As I have published "Czecherboarding" over the past few months, I've taken a unique English-major delight in its intricacy and careful level of thought; have tried to pour into this blog some of the same precision that I put into writing a literary paper. And I've had people comment on its intricate style, telling me that they enjoyed reading the thoughtful analysis or sometimes reminding me not to be too academic.

Tonight, however, is different. Academic befuddlement is something I do not have time to create tonight. I am too tuckered out by carefully grading essays on why news comedy is not actually news, on the dangers of a 'black market' in Adderall, and (most interesting of all) why Americans should add insects to their diet. I am smack-dab in the middle of preparing to teach my Intro to Lit students about hegemony and direct domination tomorrow (thank you, Dr. Dayton) and the allusions to Locke and Demosthenes in Ender's Game. So I will make this post short and sweet, with more academic befuddlement to come later on.

I will be leaving for Prague on December 29, to spend six months teaching high school English at the international Christian school. Late last month, I learned two things: first, that I had enough support to purchase my plane tickets and second, that a staffing need at the Christian school made my presence in the spring a necessity. Put the two together, and I was on my way to the Czech Republic.

My thanks go out to those of you who have promised, or given, to my missions project financially. Without you, it would be impossible for me to serve at the Christian International School of Prague, even for this spring when another English teacher is so desperately needed. I appreciate your generosity and your consistent interest in this work - God's work - more than I can say. My thanks also go to those of you who have been praying for me, and I ask for your continued prayers as I finish out the semester here at Kansas State University and then depart for the other side of the world - a departure coming up in a mere seven weeks.

At this time, it is far too early to know whether I will be able to return in the fall for a full year of teaching. It is not too early, however, to start getting excited about teaching there this spring. I am looking forward to joining the staff of the Christian school, reaching out to the students and to the Czech people with the love and wisdom of Christ our Saviour. John Milton (see, I had to talk about something academic!) wrote that "The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents [Adam and Eve] by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, and to be like Him". As a teacher, I am responsible for the 'learning' of students, factual information and critical thinking about literary skills and rhetorical techniques. As a teacher, however, I am also responsible for the 'learning' of my students on a spiritual level, reaching new insight about who God is and growing in their love for Him, and it is this responsibility that, I hope, will be heart and soul at the center of my time in Prague.

Nearer to my departure, I will be sending out a more informative blog post with details about my planned arrival and describing possible financial needs. For now, however, I am glad for the opportunity to serve Christ for six months in the Czech Republic, and thank you for your prayers and support and interest with me over the past ten months.

I'll keep you posted.

As I type these first words, it is 10:36 P.M. I have just finished an old Star Trek TV episode ("Who Mourns for Adonis?") online and was planning to go to bed and read Percy Jackson and the Olympians until I could stay awake no longer. But the post I was planning to write in the morning will not wait until then.

Before getting off the Internet, I re-checked a favourite news blog of mine. For the past day or so, this blog has been abuzz with theological controversy. It started with a naive comment by one frequent writer, that Glenn Beck must be a Christian because of his passion for his faith - despite the fact that he was a practicing Mormon. Like meat draws flies, the post drew comments, which in their turn drew more comments, until the controversy came down to this: Is it worthwhile for believers to debate theology so fiercely, so viciously; to call a fellow believer out for the theological mistake of blurring the line between the Mormon cult and the Christian church, or should believers let God 'judge' an individual's salvation, and concentrate on love and social issues instead?

As I read, and now as I write this, the very existence of the controversy is troubling to me. Although I appreciate the need for social engagement, and the preference for Christian love instead of judgmental behaviour, the increasing tolerance of Mormonism as simply another denomination, another branch of the Christian faith - and, in turn, the religious pluralism that this evinces - goes against the grain of what Christianity is meant to be, biblically.

C.S. Lewis writes that there are 3 kind of human beings: those who live for pleasure, and those who live for responsibility and duty - among those duties, a duty to the will of God. Many religious people, he implies, belong to the second category, and indeed, which of us does not find ourselves in that category all too often? It is the third kind where the heart of Christianity is to be found: the human being who has a will neither for pleasure nor duty, the human being whose will, Lewis says, is Christ's. Here is the secret of our Faith: that we have (or are trying to) surrender our will wholly, daily to Christ's - to live, in every relationship, every responsibility, every action, not as if we must do that which is commanded, but (quite simply) because we want to do these things - an entire, supernatural altering of our very selves. A convicting thought, indeed. How many times recently have we behaved in a "Christian" way simply because we ought, not because we wanted to?

