Читать книгу The Beginning and the End - Michael W. Pahl - Страница 5

My family deserves my never-ending gratitude for their role in my writing. It is, to be sure, mostly a passive role—putting up with my tinkering on the computer in the evenings or on the weekends—but the support of my wife, Larissa, and our children, Amelia, Michael, Matthew, and Adalynne, is very real, and always encouraging.

Thank you to Lendrum Mennonite Brethren Church—my employers, my ministry partners, and my community of faith over these past two years. Your encouragement and enthusiasm for my preaching and teaching is a much-valued impetus for me in seeking to express my ideas more widely through my writing. David Williams, Wayne Wicks, and all the good folks at Taylor Seminary and the Schalm Memorial Library likewise deserve many thanks for their hospitality during a study week that Lendrum provided, allowing me to track down references and (more importantly) to take a deep breath in the midst of the demands of pastoral ministry.

Thanks are due also to Chris Spinks and the rest of the crew at Wipf and Stock for once again taking on one of my writing projects. Your expertise and professionalism are second to none, yet this takes nothing away from your ability to make authors feel genuinely valued at a personal level.

I am grateful also to those who have read even some part of some version of the manuscript for this book along the way. My wife Larissa, my brother Steven, my colleague Chris Friesen—thank you all for your input into this project. The book is certainly the better for it.

Finally, I must thank all those who first endured the ideas of this book in their rawest form: my “Revelation” classes at Prairie Bible College and in the adult Sunday school at Mount Olive Evangelical Free Church; my “Theology of Creation” class at The King’s University College; my “Digging Deep” adult Sunday school sessions at Lendrum; and most recently my art retreat sessions on “A Theology of Creating” at King’s Fold Retreat and Renewal Centre. Many of the ideas presented in this book were worked out in my study in preparation for teaching these classes and seminars, and then fleshed out in the sessions themselves. The next stage of “working out” and “fleshing out” these ideas—bringing them to bear in the daily grind of real life—is still ongoing for the teacher and (I hope!) for the other participants. Thank you, my students and friends and sisters and brothers in Christ, for engaging these ideas, asking good questions, and pushing me in new directions. For all these things, this book is dedicated to you.