Entries Tagged 'Doctor of Ministry' ↓

It may be a corny play on words, but it’s one we’ve heard a couple times already — by one of the members of my dissertation committee and also a fellow student at the doctor of ministry dinner last night — both saying that we’d be a “pair o’ docs.”

The weekend began with a dinner for D.Min. graduates Friday night, and continued Saturday morning with an early morning rehearsal for the commencement ceremony which took pace this afternoon. It was a great day to complete a major chapter in our lives!

We feel gratitude — we’re grateful to God for his guidance and blessings throughout this part of our journey. We are also grateful for all who have supported us with their words and/or prayers. We also feel a huge sense of relief as this part of our journey comes to a close.

It was a wonderful day. We were happy to spend it with family members — Joleen’s mom and step-dad, Randy’s dad and step-mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. In fact, this weekend has been Ethan’s first time to meet and spend time with Randy’s family.

We *may* add a new graduation-related photo gallery to the photos page after we collect photos from family members, but in the meantime, here are some images from the day …

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Wow. It’s been a long journey, but we’re finally reaching the finish line!

The home stretch of the dissertation-writing process involved preparing the final draft of our dissertations after we received the last edit from the editor at Asbury (see The Rest of the (Dissertation) Story and One Step Closer to see recent lists of tasks in the final stages of our dissertation work).

We received our drafts from the editor last Thursday and completed our revisions Monday and Tuesday, printed a copy, then dropped them off at Staples to be copied (we’re required to submit multiple copies). We picked them up today and will deliver them to the D.Min. office at Asbury on Friday.

Tomorrow, we make our last 9-10 hour trip to Kentucky (as part of this program, anyway), and will have most of Friday to relax before kicking off graduation activities Friday evening with a dinner for Doctor of Ministry graduates.

Saturday morning, we have rehearsal for the commencement ceremony followed by a worship service in the historic Hughes Auditorium on the campus of Asbury College (across the street from the seminary). After lunch, graduation activities will conclude with the commencement ceremony, beginning at 2:00 pm.

We’re excited about celebrating this milestone. We’re also excited that my family (dad and step-mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew) will get to meet Ethan for the first time as they join us for a few days in Kentucky (they live in Tennessee). Joleen’s mom and step-dad will make the trip with us as well.

We’re tacking on a few days of vacation after graduation in order to get some rest before coming back home to jump into packing!

You might be interested in going back and reading this post from last October (a couple weeks after we learned Ethan would be joining our family) — If Baby Willis Could Speak. Amazingly, things pretty much played out the way we hoped they would (and needed them to)!

Here’s the photo again from that October post (which was a tweaked version of a photo from the first set of photos we received; Ethan was just over 3 months old in the photo).

And there’s a new photo of Ethan, who was a huge motivation for us, especially during the final stages of this journey. The new photo, taken this evening, is a photo of Ethan helping us celebrate the final products.

Good news: we both successfully defended our dissertations!

Over the course of 84 hours, we drove to and from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY (nearly 20 hours roundtrip), and met with our dissertation committees:

• Randy met with Russell West (mentor), Chris Kiesling (second reader), and Milton Lowe (D.Min. team representative).
• Joleen met Russell West (mentor), Stephen Martyn (second reader), and Tony Headley (D.Min. team representative).

We showed up at the appointed times for our hearings, then the committee members went into a closed room for 30 minutes to get their heads together. That time was the most nerve-racking part of the whole experience.

The defense hearings went well and were very affirming. At the end of the hearings, our committees sent us out to make their decisions. Fortunately, that part of the process only took about 60 seconds or so.

We came away with mainly minor changes to make in the next week or so. Following those changes, we will submit copies of our drafts for one final technical edit. After making those corrections, we will print and mail our *final* copies (due May 9).

We have been referring to our dissertations as the “projects that never end.” Thankfully, they are finally coming to an end!

Ever since we brought Ethan home 9 weeks ago, we’ve wondered how this trip to Kentucky would go, mainly because Ethan doesn’t always handle the car seat very well.

But Ethan traveled surprisingly well. He got a little tired and fussy toward the end, but that was understandable — it was a long trip, and a long time to spend trapped in the car seat. Thankfully, the trip didn’t take us much longer than it normally does.