At this point, the argument ties back to Beck and to the role of theology in the Christian life. Based on Lewis's observations, Christianity is not simply a matter of behaviour: we are not Christians because we are Republicans, because we support a crisis pregnancy ministry or go on a summer missions trip during college, or because we have elected to study for the pastorate rather than business. We are Christians because, deep down, we have elected (or, perhaps more accurately, have been elected) not only to accept Christ intellectually but to daily accept His will as our own, and to accept His mind as our own.

Matthew records in his Gospel Christ's reminder to His followers: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (7:21-22).

Mormonism can do its wonders, among them the cultural change that Glenn Beck is currently spearheading. Christianity can do its wonders as well, including the numerous social developments and improvements of the past two millenia, tied as so much development is to the Christian faith. However much these "wonders" benefit us, however, they are no sure guarantee that a Mormon - or even a Christian - is saved. At the heart of the matter is not the ministry that someone is involved in, but the merging of their mind and heart and will with Christ's - a moment which requires at once theology and action. Theology matters. Action matters. And, in the end, the crux of salvation is much plainer (and much more difficult) than any of us could have imagined: "Enter by the narrow gate", Christ commands His followers, and He then asks them to "do the will of My Father in heaven." As C.S. Lewis said, "Back or on we must go." There is no middle ground.

UPDATE: At this point, I have raised a little over $1000 / month for my ministry in Prague - about half of what I would need to be there full-time. However, added to the one-time gifts I have received, this totals (so the missions board informs me) nearly 4/5 of what I will need to go from January to June of 2011. Although a half-year is not what I had originally intended, it is very important that I leave soon, and the school there has written to urge my departure as much as possible.

How can you help? Please continue to pray that others will be led to support me, either as a one-time gift or as a monthly supporter (either will help me get to Prague in a timely fashion). Let me know (via email is fine) if you know someone who may be interested in hearing about my trip or possibly supporting me. I will be sending out information in the near future with more details about my plans, so keep an eye out for that. Most important of all, remember that "to live is Christ".

Quick - what do you expect I will address in this post? Will it be (yet another) deep and theoretical English lesson? A keen spiritual insight, perhaps taken from Augustine again? Are you skimming this post, getting a quick "Czecherboarding news fix" and then back to your daily life, or are you preparing to read deeply and enjoy this post? Either way, your expectations for the post are already setting your attitude towards reading it and even the way you do read it.

Lately, I have been alerted in a new way to the power of expectations. As a teacher, I have been told that my expectations for students will actually affect their performance in the class, that having low expectations for them produces correspondingly low grades. Maybe I don't call them "stupid" (let's hope I don't!), but if I start thinking, "they're not college material", or "they're just not writers, you know?" - well, then, they'll act like that. Already in my classes I've taken steps to ward against low expectations. On Monday, I met my classes for the first time and told them that I had high expectations for them - and, more importantly, that I knew they could fulfill these expectations. On Tuesday, I noticed that only about one-third of my students had submitted their Introduction Quiz (ungraded) and caught myself subconsciously lowering my expectations. Oops. Better keep those expectations high, I tell myself.

English aside, however, I have been thinking about another set of expectations: the expectations for believers raising support for overseas ministry. Eight months ago, I hoped to leave for the Czech Republic in August. I expected to raise my full support - as most of you know, more than $2000 / month - in time to go this fall. Rather idealistic, of course, but I personally knew people who had raised support in a similar amount of time and so hoped that my own experience would be no different. My experience was obviously quite different - in part due, perhaps, to other expectations.

At the same time as I began raising support, I began paying more attention to others who were doing the same thing - and I noticed the startlingly-long amounts of time required. One family has spent 3 years raising support, another 4 - and neither is quite finished. More discouraging still, a third family devoted two years to raising support, gained fifty percent - and then decided that (given the lack of finances and their budding family) they could no longer remain in full-time missions. And I wondered, Will this be me in three years? Will I be raising support forever . . . or even have to quit? A scary thought, indeed.

I think perhaps that in recession-bound America today there is an expectation for missions support: that most missionaries will require two years (and even more) to raise sufficient funds before they can depart. It's normal, we tell ourselves, and it can even be a period of great spiritual encouragement and growth. Certainly it can, but it can also be physically and emotionally grueling and delay important ministries overseas or here in the US. For missions schools, the expectation of a two- or three-year deptuation is even more difficult. A school is, of course, responsible for normal ministry demands: bringing glory to Christ and introducing others to Him. A school, however, is also responsible for educational demands: providing its students a consistent education that will serve them will as they go on to a job or to college. In order to uphold this responsibility, the schools require missionary teachers - such as myself - and when the teachers cannot come for the school year, there is a gap in the school's ministry.

