Happy New Years Eve
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 31, 2007
Well, the move is over… lots of driving and lots of unpacking. I’m exhausted, but about to go to the airport to pick up the family! So excited to see them and bring them to the new house.
Hopefully next week I’ll get back in the posting groove. I’m taking Hebrew 1 during the Januray term and it is online… so, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.
Till then, Happy New Year!
Happy Christmas Eve
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 24, 2007
Happy Christmas Eve to all!
We’re with family today and tomorrow and then I get to drive a moving van for two days. Internt access will be off and on, so posting will likely not be for a couple days.
Keep us in your prayers!
See ya soon.
Still alive
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 21, 2007
Super busy lately. I turned 30 yesterday and spent a good 3 hours shopping for health insurance (weeee). Went out to dinner with friends and ended up sitting at the table talking for 6 hours. It was a great night.
Today I have to rent the moving van, get renters insurance, change auto insurance, call the cable company, the power company, and the utilities. I then need to dumpster dive for moving boxes… oh, and go to the dentist.
Busy, Busy, Busy.
The past 48 hours
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 16, 2007
Wow… in the past 48 hours I’ve:
- Ridden a total of 12 hours in a car
- Covered 12 square miles of seminary town
- Called about 35 realtors and home owners
- Asked the question, “can you tell me about the house?” over a dozen times
- Committed “breaking and entering” at one house (though no real breaking took place)
- Had two home made smoothies
- Been inside 3 potential rental houses (legally)
- Peaked into, probably, 15 potential rental houses
- Gotten into and out of the car, probably, 75 times
- Played with a dog
- Saw a, probably, rabid ratquilrmunk (rat-squirl-chipmunk hybrid)
- Been attacked by a 3 pound dog
- Been nauseated at a very bizarre community where everyone was white, drove BMW’s, and had horses on their shirts
- Been awoken (twice) at midnight by a vibrating phone
- Missed my wife and kids tremendously
- Searched for houses online for 3+ hours
- Gotten a major project covered by a friend
- Worn short sleeves and flip-flops while enjoying 74 degree weather
- Had one really strong cup of coffee
- Spent a lot of really great time with my brother
- Got to spend less, but very enjoyable, time with my pregnant sister-in-law
- Saw a strange house with a LOT of yard art and a mural of a waterfall painted on it
- Felt nauseous on and off (probably stress related)
- AND FINALLY, found the perfect house for my family to live it for the next year!
Thanks to all who prayed for me. It has been a crazy week and next week is in que to be about the same (included in the week is my 30th birthday). I’m currently at the airport and I think I might nap on the flight home… I think I’ve earned it.
6 ways to save money in seminary
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 15, 2007
- Take it down a notch - Americans love their space. However, have you notice that the rest of the world is not so space obsessed. I am always humbled when I see images of other countries where entire families live in 1 and 2 bedroom houses. I am also reminded of how our grandparents and great grandparents used to live… 10-15 kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom house. However, many of us are now accustomed to having our own rooms… Well… maybe that needs to change. In fact, Just a Gal and I are pretty sure that in our new house Littleman and Sweetpea will be sharing a room. It feels odd since they have had their own rooms for a while now… but the rest of the world does it… so, lets save some money and downsize our space requirements.
- Live near school - Gas is EXPENSIVE. If you’re going to be traveling back and forth every day, it only makes sense to cut down on the commute. Living near the school could save up as much as $200 a month!
- Two words “Brown Bag” - That’s right. PB&J for lunch again. I know the chinese place across the street from campus has the best sesame chicken… but fight the urge. Packing a lunch could save you $300 or more a month! [Read more]
House Hunting day 1
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 15, 2007
It is 8:30 a.m. and I’m feeling lazy. Not having kids to wake you up in nice (yet strangely sad)… thankfully there is construction going on next door to remind me that I have work to do today.
I had dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and two of their friends. One of them mentioned that a friend of theirs had just rented a 3 bedroom house in an area that we want to live for a price that is in our budget… so, that was encouraging.
We’d really like to live near my brother and sister-in-law. They are pregnant and expecting in July. So, we’d like to be close in order to help them… and we just really like them. It’ll be a lot of fun to see them more often.
So, time for breakfast and coffee… then out the door to begin the adventure. Hopefully I’ll have some good news to post this evening!