However, while we focused so much on the drive here, what we did *not* expect was how Ethan would react to a strange hotel room.

After we arrived at the Asbury Inn, we went for a walk. By the time we got back to our room it was Ethan’s bed time (which we sometimes refer to as EBT).

We gave Ethan his bottle and tried to put him in the pack-and-play crib, but he resisted and cried — loudly. As it turned out, he fought sleep (amazingly well, I might add) for the next 3 hours. We finally put him in bed between us (at home, he always sleeps in his crib).

Ethan had a short, restless night. He tossed and turned a lot — it was rather dangerous as we both took shots to the body by Ethan’s flailing feet and hands.

I think I got about 5 hours of interrupted sleep, then had to get up and review/prepare for my dissertation defense, which thankfully was scheduled for the afternoon (we plan to report on both defense hearings Friday or Saturday).

Today, Ethan did pretty well, but as EBT neared, he began to fight sleep again. Fortunately, though, he went to sleep (in our bed) a little earlier tonight (10:30 pm).

The experience here reminds us that Ethan is still in transition. Though he is doing incredibly well, “the takeaway” has left a mark (whether he remembers it or not). While we expect him to grow healthier in time, it will take a lot of love, understanding, and patience on our part, especially when we experience an occasional setback.

Well, we need a good night’s rest tonight — Joleen’s dissertation defense is scheduled for 9:00 am and we will be driving home after lunch.

Here are a few images from Asbury …

Ironically, I remembered today that the last time we were here, we learned that this little guy existed and was going to be ours. As we wrap up this part of our journey, this place holds a special place in our hearts. As challenging as the last 24 hours have been, we’re glad Ethan gets to experience this place with us (assuming the rest of the night doesn’t go *too* badly ).

During our first two months with Ethan, we’ve experienced a number of firsts. This week, we will experience another first — a road trip.

Tomorrow morning after breakfast, we will drive to Asbury in Wilmore, KY where we are scheduled to defend our dissertations Thursday afternoon (Randy) and Friday morning (Joleen) before driving back Friday afternoon and evening.

The trip normally takes us about 9 hours, but that’s with minimal stops. We expect the trip tomorrow and Friday to take longer because we’ll be traveling with Ethan. The question is, how much longer.

Adding to our concern is the fact that Ethan is not a big fan of the car seat idea.

We’re hoping for a good trip with Ethan, and for a good report on both of our defenses!

Whenever we return from traveling (or at the end of some important experience), we’ll commonly ask each other: How was the trip? It gives us an opportunity to reflect on things we enjoyed, things we didn’t enjoy, things we learned, and things we’ll carry with us forever.

Here at the end of our 10-week journey (i.e. parental leave), which involved going to Korea to get our baby and 8 weeks of creating a family with Ethan, it’s a good time for us to reflect on our trip.

General Highlights …

• Time in Korea. We enjoyed our time there, experiencing a new culture.
• Making new friends at the Korean Methodist churches, especially the small group with whom we spent our first evening with Ethan.
• Spending time with Ethan, getting to know him, sometimes entertaining him, and many times being entertained.
• Introducing Ethan to family and friends.
• Completing our dissertations (mostly).
• Memorializing this experience and inviting others on the journey with us, through this Web space.

We’re grateful for God’s incredible gifts to us. And we look forward continuing this journey with God and each other.

Just before the local post office closed this afternoon, we mailed our defense drafts — 3 copies from each of us — to the doctor of ministry office for the members of our dissertation committees.

Every step is one step closer to the finish line.

Throughout this program, which we began more than 4 years ago, we’ve experienced a lot of pressure, and at times, a lot of relief (e.g., the end of each class and at various milestones of the dissertation writing process). But this step brings the greatest sense of relief so far.

We’ve got a *few* steps left, including …

• Defend our dissertations at next week’s defense hearings in Kentucky (mine on Thursday and Joleen’s on Friday).
• Then, we’ll have three short weeks for final edits, including, (1) making committee-recommended changes and (2) making final revisions after our drafts are edited one last time.
• Then, we go to graduation — in 46 days!