The situation for schools, then, stands like this: although most of us expect missionaries to take 2-3 years or more to raise support, a school has great difficulty in waiting that long for its teachers to arrive. Imagine a woman applying to be your child's new high-school English teacher. Perhaps they're a great teacher, perhaps they graduated with all As from college and excelled in their student teaching and have a body of stellar references. However good this woman is, she could not tell the school, I really want to work for you, but I can't be there for another two years. The school would say, Forget it! and hire somebody else. In my situation, there are classes that I was scheduled to teach that now require a long-term substitute (usually a student's parent, from what I understand) because I was not able to raise enough support to go. As you think and pray for me, then, please do not picture me arriving in Prague in 2012 or 2013. Picture me instead leaving this January, which is when I would like to leave if I raise the requisite support. My support is currently still at 41%. I need another $1300 / month before I can leave.

If I am expecting to leave in January, will I go? Perhaps. I intend to work that way (I have several contacts to follow up on this week, and more to work towards in the coming weeks - please pray!) For now, that's all I can say. I'll keep you posted.

As a teacher, I thought I would devote today's space to an pedagogical hot topic: the valedictorian who called in her speech for educational freedom, ideologically, from exterior control. Most of us, at first glance, assume this sounds great. After all, we believers are vastly outnumbered in the public sector these days, our political and religious stances all too often help up to public scorn. Her ideas, however, overlook one of the fundamental roles of education: to train students in the beliefs and traditions (for my philosophical readers, the metanarratives) of their community - whether social or religious.

For those of you unfamiliar with the speech, the valedictorian Erica Goldson writes here that the educational system in which she grew up does not challenge its students intellectually; it does not even train its students in practical skills. According to Erica, the foundational emphasis of contemporary education is that students are "are trained to ace every standardized test. " As students take tests (and more tests, and more tests), they develop not into free-thinking adults but into "great test-takers". At the bottom of all this is "an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated" and, ideologically, instills in its students "the inhuman nonsense of . . . materialism". What Erica sees in high-school education is not an intellectual challenge or practical life preparation but an ideological threat, in which students are taught to work for money and "to mindlessly accept other opinions as truth.".

So far, the deepest problem with Erica's speech is its rather hysterical tone and exaggerated claims. A valedictorian speech need not be an academic paper, and the over-the-top tone is - as many commenters have pointed out - quite typical of an 18-year-old writer. The real problem comes in Erica's solution. In favour of a Big-Brother style educational bureaucracy, she supports an educational system that strives to support its students in a personal quest for "the uniqueness that lies inside each of us" - a quest that signals the ideological emptiness underlying Erica's vision. In postmodern America, the central worldview is this: that reality is not objective but subjective - created and recreated, defined and redefined by every individual. Metanarrative (the attempt to explain the world on a large scale) is replaced by personal narratives scripted by every single individual, each of which is just as true as the next. It is these personal narratives that Erica demands the public school system uphold.

Here, Erica's argument falls short. A strong education is not one that simply releases its students into a freewheeling intellectual experience but guides their thinking along established thought, acquainting them with community traditions and beliefs and within this framework allowing them freedom to develop as thinkers. It is all well and good to argue that students should be made completely free, intellectually, but the truth is that each and every student (however much Erica ignores it) is already bound to the confines of a communal worldview. Is the student a feminist Democrat? A Goth? A traditional Muslim? Each of these identities bears a worldview as strong as the corporate one that Erica seeks to avoid, or the Christian one that many educational leaders today seek to avoid. For a teacher, then, it is impossible to entirely release students; they will never create their own worldview but will choose succeeding political and religious ones - right or wrong. The goal is simply to guide them to the point of decision. For a Christian educator, the goal is even greater: to guide the student to the point where they are able to independently choose to belong to the intellectual community of Christians.

Of course, this responsibility does not require students to "shut down" their mind nor slavishly accept every doctrine that their Christian teachers and leaders foist at them. As Milton reminds us, a "fugitive and cloistered virtue" unexposed to alternative points of view is no virtue at all, and an intellect sheltered from other opinions and beliefs is non-intellectual. A Christian thinker can challlenge ideas and form strong personal opinions as freely as anyone. Indeed, intellectual growth is crucial to spiritual growth, which requires that the believer "be transformed by the renewing of [the] mind." The key word here is "renewing": the reshaping of the mind to better understand and uphold a biblical worldview, the only correct worldview. As long as students will accept some worldview, as long as they are searching for a worldview, we as teachers must guide them towards the narratives of Christianity. There alone can students experience a breadth and a richness of thought, discovering in the end not their own "uniqueness" but Truth itself.