House hunting
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 13, 2007
Going to look for housing this weekend. The ball is rolling fast over here. Likely moving in 2 weeks and we haven’t packed a single item… and I turn 30 in 7 days… crazy days friends. I’ll post as time and energy allow.
House sold… ?
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 12, 2007
Well, in a recent post I mentioned that our house had not sold and was thus causing us to reconsider our plans for seminary… well, today (3 days before we were going to take the house off the market) our Realtor called with a contract in hand… More details to come… but this is amazing!
The Best Seminary
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 10, 2007
A good number of people end up at goingtoseminary.com by searching some derivative of “best” and “seminary.” So, I figured I should take a moment and address the topic.
Actually, the real motivation for this post was a thread I read on a forum today that started something like this:
“What is the best seminary? Money isn’t a factor.”
That was it… nothing else… Just tell me which one is best.
Two days later 40 people had posted their 2 cents about this seminary and that seminary and why everyone else was wrong. It was really strange to read the responses. I tried to set up an account so that I could give some advice to the young man, but for some reason the forum didn’t like my post and it was rejected twice… so I gave up.
What I wanted to say to the young man and to all who query “best seminary” is that there isn’t a single “best” seminary. The reality is that the right seminary for me might not be the right one for you. That is why I go to great lengths at goingtoseminary.com to not reveal what seminary I am attending. I think that each of you need to do the hard work of asking yourself what it is that you are wanting to get out of your seminary experience and then find the seminary that best meets that need.
For example, if you really want to study and learn about urban church planting… then you probably don’t want to attend a seminary that is out in the woods somewhere and has no classes on church planting. Make sense?
To find “the best seminary” takes time, energy, and effort. It requires you to examine your own heart. It requires prayer. It requires getting council. It requires talking with professors and visiting campuses. It takes work…
So, what is the best seminary? You tell me…
How I decided to quit my job to go to seminary
Written by W. Ryan Burns · December 8, 2007
Going to seminary has always been a desire of mine. Well, maybe not always… but for a long while. I’ve even tried my hand a taking seminary classes online. In the end it never panned out for me. So, when and how did everything change for me? Well, the story goes something like this:
About 4 years ago my wife and I moved from the south to the not-quite-north. The move had lots of factors… FAR too many to go into here. But we packed the car and headed on the journey with a couple thousand dollars in the bank and an apartment waiting for us. The main reason we ended up in our city was because of a pastor and friend who had recently started a church was here and had mentioned that, at some point, there might be a job for me.
So, my wife and I started working off jobs and just scraping by. After abut a year I spoke with the pastor and discussed my desire to return to full time campus ministry (that is what I had been doing in the south for the 3 years prior to the move). We agreed that it was good timing and started to work towards me coming on staff. The one catch is that, as a campus minister, I had to go out and raise a financial partnership team. Some of you know what I’m talking about… for those who don’t, basically I went to lots of people (friends, family, friends or friends, and so on) and explained my passion to see college students impacted with the gospel. I then asked if they wanted to partner with me financially. And, low and behold, some did.
Now, the problem was that I was REALLY bad at the whole process. While I managed by God’s grace to get enough money to live, it was always tight and difficult… then we added little man… then a house… then sweetpea… then a mini van… over the years our expenses increased, yet income didn’t quite keep up. I was forced to work second jobs and long hours. It was always stressful… We were getting by, but we weren’t sure how long we could keep it up.
Finally, last summer we spent some serious time asking God what we needed to do. I could not see spending another year working 60-70 hours a week to just scrape by… not knowing if it would be a “good” month or a “bad” month. We felt like the grace might be up for this season of life. So, we asked God, “if not this… then what?”
Seminary.
It seemed like an odd answer. We can’t pay the bills now, how will we pay them there? How could this work?
Well, we prayed, talked to friends and family, and thought about it a lot. After about 3 months of consideration… I quit my job. Now, that sounds harsh, and it really wasn’t. My pastor was very supportive and agreed that this seems like the right thing at the right time.
So, here we are… 6 months later… according to our plans we should be packing boxes and preparing to move back south… none the less, that is not what seems to be happening.
So, that is how it went down for us. We’re still in the process. God used (uses) His word, our situations, our friends, and the passions he has given us to help us know where we need to be and what we need to do…
and, by the way, while the story might have sounded rough, I must make it abundantly clear that we have lived a very comfortable life and God has never left us unprovided for. There were times it might have been a little tough, but God has taken care of our every need and many of our wants… To Him I am grateful forever.
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