Thing one:

LMK your support plans for the coming calendar year. My income and expense sheet is currently negative heading toward Thanksgiving. Nothing unusual there – budgets usually catch up and sling-shot forward with year-end giving. Part of my deficit this year included the amount rolled over from the last fiscal year (nearly $3K shortfall). Currently my deficit is a little higher than usual. Concerned, but not panicked.

Click here to give to Tim’s support.

On the encouraging side of things, I have been able to find several increases from current donors and a few new supporters this Fall. In a coming post, I’ll give you more of an idea of what my goals are for ending the fiscal year next June. I do have a larger than normal funding goal. My schedule will be changing next semester in order to allow me to use more of my time for new fund development. Meanwhile, please pray for my calendar year-end giving to be strong this time around. And pray for the work I am doing now to dive into intensive fund-raising in January.

If you are one of those year-end, annual givers. Please use the link above to send your gift. I’ll keep you posted on my finances between now and January. Thanks so much for your support!

Thing two:

Tomorrow morning I travel to Illinois to be present at a funeral. The wife and mother of a young family has battled cancer the past three years and finished her fight on Monday of this week. I’d love your prayers for the Portwoods. If you’d like to know a little about Janelle, you can read about her at this link. Several of you reading this know Mike and Janelle and have been praying and following her experiences.

They are a remarkable family of faith, hope and love. I’ve been blessed over the years to have their prayers and support in my InterVarsity ministry. Mike was on various leadership teams at Illinois Wesleyan back in the 90s! Please pray for the visitation (which is tonight, Nov 11th). Pray also for Janelle’s funeral which is tomorrow. Lord, please give me safe travel over and back from Joliet, IL tomorrow.

Thank you so much for your prayers. If you want to let me know your support plans for the coming year, please just text me back or email me below.

Well, we’ve gone off Daylight Savings Time… I believe for the last time… EVER? Not sure what that will mean, but for now it means I start feeling like an animal in hibernation. In my younger days I used to love the fact that we got an “extra hour to sleep-in”. At my age, it just feels like an extra hour to lay awake in bed!

In addition to nightfall coming early, November is the month we all begin hearing from churches and non-profits about year end giving and annual pledges. If you’ve been a PBR reader for a while, I’m usually asking you to fill out a ministry response form. This year, I’m going to try something different. Toward the top of each post between now and the end of January, you’ll see my little LMK reminder. What does LMK mean (some of you might not be proficient in Text-Speak)? LMK = Let Me Know.

I would love to know what your plans are for either year-end giving or your 2024 ministry partnership with me. No response form this year! Just LMK your plans via replying the text you received or emailing me at the address below. I’ll be giving you updates on where my support level stands (I do have significant needs as I move into the new year). I’ll let you know what my new support goals are. I’ll also make it easy for you to find my donation page if you are typically a year-end giver.

Click here to donate to Tim’s ministry

A ministry highlight I’ll mention this time was my Fall Faculty Reading Group. We experienced what I’d call a book-discussion Triple Whammy! 1- A really interesting topic. 2- A very practical, basic book that led to great discussions, and 3- A very workable format that helped us sustain a simulating conversation.

The topic was Transgender Identity. The book was Preston Sprinkle’s Embodied. And the format was a mid-semester, 6-week discussion (partly in-person, partly via zoom sessions). Faculty are very busy people – they really appreciated the middle part of the semester (6 weeks in a row starting in late September). Each time we discussed two chapters of Sprinkle’s book. That meant significant conversations that spanned all 12 chapters of the book. Faculty actually enjoyed the pace – meeting weekly kept us moving through the book. Eight faculty participated from a wide variety of disciplines (philosophy, marketing, medical physics, nursing, social work, and political science).

Things I noticed during the reading group:

• Faculty are wonderfully analytical and ask terrific questions.
• There was not a hint tension among anyone in the group.
• Earnestness. Each person had a truly curious and teachable spirit.
• Most had a very personal investment in the topic (a family member, a friend, a colleague, parents wanting to understand their kids development and social contexts).
• Working today on campus every faculty member must be alert to transgender issues with their students.
• Having such a variety of disciplines added to the breadth of perspective.

The reading group was the most stimulating thing I had a hand in doing all Fall. I’d highly recommend Embodied if you are also curious about Transgender Identity and understanding it more accurately. Another title I’d highly recommend reading if you are new to the topic is Mark Yarhouse’s book Understanding Gender Dysphoria. I’ve read both books in the past year. Let me know if you are also learning about the topic.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for your support and prayers! I’m so grateful for how your giving allows me to do a mission in our universities. May God continue to bring his kingdom among our academic departments including faculty and grad students and professional students.