It’s been a long couple of years away from my project. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to return to it or be able to see it through to completion. It’s been an exhausting couple of years since my last post here. But I’m back. And while I considered withdrawing from the program and cutting my losses, I have been strongly encouraged to see it through to completion by my advisor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (now at Truett Seminary at Baylor University) and my secondary advisor at London School of Theology who both refused to let me withdraw. They were able to do away with a few seemingly insurmountable hurdles, including a lack of funding and differences with a previous secondary supervisor in order to put me back on track.
So as of February of 2024, I am back in the saddle and aiming to submit my dissertation to my advisor on June 30 of this year. This is the final push — I will either succeed or not, but I will not fail by lack of effort or choosing to withdraw. It is a matter of finishing the second phase of the research (semi-structured interviews with collaborative churches) and having enough data from which to draw meaningful conclusions and upon which to build a new model for collaboration and preaching for the local church.
So I’m back. I figured I should update the blog to reflect this.