Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Back To School!!!






And nope this is not a blog about the students here in our church, this is about me. Patrick McDaniel is going back to school. I am in my first semester of my MAR (Master of Arts in Religion) at Liberty University. Kudos to Liberty for making this available to pastors in such an accessible way (pastors if you would like to know how accessible let me know). Notice I said accessible, not easy: some people have taken knocks at online education, and in the past I was one of them. There are still some courses and subjects that cannot be done well online (like preaching practicum, and foreign languages), but other than that online is right on par with on campus. Liberty does its best to give you the best educational experience ever.

I do remember in my undergrad in Nashville (Free Will Baptist Bible College) that a class with more than three books was considered a killer, in fact any class with more than one text book was complained about. But here in Seminary everything is a little different, 300 pages per week of reading not to mention discussion forums, tests and papers. Its a good thing I like to read! Just for info, one of my classes has eight books for reading, yes 8! Once again, good thing I like to read.

Jill and I are excited, and just think in about two and a half years I will be done with my MAR and my MDIV and looking for that ever elusive PHD. Busy, busy, busy. I gotta get back to my reading now.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

PGA Championship at Okland Hills

Well, maybe you can already guess, I was able to spend a day athe the 90th PGA Championship just up the road in Bloomfield Township. Just about the first thing we did was go to the pro shop and buy this flag. When I bought it I was thinking it will be worth it for four signatures, but little did I know that I had many in store for me. We spent the whole day between the 7th and 8th holes and asked for autographs as the players came through. It was awesome!!! What is funny, is that most of these guys I had never heard of, and the ones that I had heard of didn't even make it past the cut this week. What's tough is that one of the guys that held the lead for a while and ended up finishing 3rd gave us the stiff arm when we asked for his autograph.

If you haven't been to an event, even if just to watch the practice rounds you have to get out to watch these guys play, because as the commercials say: "These Guys Are GOOOD!!!"