At TAFE

I'm studying a Business Administration Certificate III at TAFE. In June I will get Certificate II & I'll see if I can get a really suitable job, & if not I'll do the Certificate III part at the end of the year. I found it's too long since I've worked for me to get a job, so I'm doing this course to make myself employable, then I hope to get a part time job as an administrator or even an administrative assistant & go back to Tabor College where I did my Diploma of Ministry & finish upgrading that to a Degree of Ministry (2007?), then enrol in a Graduate Diploma of Theology they offer at Tabor College in Melbourne, which would mean moving cities sometime from 2008. After that I would like to upgrade that to a Master's Degree somewhere & then become a lecturer in Theology in a bible college somewhere in Asia. Greg & Ken Blue are trying to set up such a college so hopefully I would be working with them.

As part of the course I am spending six months studying Business English. They are teaching us 'Plain English,' putting everything we write in the simplest language possible in the active voice, to use short sentences & avoiding the use of jargon where-ever possible. This class should be of great benefit to me & all those I attempt to communicate with in the future. As my ultimate career goal is to be a lecturer in Theology, there are a couple of books I hope to write and even as a musician writing songs, this will be a lot of people. In the past I used to say of myself I could say in only one page what most people took an entire sentence to say, I am an inveterate user of the passive voice and guilty of using the occasional word I should know might not be in my audience's vocabulary.

I've been spending my available time catching up on all those projects I've wanted to do for ages but haven't had the energy to do. Also lots of socialising & catching up with friends. I caught a jazz band with some friends a couple of Friday nights ago. It wasn't anything musically amazing, just a Christian band playing a gig at a church to try and win a few souls for the kingdom of God through jazz, but it was the most entertaining night I've been to in a long time.

I've also done a short sound recording course which was to train me to be able to use the recording studio at the Redfern Community Centre, & considering how much sound recording I've done for Brackets & Jam & getting trained at my church to do front of house & doing that a bit for church (I've switched from bass to sound desk for the time being), I'm at the point where I could think about working in sound engineering. In the near future I want to do a CD of songs I've written to give away to friends & relatives, probably at the Community Centre but possibly at home on my own gear.

Also at the moment I am doing the Elijah House Prayer Ministry Advanced Course, which used to be called a counselling course, but because it's just a short course & you need a degree to be called a counsellor now, they call it 'prayer ministry.' Between all these courses I've been pretty busy for the past month and a half & will be for the next couple of weeks or so, but the sound recording course finished a couple of weeks ago & the counselling takes next weekend & the weekend after that & after that I'll just have TAFE 3 days a week.

Last weekend I attended a short seminar on the gospel of John by Dr C Baxter Kruger of Perichoresis. His insight into the trinity has shaken up the theologies of many people who have heard him.

Blessings,
Joe :-)