Graduation and other oddities

So I graduated (again) on Saturday (07/07/07 - won't forget that date in a hurry!)
I am now David G Slater, B.Sc., B.A. (Theol.)
For those who are interested, my B.A. Theol is with majors in New Testament with Greek, and Practical Theology. I worked hard to ensure that my module choices gave me a double major or alternatively the option to choose one of two majors in my potential Honours year that I'm not now doing, including taking 30 credits more than I needed over my three years, and now they (my majors) gets very little mention. So much for Pride...
I am also trying to sort out going to Glasgow University, where I will (hopefully) get some more alphabet extracts to drag around my formal correspondance.

This is because the Kirk have accepted me as a Prospective Candidate in Training for the Ministry of Word and Sacrament, and the Presbytery of Irvine and Kilmarnock have nominated me as a full Candidate so assuming that I do all the relevant studying, attend the Candidates' Conferences, have three successful Student Placements and a fourth Probationer's Placement sustained, complete Church Law and Bible Knowledge Portfolios and probably get examined on walking with my left leg behind my right ear, I will nearly be a Church of Scotland Minister (assuming that one of the umpteen vacant charges is in agreement with myself and Cath that we are called to be their minister and minister's wife and they are called to be our charge).

But in spite of all the ifs and ands, it's been a big milestone that I have temporarily lost sight of through finishing my term, and indeed my time at ICC (you can tell I lost sight of it by the fact that it's almost 2 months after acceptance that I'm blogging it!). Before I was simply studying Theology in faith that God had called me to ministry. Now I have some sort of 'Status' in that representatives of the ?biggest denomination in Scotland (at least the biggest Protestant one, surely?) have confirmed that calling and I am 'in until I'm out' rather than being 'out until I'm in'.

This probably doesn't make a lot of sense, and isn't what I was going to post on in detail when I started. But bed is beckoning so the other oddities will have to wait. Still, at least I'm back blogging - it may not be regular or daily but I am still here. Anyone reading this who hasn't yet fallen asleep, please post to say hi.

Incidentally, I haven't come to any great conclusions about our new PM except to agree with Nick Robinson's description of him as 'Not Blair'. Which, let's face it, is a good start...

New World Order

Am I the only one who finds reports of Gordon Brown's 'new world order' slightly sinister? See the BBC report and Nick Robinson's blog entry. I don't have a fully developed eschatology, as such, and take the scenarios portrayed by the Left Behind series and similar with a large pinch of salt, but it begins to make you wonder... how will things all end (if you're premillenial posttribulationist... if you're a pre-trib and a Christian then perhaps it's not quite so relevant!). I can't quite visualise Gordon Brown as the antichrist, but you never know...