An Intense Intensive

Thoughts from a Grimké Intensive

This past week was our first Intensive for Grimké Seminary for the fall semester. If you’re unfamiliar with how we structure our semesters at Grimké, we have a normal academic-length semester for non-residential students who travel to Richmond, VA for an on-site intensive twice each semester that consists of three days of (you guessed it) an intense block schedule of lectures.¹ Here are some of my brief reflections on the week past:

• Engagement - The students were engaged from the start. With non-residential academic training, you might expect students to need a few lectures to fully engage with course material. That wasn’t the case for these students. The unanimous comment of the professors was that students participated in and engaged with the lecture material from the start of the first lecture. I have thoughts about why, but I’ll save those for another post (hint: philosophical buy-in for our educational POV).

• New and Old - Among our one hundred enrolled students we’ll graduate our first class at the end of this year and we welcomed first-semester students this past September. It was a joy to celebrate both our graduating and new students at this Intensive.

• Professors and Staff - The biggest reason I count it a privilege to work for Grimké is the quality of the professors and staff. These are true professor-practitioners who are subject matter experts in their field of study, love their students, are committed to our educational style, and enjoy spending time with one another.

• Writers - It was a blast to co-teach a lunch seminar on becoming a better theological writer for academic and popular theological writing. I’ve always wanted the chance to shape the next generation of theological writers. At Grimké, I finally have it.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Coaching

I’m grateful to Grimké for giving me the opportunity to grow as both an editor and a professional coach. Some of you know that I had the chance to coach eleven students over the summer as I accrued client hours toward earning my ACC with ICF.² Some of the guys I coached over the summer I met in person for the first time at this intensive. I’m grateful for phones and Zoom calls, but nothing beats sitting across a table from a guy that you’re coaching.

Podcasting

One of the guys I coached, Chris Moran, invited me to be on his vodcast.³ We finished recording about an hour ago. Chris was a skilled host and it was a joy to be on his vodcast. I always learn new things when I’m talking about topics I love—Jesus, Christian growth, leadership training, emotional awareness, editing, and coaching. My time with Chris was no different. I’ll include a link when it’s posted.

Parting

Thanks for reading this far. This is my experiment with a short-form newsletter, designed to let my friends know what is going on in my life.⁴ To be honest, I’m not all that excited about Twitter, Instagram, and Substack. But I also know that we all were put here to serve others. I’m excited about serving Grimké students and the leaders I have the privilege of coaching. So I hope this newsletter has served you in some way. If you have ideas for upcoming posts, let me know. For now, just know how grateful I am for you.

1. Each block is two hours long. So, a student who is taking four classes guts out eight hours of lecture for three straight days for each intensive. Needless to say, Grimké students (and professors) are committed individuals.

2. I’ve finished my sixty-three hours of coach training and finished over one hundred hours of coaching hours. I’ve submitted my application to the ICF to earn my ACC. Who knew that they had an average turnaround of fourteen weeks from application to approval? I’ll keep you posted.

3. I was especially grateful for antihistamines and NSAIDs as I started the vodcast. On Saturday I was pressure washing my vinyl siding. My sweet wife brought me apple cider in a closed water bottle. Not thinking, I left the top off of the water bottle. In my neck of the woods, you need to consider such things in late spring and early fall because yellow jackets abound around all sugary liquids. Unbeknownst to me, two yellow jackets flew into my water bottle. At my next swig, by the time I recognized the “gritty-ness” of the cider, and could spit out said yellow jackets, I had been stung on the inside of my cheek. So for the weekend, I looked like either an MMA fighter or a proponent of chewing tobacco. I was grateful the swelling had subsided enough by this morning to be relatively unnoticeable on camera.

4. I’ve experimented with Revue, Mailchimp, ConstantContact, and now Substack. I think I’m developing a viral view of content publication online. I’ll write more on that another time.