How Noisy is Our Church?

This past Sunday (June 24, 2012), I preached about the necessity for the church to practice her Christian faith.  So now, I ask – how noisy is our church?

Think about the last time you heard someone practicing an instrument.   Do you remember hearing an out of tune guitar?  Do you remember hearing a trumpet’s notes playing a little off key?  Practicing something means at times playing it a little wrong.  We learn by playing it wrong to know what does not work.  We also see the progression of growth as we look at one’s ability to play the first month of learning compared to playing the instrument for a year.  Even after a year, people can still play a little off.   There is always room for growth in playing an instrument.  There is always room for growth in practicing the Christian faith, in following Christ.  Do we hear the same ‘wrong’ noises in the church?

When someone is practicing the Christian faith, there will be times we make mistakes.  There will be times we play a little off.   The Christian faith is a journey, and we get to share this journey together!  As the Body of Christ, we get to offer each other encouragement along this journey.  There are very few people to learn how to play an instrument without the aid of a teacher or mentor.  The same is true for the Christian faith.  We need each other to faithfully follow Christ.

The church can be a place of encouragement for those times we need it.  The church can also be a place of encouragement for those times we need to give it.  We also need to be encouraged to play our faith and not simply work it.  You cannot work a guitar.  The piano is to be played.  Practicing and playing the Christian faith does not minimize the task.  Instead, we internalize Christ’s invitation to follow him and begin the journey by embracing the ups and downs, by being faithful amidst our misunderstandings.  It is the sounds of faithfulness that sustain us during our misunderstandings that we find Christ’s love and welcoming grace.

The church should be the nosiest place in town with the most awful sounds bursting forth into the community. So, I ask again – how noisy is our church?

May you experience Christ’s love, so you can in return show Christ’s love to others.

Danny

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Becoming a Pastor

How does one become a pastor to a particular congregation? There is the official process of sending a resume for an open position and the interview to follow, but this article will explore the process of becoming a pastor to a particular congregation once a position is accepted. The movie “Gran Torino” can teach how one becomes a pastor. “Gran Torino” came out in 2008 and was directed by Clint Eastwood. This article will look at the relationship that develops between Father Janovich, the local Catholic Priest and Walt Kowalski, the Korean War vet.

The movie begins with Father Janovich speaking at the funeral of Dorothy Kowalski, Walt’s wife. After the funeral, Father Janovich asks, “How are you holding up, Walt?” Walt replies, “Mr. Kowalski, that’s my name.” Immediately, the audience recognizes that Walt has no respect for the Father and does not see the Father as his priest. Before Dorothy’s death, the Father promised her that he would get Walt to come to a confession. Walt has no room in his life for the church or the Christian faith and has no desire to “confess to a boy just out of seminary.” It becomes very clear that Father Janovich and Walt Kowalski do not have a working relationship as the Father’s connection to the family was only possible because of his relationship with Dorothy.

As the story continues, Walt’s Hmong neighbors are attacked by a local Hmong Gang. Tao, the son, is beaten up, and Sue, the daughter, is beaten and raped by the gang. After hearing about this tragedy, Father Janovich visits Walt. Father Janovich begins the conversation by saying, “Mr. Kowalski, are you ok?” He continues saying that if he was Tao he would “want to stand shoulder to shoulder and kill those guys.” The Father also says to Walt, “I know you are close to this, but this pisses me off, Mr. Kowalski.” Walt offers the priest a beer, and he takes one. As the conversation continues, Father Janovich asks, “What are you going to do?” Mr. Kowalski replies, “Call me Walt.” This is the moment in the movie where Father Janovich becomes Mr. Kowalski’s pastor or priest.

Afterwards, Father Janovich is speaking at Walt’s funeral. At Dorothy’s funeral, Father Janovich talks mostly about life and death from a theological perspective with very little mention of who she was or the kind of life she lived. At Walt’s funeral, Father Janovich talks about who Walt was and how Walt taught him about life and death. As Walt’s priest, Father Janovich offers pastoral care to the family during the funeral as one who really knew Walt.