Along with the extra sense of relief tonight is an extra dose of gratitude for God’s presence and help throughout this part of our journey!

After lunch today, we needed to split shifts between dissertation work and hanging out with Ethan so that we can mail them tomorrow afternoon.

At the time I went to my computer to get started on my work, Ethan thought it was a good time to play peekaboo. So we did.

Life can be a real balancing act, at times. That’s always true, and it’s especially true for us these days with finishing up dissertations and caring for Ethan.

That will also be true when we go back to work around the middle of the month.

Life is an adventure. That’s never been more true than now!

On Friday, we received our second round of edits from the editor at Asbury. And just like the last time (Seeing Red), there’s a lot of red marks on the pages of our drafts!

The edited drafts came about a week late, leaving us only a week to return three cleaned up copies to the faculty members of our dissertation teams, so the rest of this week will be a bit stressful (but also exciting, knowing that the finish line for this part of our journey is getting closer!).

Thankfully, we’re working our way through the list of remaining tasks, which we posted earlier. Basically, after making the revisions in the next few days, it’ll just be a matter of getting ready for defenses (see Defenses Scheduled!), then making any changes recommended by our team members. Then at last, one final edit by the editor and one last round of red marks to plow our way through.

It’s funny. Our mentor describes both of our writing as clear and clean (in terms of grammar). Man, if our writing is clean, I’d hate to see our edits if our writing wasn’t clean!

In our dissertation work (at Asbury Theological Seminary), Joleen and I chose Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as the strategy for our field research (at the suggestion of our mentor, Dr. Russell West).

AI, which grew out of Dr. David Cooperrider’s Ph.D. work in the 1980s, is a response to more traditional approaches that tend to focus on problems. Rather than focusing on problems, AI focuses on discovering and building on the life-giving forces within an organization. A core belief of AI is that in every organization, something works.

AI has flourished as an organizational development strategy and has been used in many organizations, including Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), World Vision, American Red Cross, and United Way of America (check out “The Art of Appreciative Inquiry” to read more on GMCR’s experience with AI).

The Framework
AI is a process and is commonly described with the 4-Ds (discover, dream, design, and deliver) or the 4-Is (initiate, inquire, imagine, and innovate). I prefer the 4-Is, myself.

• Initiate involves laying the groundwork for the AI process, including the selection of the topics that will be addressed. A core belief in AI is that what is focused on will determine the direction of the organization.
• Inquire centers around interviews which seek to draw out positive stories about times when interviewees have seen things working at their best.
• Imagine brings the stories (collected in the interviews) together so that themes can be identified.
• Innovate involves developing practical steps to turn vision into reality.

Implications for Transformational Leaders
We believe AI has tremendous implications and possibilities for leaders who seek transformation in their organizations, because …

• AI is collaborative. AI involves many people (potentially everyone in the organization) in the process, giving everyone a chance to contribute to the direction of the organization.
• AI gathers stories. These stories not only provide insight into the life-giving forces of an organization, they also serve as resources in casting vision to keep the organization moving forward.
• AI focuses on what’s right, not what’s wrong. Whereas focusing on what’s wrong (what’s not working) is de-motivating, focusing on what’s right (what’s working) is motivating and energizing. (This is not to say that problems are ignored; rather, they must be reframed.
• AI generates positive action. The point of AI is not simply to learn what the life-giving forces of an organization are. Rather, the point is to maximize those life-giving forces and create positive action.

We plan to incorporate AI into our own work of transformational leadership in the churches we lead.

To learn more about AI …
Here are some books and Web sites we’ve found helpful …

• Appreciative Inquiry Commons
• The Taos Institute
• OvationNet
• Clergy Leadership Institute
• What is Appreciative Inquiry? (Andy Smith’s overview of AI)
• Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination (Watkins and Mohr)
• The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom)
• Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change (Branson)
• Appreciative Inquiry: Research for Change (Reed)

I’m sure we’ll write more about AI in the future as we further integrate it into our leadership. We may also share the experiences/results of AI processes from our dissertation work. In the meantime, feel free to discuss AI in the comments section and/or to suggest other must-see AI resources.