleship problem. If you've never been in a church (or other fellowship) that has a focus on discipleship, you might not even realize that it's missing. But if you know what to look for, you will be disappointed when you don't find it (and usually move on to another church). So this ties into our retention and spiritual depth problems that have been lingering for an extended period of time. I'm mildly optimistic at the moment, but after the leadership summit in a couple weeks, I'll probably feel more inspired and I hope that the elders are in attendance to get exposure to these sorts of ideas as well.
I'm looking forward to getting to San Diego tomorrow, Long Beach on Saturday, Catalina Island from Sunday through Friday, back to Long Beach, and then back to Vegas on Sunday, hopefully in time to go to a party for the Route 45 (4th/5th grade youth ministry) pool party. And then there's the leadership summit on the Thursday and Friday after that... I'm either doing summer vacation really right or really wrong.