This summer, I have been reading St. Augustine's Confessions - albeit in fits and starts, a little here and a little there. Amid the just-for-fun books such as Xenocide and All Creatures Great and Small (quite delightful after graduate school), the record of Augustine's spiritual experience comes back to haunt me and to challenge my own spiritual growth.

Perhaps the most memorable vignette so far involves Augustine's mother, Monica - grief-stricken over her son's slide into heresy and his impending move to Rome, a symbolic move away from the Christian faith of his Carthaginian childhood. Augustine remembers that she follows him down to the wharf as he prepares to leave for Rome, that she guesses he is departing even though he lies and tells her he is only seeing off a friend. As Augustine slips away in the middle of the night, Monica is up praying desparately for her son's return - a prayer that God denies.

Augustine, however, does not conclude that God denied her prayers out of spite - something that cannot be attributed to our God. He does not conclude that God does not desire to provide for her nor even that God wished her to suffer through this period of division from her rebellious son - this final conclusion one that would perhaps be similar to conclusions that some contemporary believers draw. Augustine writes that God "saw deeper and granted the essential of her prayer", that He "did not do what she was at that moment asking, [so] that [He] might do the thing which she was always asking" - bringing Augustine to salvation, something that only happened once he reached Rome.

As believers, we notice when God apparently fails to answer prayer and we conclude that perhaps He knows that what we ask would not be good, or perhaps He wishes us to experience a period of suffering - both acceptable, and often true, conclusions. At a deeper level, however, perhaps God does not answer prayer, not because He wishes to deny us something, but because He wishes to grant us something good. Monica's desire that her son remain in Carthage flew in the face of her deeper & greater desire that Augustine be saved, and so God denied the one and answered the other. As human beings, we have many desires - for a job to pay the rent and grocery bills, for specific direction in every decision, for peace in our relationships with others. Although these desires are all good, as Monica's was itself good, these expectations may well hinder what should be our deepest desire: that we grow closer to God and become more like Him. And so, when God denies our everyday desires, we can rest assured that He is working to bring about those things that we truly desire most.

My plans were, of course, to arrive in the Czech Republic this August - to teach literature there, supporting the work of the local missionaries and mentoring my students in their relationship with Christ. This prayer God denied. What the succeeding months will show is what greater prayers He is answering through this one denial - prayers for those in Prague, and those of us here in the States, and our individual relationship to Christ.

In more specific news, I have seen 3 new monthly supporters join my team - bringing my support up to just under 40%! Additionally, I have received my Czech visa (I just need to send off for it through the mail). My hope is to be in Prague in January, thereby finishing out the school year & these steps show good progress. Thanks to those of you who are supporting me through prayer and finances at this time.

In recent news:

1. My support level reached 27% yesterday - hurrah! Although this is good progress, it is (of course) not enough for me to purchase my plane ticket & leave for Prague just yet. Please be in prayer as I continue to discover who God would have to support me.
2. I accepted a job at Kansas State University, teaching writing and literature there for the fall semester. No word on what happens after the fall (with any luck, I'll be in Prague), but until then, I'm looking forward to using this time to prepare financially for my missions trip and especially to work on my educational skills.
3. Finally, I promise not to regale you all with a theoretical justification of English - important as that is! Today's post is a story.

Many of you know that I taught Introduction to Literature at Kansas State University last year. Although I enjoyed teaching at KSU (and will be returning for the fall semester), I did feel some of the discomfort that comes from being a Christian in a secular environment. Last semester, however, was different.

Many of last semester's students were religiously skepticial, preferring to espouse animal rights or mixed-up ideas of justice or heroism or faith. There was one student, however, who was a believer. About five weeks into the course, she turned in a paper about hope after death, and I suspected. A few weeks after that, we had a chance to talk one-on-one (she was considering changing her major), and she told me her faith was important to her and that she was a believer - actually active in one of the student ministries on campus.

As the semester progressed, we had a chance to discuss her concerns about changing her major and the abilities she demonstrated in my class. I offered to pray for her, and she expressed her gratitutde. I also noticed her effort to speak up and defend her religious perspective in the class. Her presence in the class was an encouragement to me (as I hope mine was to her!) - a neat opportunity to experience the mentoring student-to-teacher relationship that is sometimes difficult to reach at KSU, and a good preview of what I look forward to at the Christian International School of Prague. Many of you have heard me say this before, but it's still true: in education, the relationship and not the facts matter. A teacher should support her students emotionally and spiritually as much as possible, not just academically - which is what I aim to do at CISP.

