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> I appreciate the thoughts you offered regarding my Context paper. I
>am a bit frustrated by the fact that everyone seems to be asking me to
>"narrow" my description. It almost seems as if all this suggestion to
>focus is referring to my project rather than my Context. I do not see
>that there is a particular limitation to how we should describe context.
>And David, Paul, and yourself have all remarked how my context seems to
>be less "measurable" than others. It is, in fact, largely a context
>that is only beginning to unfold before our very eyes.

I think your reaction to the comments is a bit over-reactive. Everyone is looking at where you are going with a project (myself inculded) and we are struggling to understand what your project will look like. I have difficulty separating your "context" from your "project." As i understand it, your project is a Model of Ministry that shows how you (based on who you say you are in your personal perspective) interact with your context (what you describe in your context paper). With this perspective, I do not know how to separate your project from your context. Can you help me with this. As you describe your context, you must give us (your mentors and your peers) something that we can understand relative to a Model of Ministry. I hope this is helpful. We are not trying to restirct your thought process and your vision, we are trying to get you to focus on a particular piece of it to use in your DMin project. I had the same problem when I did my dissertation. My mentor had to advise me that I would not be able to solve the problems of the world in one dissertation, and further that if I bit off too much, I would never finish my dissertation, and hence get my degree.

From Dale to JT, Thursday, March 3, 1994 10pm

I think that maybe we have muddied the waters a little. At first, I was describing something which seemed to david to be moving away from a context description and prematurely into the project stage. So I backed up and concentrated on description of the context, which I see as the scene where technology and church/theological community meet. This seems to me to be a helpful way of describing the "context" of my ministry.

So I am a bit confused when you state:
   

Isn't the project the subject of the synergy paper? If so, then why are we trying to figure out what my project is? Even so, this should not be a mystery. I have stated precisely 11 times what my project is: It is the online newsletter, along with its print counterpart. (The print counterpart will address directly the problem you pointed out about how people will not respond because of the technology, but "because I have made the information available in a more efficient manner" (from you in note #38 of this meeting. This is precisely the mission of the newsletter, and it is ingrained in the motto of "New Media Communications", my operating name. But more of this will come in the synergy, where I perceive it to belong.

> I have difficulty separating your "context" from your "project." As i
> understand it, your project is a Model of Ministry that shows how you
> (based on who you say you are in your personal perspective) interact
> with your context (what you describe in your context paper). With this
> perspective, I do not know how to separate your project from your
> context. Can you help me with this. As you describe your context, you
> must give us (your mentors and your peers) something that we can
> understand relative to a Model of Ministry.

My context is the world which I have described in the Context paper. My project is the Online newletter "New Technology Review" and its print counterpart. I will be introducing the development of the newsletter distribution (online and in print form) in the synergy, which from what I understand, is the place where personal perpective and context meet to form the synergy of the two. So, I do not know why this is being asked now. David pointed out to me in my pre-paper reflections in this meeting that he was concerned that my focus was moving prematurely toward project and away from my context description. That warning served to help steer me away from thinking about project to concentrating on the project.

Still, I have mentioned the project by name several times. So I do not see how there could be confusion about what that is.

> We are not trying to restrict your thought process and your vision, > we are trying to get you to focus on a particular piece of it to use in > your DMin project.

I never thought anyone was trying to restrict me, only expecting to see "project" a little too prematurely, before the place reserved for its description, which seems to me to be the job of the synergy paper.