“Gran Torino” has many lessons and truths portrayed in the movie, one of them being the process of becoming a pastor to a particular person. Initially, the Priest is understood as someone separate, as an outsider. As the Priest responds to the injustice honestly and openly, he is welcomed into the person’s life. It is only by the minister sharing in the pain of suffering in the congregation does he/she become their pastor. It is through the difficulties of life and the sharing of this burden that the minister is no longer seem as the one who preaches each Sunday morning but the one beside people in their pain.

What is Theological Formulation?

Simply put, theology is the study of God. Theological formulation is the approach used to progress from the study of God to an understanding of God. Understanding God begins at a theological reflection but then moves to an articulation of that theological reflection. Theology not only wants to think about God, it also wants to say something about God. Since God is the basis of the Christian faith, theology must begin and end with God. The foundation of theological formulation is the question of God; Christian theology seeks to discover how knowledge of God affects knowledge of everything else. There are many questions that theology seeks to answer like the questions of the nature of a person, the nature of our sinfulness and the nature of God’s salvation, but each of these questions begin with the character of who God is. The concept of God is rich and deep in essence that allows theological formulation to take on many directions and questions about the Christian faith.

Doing theology is also more about the process of critical thinking than finding a solution. While people seek to discover who God is, they also accept that God will always be some type of a mystery. There is a difference between God and humanity as people are finite and God is infinite. Theological discovery embraces that the knowledge of God will never be completely attained. God is not some concept like knowing the mechanics of a car that needs to be ascertained. While theology does not lead to a particular goal to attain in the end, there is also some completeness within theology. The study of God may not lead to concrete answers, but it does lead to some clarity. The discovery found in theological study brings clarity to the Christian faith, but it also brings more questions. Theological formulation creates the necessity of discovering more questions. Theological formulation is faith seeking understanding as the Christian faith is trying to understand itself in light of new understanding available to humanity.

Cayden Getting His Arm Braces Removed

Two weeks after Cayden's second cleft lip surgery, Cayden is allowed to have his arm braces removoed.  As you can tell; he was very happy bending his elbows again and having full range of his arms.

Cayden Playing Peek-A-Boo

Praying in God's Language

Last week our youth group ended the discipleship time with a circle communal prayer. As each person prayed, there were four languages present. We had one youth pray in German; one youth prayed in French; two youth pray in Spanish, and the rest of us prayed in English. Even though we did not know exactly what some of the youth were saying, we know God heard our prayers. For many people, they need to travel to another country to hear prayers and praises to God in a different language; we are fortunate and blessed to hear other languages in our own community of faith on Wednesday night. While the use of language is one aspect of diversity, we try to embrace diversity within its difficulty; our prayer time is but one simple example.
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Cayden Rolling Over

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Biblical Canonization and Inspiration

When addressing the issues that pertain to interpreting the biblical texts, one must ask questions about inspiration, canonicity and revelation. Depending on how you answers these questions will lead you to how you interpret the biblical passages, especially the more difficult ones. In her article “The Bible and Feminism,” Sandra M. Schneiders addresses the thinking of the special status of the Bible in the church. She states, “Many people are under the erroneous impression that these two categories are related as cause and effect, [that the inspiration of the biblical texts caused these texts to be considered canonical.] In fact, the situation is virtually the reverse. The church holds that the biblical text is inspired because it has accepted this text as canonical.”[1] Thinking that the inspiration of the biblical text came first before it has been authorized as canonical diminishes the human aspect of the writing of the texts and the process of canonization.

Within the first few centuries of the church, there became a common census about what texts were regarded as authoritative, like the letters written by Paul and the four canonical gospels initially. Then the church councils meet to make an official list of these authoritative texts in the fifth century CE. The church community did not regard the texts as authoritative because the church thought they were inspired by God, these texts were authoritative because of their practical implications in the varying church communities. These tests also became authoritative because of who was considered the author, like an apostle. The apostolic authority led to many texts being canonical. Then once there was a common understanding of what texts were composed of the authoritative texts for the early church, it was a natural assumption that God inspired the writers when they were written. This process of canonization and then inspiration demonstrates how there was a development and process of the church’s approach to canonization and inspiration. The church’s understanding of the biblical cannon and inspiration took centuries to develop, but many Christians today take this for granted. This assumption about how the Bible was put together shapes people’s approach to biblical interpretation and application.

