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November 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I’m happy to say my mostly silent and lengthy absence is over. I successfully defended my dissertation last Friday, November 22, 2013.

Many things have changed for me and our family during this period of research/study. Among the most obvious are that we relocated to Texas and I am now teaching at Arlington Baptist College and had a baby boy, Zachariah. There have been a lot of other changes, too.

My friends who know something about the relative value of various stressful situations say that my stress level has been off the charts during the course of my doctoral research for the following reasons:

1. I had a career change.

2. My dad died.

3. We made three moves: international, in-state, and in-city.

4. We had a baby.

5. We bought/built our first house.

6. I taught full course loads each semester while researching and writing:
Fall 2011 – 12 hours
Spring 2012 – 12 hours
Summer 2012 – 9 hours
Fall 2012 – 15 hours
Winter 2012 – 3 hours
Spring 2013 – 15 hours
Summer 2013 – 12 hours
Fall 2013 – 18 hours

7. I started a business, Discipleship Travel LLC, which specializes in Israel Tours.

8. I led 3 tours to Israel.

9. I wrote 136, 206 words and referenced 309 other works in my dissertation as well as wrote a journal article for publication.

10. I taught a weekly adult Sunday School class for one year.

My friend, Todd Bolen, who recently completed his PhD at Dallas Theological Seminary told me something to the effect of “after you finish your dissertation, it doesn’t get better. Other projects keep coming.” I’ve already got a number of things waiting in line, many of them involve writing. I’m hoping to do a series of journal articles that come from my dissertation, and am considering a few books, too. So, stay tuned and let’s see what develops here.

Filed Under: Family Life, PhD

You Asked About My Research

September 4, 2010 by 2 Comments

First, I’m surprised that anyone is still here. I wouldn’t blame anyone for abandoning this site. After all, I abandoned it first. 🙂 Anyway, I hope this is a sign that posts will be here more regularly.

I’m honored that (soon to be Dr.) Danny Frese is interested enough to ask for some details of my PhD work. So, Danny, here goes:

My program is a PhD in Missiology – Science of Religion at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. UP has a large residential research doctoral program in a host of fields, theology being one of them. I’ve read that it is actually the largest research PhD center in Africa, which may or may not be saying much. UP’s program is built on the British research-only model and has a number of respectable institutional partnerships with European Universities. And I understand the School of Theology is working on some type of institutional partnership with a US institution, but I don’t have any more details, like which institution.

They have given me an exemption from being in Pretoria on a regular basis since my research is specific to where I have been living. (For those that aren’t aware, we are mostly in the States for the next year visiting our supporting churches. I’m currently scheduled to be in Israel at least 2 times for research during this year.) I did have to agree to be present in Pretoria any time my adviser says I need to be there.

[Note: UP should not be confused with UNISA, the University of South Africa. They are not the same in many respects.]

In general, I can say that my research deals with conversion to faith in Jesus – the process, barriers, and social ramifications. Rather than reading the “how to” books by the experts, I’m interviewing those who have actually come to faith, asking them about their experience. I’m finding their stories are quite different than the experts seem to suggest. (I’m being purposely evasive here, but will send my proposal by email if anyone I know asks.)

In the end, I’m hopeful that my research will be a helpful knowledge base of what is actually happening in this region.

Filed Under: PhD, You Asked

PhD Research Proposal Approved!

September 3, 2010 by 3 Comments
I was surprised with good news yesterday: I received official approval of my PhD research proposal. I was also surprised at the relief I felt when I saw that my proposal had been approved.
I submitted the proposal in early May, so I’ve been waiting on pins and needles almost four months. My adviser let me know that World Cup 2010 would delay the process since all state universities in South Africa were required to adjust their schedules to accommodate the World’s largest sporting event. But that didn’t make it any easier to wait and wait and wait. 
I’ve struggled with proceeding very much with my research because I’ve been afraid that I might need to make some major adjustments to my project framework; and I think struggling with the pressure/desire to move forward (to actually get something done!) but not wanting to go too far is the pressure I felt float away when I received this news.
I was confident in my proposal because I had worked hard on it, refining it several times to meet the guidelines. Also, I had a few qualified friends make helpful comments that improved it’s quality. And my adviser, who is supposed to know about this kind of stuff, said it was a very good proposal. 
However, since there was so much riding on the “whims” of people I don’t know and my adviser had “warned” me that it’s almost automatic for the committee to return proposals, even good ones, with some recommendations to improve the document, the delay was causing me to feel some uncertainty that my work would be satisfactory.
So, I was quite happy to get this notation at the bottom of the evaluation form:
Aanbeveling / Recommendation
That the proposal be approved.
[Dept Head Signature]
Evalueerder / Evaluator: Prof. CJP Niemandt
Filed Under: PhD, Surprises

A PhD Dissertation is . . .

February 18, 2010 by 3 Comments

After scanning the titles of (literally) over 1000 different dissertations and reading parts of about 20, I’ve come to the conclusion that writing a PhD dissertation simply represents the opportunity to park a lot of big words next to each other in such a way that only a select few can understand their meaning.

I hope mine is different.

Filed Under: PhD
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