LOST SLEEP AND LATE NIGHT GUIDANCE

My dissertation project is shaping up as a retreat geared toward high school students and young adults who desire to think through the basics of Christianity and begin a regular habit of personal Bible study. 

Months ago I put a date on the calendar to motivate myself to make progress on my degree. At first, the retreat was going to be this coming weekend, Friday night to Sunday morning - at a really sweet Baptist camp not far from my church. 

But early in January, as Trudy's health was undeniably failing, I called the camp and pushed the retreat to their only other available weekend this spring: February 21-23.

Which is now just over three weeks away. 

And I don't have my curriculum in shape, much less all the adult help lined up. 

So last night, a growing anxiety stole several hours of my sleep, leaving only 3 and a half behind.

So today was rough. 

I think it might be good to take that as a sign. Maybe I am jumping the gun and need to postpone the retreat until the fall.

After all, I have gotten ahead of myself in two crucial areas. 

1) I have not even written my prospectus yet. Or rather, I have written it once and it has been rejected once - for good reason, I can now admit. I have reworked my thinking on the exact nature of my ministry model and my Scriptural undergirding, but I have not resubmitted my prospectus.

I have not even begun to rewrite it!

And so, on a related note ...

2) I have not yet finished processing my core ideas for my project. It's coming along, but not finished. Currently, for example, I am preaching on Paul's letter to the Colossians - which is my core text for the dissertation. But I am learning so much as I go. And I realize I have more to learn.

By the time I processed all my anxiety last night, I found the only "good" reason to not postpone the retreat was out of pride. I didn't want to look like a failure to my wife, the church, the youth, or the camp. 

But I think I might have found an inspired way to still pull a win out of this. Maybe I will keep the February 21st date and make this into a "Retreat Planning" Retreat. It could be very useful to find out what the teens currently believe, what they already practice, and theological questions they may already be wrestling with. 

Maybe it will be just overnight on Friday night. And I can keep it lowkey and easy and fun - and I don't have to have all my curriculum ready to go. 

In the meantime, I will get a fall date on the camp calendar and get going on rewriting my prospectus so I can do this in the proper order.