Is there a doctor on board?

February 19, 2015

Is there a doctor on board?

As I sit and write while traveling on a plane back to Los Angeles, I am overcome with raw emotion.  Surrounded by strangers, the tears are silently streaming down my face.  If any one notices there will be no shame in this.

This ride home comes after a three and a half year journey down a path of personal academic pursuit.  I was an average student in high school who decided during the gap year to go down the path of professional theatre instead of going to college.   When I finally did cross the threshold of a college campus it was so as a young man in spiritual transition.  What business did I have in pursuing a doctorate degree?

Fast forward to the present,  I look back to the past and hardly can believe the opportunities that God has afforded me.  The privilege of being trained and serving as a Salvation Army officer for over three decades; being married one of the most brilliant, strong, smart and beautiful people I have ever met; obtaining a Masters Degree from Fuller Seminary; being a part of the pioneering work of the Kroc Center ministry for the nation and teaching and being in leadership role at the training college for the past 9 years, I am a grateful man.

I wanted to take a moment to capture the essence of this day.  I worked for the past three years on a doctorate degree.  The focus was on spiritual formation for ministry leaders.  Really, it was a focus on my own soul.  The Lord has spoken deeply and has cut me deeper still in this course of study.  Through member of my cohort, the instructors, and my mentors, I sit here today a different man.

Am I perfect?  Nope.  Have I obtained anything?  Yes, and I promise its much more that just a piece of paper and a new title of Dr. Foley.  I am more attuned to the working of God in my life and around me more than ever.  What happened today was a culmination of a very long pilgrimage.

As I defended my work, “The Salvationist and the Sabbath.” I was put to the test as to where I stood on a variety of theological points, personal musings of what the problem of the thesis was and the cause there in. 

I had what I call a few what I call “Walter Mitty” moments where a question was asked and my mind went blank.  Dry mouth, sputtering words, rambling thoughts, all just seemed to stream out.  But I was told I was coherent.

I was asked what I learned about myself in the entire process of this journey the past three years.  I quickly answered that I feel I have learned to be attuned to God and the cadences of my own soul.  The reader and mentor smiled.

I was asked to leave for a bit while notes and comments could be exchanged.  I walked the long hallway of this historic place, in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.  I went to the cashier to pay my outstanding debt, browsed the tiny bookstore and made my way back upstairs, just standing at the end of the hall way waiting

No one ever passes this, I was told, without modifications to the dissertation.  It is not a given, so come prepared and show engagement with your work, I was told.  What seemed like two eternities but was really only 15 minutes, I was summoned to the office to be told the results.

The two thumbs up sign from my mentor was the best gesture I ever have seen.  I was told there would be some things that needed to be added here and there. Tinker with this, tinker with that.  But.

You passed, Tim.  Poster child of the Dmin program I was told.  This is how they like it done.  Hugs, handshakes and smiles abound.

I was overcome with emotion when Dr. Currie prayed for me.    The tears flowed freely.  Was it not only a sense of relief and a realization of a job well done, it was more out of a sense of humility of once again the opportunity that God has given to me.

So exactly what does a Doctor of Spiritual Formation for Ministry Leaders do now?  He plays with his trains.  He rests.  He prays for discernment and direction for next steps. He makes himself to lean into God with others.  He keeps reading.  Writing.  Listening.  Learning.

I have only barely scratched the service here with this topic.  I do plan to put my defense into a short book.  I was told I have already written the outline in what I shared in this meeting today.  I want to be intentional in engaging in sabbath: ceasing, resting, celebrating and embracing.  Not on some legalistic or guilt based trip but more in a way to help myself, and others to learn to live lightly, and freely again.

With special thanks to my wife Cindy, my children, Laura (and Adam Fyn!) Alex and Victoria; to my colleagues at CFOT, the Cadets and staff, to the instructors and  members of my cohort  who spoke into my soul at Enders Island and the campus at South Hamilton, and to Dr. Dave Currie and Dr. Stephen Macchia, I am eternally grateful for your prayers and support.

I will be submitting for publishing bits and pieces of this here on my blog, hopefully in Word and Deed, the Officer Magazine and in book form within a year.  I plan to unpack those four words the sabbath centers on.

So if the question is asked, I can honestly answer: “Yes ma’am. There is a doctor on board this flight. “ Yes indeed. (ironically, they did ask for a 'medical doctor' to ring the bell on one leg of my flight home.  Don't worry...I didn't push the button in that situation!)

 On the left, Dr. David Currie, director of GCTS Dmin progam and reader of dissertation; on the right, Dr. Stephen Macchai, director of the GCTS Pierce Center, President of LTI (Leadership Transformations) and my mentor through this project.  I am grateful to God for these two brilliant and godly men.  February 19, 2015 at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.