What do you think? What makes the teacher-student relationship a success, besides academics? How do you know you've 'made it' as a teacher?

Is English Worth It?

I have a cousin who likes to argue that English classes (particularly at the university level) are worthless. As evidence, he submits the composition and literature courses he took – three different classes, at three different universities including West Point, all of which he claims taught him nothing at all. These classes were not even intellectual: academic discourse in English is apparently easy to mimic (although I find the real thing difficult enough, when done right). According to my cousin, English literature is interesting – and little more. It is certainly not an acceptable college major.

My cousin studies history, and so I like to remind him first of all that any claim levelled against a liberal arts major such as English redounds upon his major as well. At a deeper level, however, these claims trouble me deeply. Academics in particular demonstrate a peculiarly navel-gazing tendency when studying English literature. Honestly, does the world really need a novel about a physically-handicapped and dysfunctional family of circus performers? (Please note, this book actually exists in the K-State university library). My cousin claims that his instructors accepted the most ludicrous arguments with a straight face in his composition courses. Although the individual instructor may be blamed in part for both errors, the state of the English major is not reassuring.

At the same time, I would major in English again. I would encourage students to enroll in compsition courses or to take literature courses as electives, even at a state university. I would advise interested students to major in English, even without a secure job waiting at the end of graduation. And (most importantly), I would defend the consistent study of literature and writing in high schools today. Although partially corrupted as an academic major, the study of English holds the key – in my experience – to higher-level thinking and even to maturity and growth as a believer.

Think for a moment about what a book is. It is not just a stack of paper bound together with thicker paper. Nor is it (usually) a story that someone made up for the fun of it, or a story that someone made up with the deliberate intent to deceive someone. A book is instead a record (fictional or not) of the way that someone sees the world, a record of the truths and experiences prominent in the world – a record that we as believers would do well to know.

A favourite professor of mine told her classes that “all truth is God’s truth” – that everything correct originates from one who is himself Truth. Any truth discovered between the two covers of a book is a stepping-stone towards a deeper knowledge of the true God. Anything that is not true in a book has a reversed benefit: by comparing falsehood to the truth of Scripture, we recognize divine truth more clearly and grow in the knowledge of God. My first year in graduate school, I enjoyed Underworld by Don DeLillo. The author speculated that faith battens on and develops from signs that are essentially empty: words that have no tangible meaning, pictures of saints that do not correlate to actual saints. According to DeLillo, this essential emptiness makes faith beautiful and worthwhile – hope amidst a hopeless situation. According to the Scripture, faith does in fact develop from signs such as words; however, these words are filled with meaning. Christ is Himself the Word: both the sign and its meaning, the perfect communication of God in human form – a truth I realized out of studying (and exposing) the theological difficulties of a novel.

I see in my cousin’s experiences some of the problems plaguing the study of English, but I look at my own experiences and see a reason to solve this problems – not to throw in the towel. At the high school and college level both, studying English offers the believer a lens that focuses the truth of the gospel and aids in distinguishing between truth and untruth, mixed-up as they are in the contemporary world. Boiled down, English (to me at least) has the following benefits:

1) It exposes readers to multiple spiritual perspectives and worldviews and therefore prepares students to encounter these in the “real world” after high school and college.
2) It encourages students to appreciate alternative perspectives. Much as we are tempted, laughing at or mocking other worldviews is not an effective testimony. As students encounter unusual perspectives, they can also develop a mature, biblical response.
3) It encourages students to develop their own worldview in response to others. As I reached new biblical conclusions about faith subsequent to reading Underworld, students should respond to unbiblical positions with their own, more refined arguments.
4) It exercises under-used brain muscles and introduces students to new activities. Amidst the Internet, video games, and the increasing demands of mathematical subjects, students have less time for reading than ever before. Although one course in literature may not make a lifelong reading convert out of a student, it can at least introduce them to the pleasures of reading.
5) It demands professional language in writing and speaking. Many writers like to begin sentences with the word “which”, as in The dog chased his tail. Which made the girl laugh. More writers forget how to use commas in writing, and nobody knows how to use a colon mark correctly. As believers, however, professional language usage is crucial in our testimony to the world – and writing and literature classes can help improve that.

Are there any items that you would add to the list?

I provide this list as an ideal: not what English classes do, but what they can do if taught correctly. I also provide this list as a set of my own goals as an English teacher. My time in Prague is not intended as a unique overseas experience (I could get that by going to China), nor is it purely an educational experience. It is an opportunity to share Christ with my students by teaching English – a subject that I believe uniquely suited for the opportunity. Please help me to achieve this goal: I appreciate your prayer & financial support, as God leads.