Many uses of the Bible in the church today leads to the thinking that the biblical texts were always regarded as authoritative, inspired and canonical, but that is not simply an accurate understanding of church history. When inspiration is applied first before the canonization, a person assumes that God separated a series of writings to be regarded as canonical, so humanity was passive in receiving what texts were to be regarded as “The Bible.” Then with this understanding of the texts, it is easy to take scriptural passages literal and not question if them as it could be seen as questioning God. This approach of interpretation removes the context of the author and recipients of the writing as all texts have a strict universal application. By understanding that canonization came before inspiration, the theologian is able to ask questions about the contexts of the first century.

[1] Sandra M. Schneiders, “The Bible and Feminism,” in Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, ed. Catherine Mowry Lacugna (1993), 40-1.
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Cayden's Cleft Lip Surgery

Before:

1 Day After:

As you can tell; Cayden had a very successful surgery. We will feed him with the syringe for 9 more days, and he will wear the arm braces during that time to prevent him from touching his lip. On the fifth day, his stiches will be removed. He is doing very well and has adapted greatly in learning how to eat in a new way.

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Cayden's First Easter

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Dream Capture Photography

Tammy and I took Cayden to get some pictures taken of him. We went to Dream Capture Photography of Lexington, Kentucky. Here is a link to flickr to see the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannywaynerussell/

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we are.
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Generational Differences

Earlier this month, my wife and I went to visit my family, so they could see Cayden for the first time. After talking to my grandparents, I was informed that my grandfather has never changed a diaper with two children, several grandchildren and many great-grandchildren. Now one could argue that my grandmother exaggerated his lack of involvement in the diaper changing, but that seems doubtful. During most of my grandparents lives, especially when they were taking care of a family, he worked in the local factory and his own farm, while she stayed at home to take care of the children. Because my grandfather provided for the family financially, it was assumed that my grandmother would be the primarily caregiver. Now this is no way a bad reflection on my grandfather's role as a father or grandfather. Within his generation, he was not expected to do that type of caregiving after a long day of hard work.

Now, we come to this generation. It is interesting to see that as a father, I am expected to change diapers. If I assume that it is the 'woman's' job to do the diaper changing, I am considered a bad father and bad husband. Even if my wife is able to stay at home with our son, I will still be expected to change his diaper when I am home. Oh, how times as changed. While I am not upset that being a good father and husband may require some diaper changing, I am merely making an observation between the differences of my grandfather's generation and my generation. Also, since my father is caught in the middle of this juxtaposition, some fathers of his time were more involved in this specific type of child caregiving, while others were not. This has been translated to me as something expected; I wonder what fatherhood will look like for my son or his son (if he has one), once their generations embrace fatherhood.
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Our Baby Announcement

(Done by: Dream Capture Photography -- Lexington, Kentucky)

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Our Family with Cayden at 1 Week Old

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Cayden's Beautiful Face

Here is a minute clip of Cayden in my lap:


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December 26, 2007

My beautiful son was born last Wednesday. Cayden was 20 3/4 inches long, 8 lbs 8 oz., and was born at 9:56pm at St. Joseph East, Lexington, Kentucky. It is both amazing and overwhelming to see myself as a father; I am certain more posts will come, but I am excited about the new direction my life and Tammy's has taken these past nine months and the years that will come. Here is a picture of him:

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How De We Get To Heaven?

As I was listening to a podcast, a person called into the previously recorded program. He asked what the host's interpretation was in how people get into heaven. The host of the radio program and podcast responded first by connecting heaven to the resurrection from the dead and sharing the newly created universe. The host then began by talking about trusting in Jesus, recognizing that we are all created by God, who we owe our obedience and trust. All people have fallen from that as sinners; we are God's enemy. We are to look at the cross, as Jesus on the cross took our sin and bore our punishment that is due to us as sinners. That Jesus was raised from the dead conquering sin. We are to ask God to count Christ's death as our death, Christ's condemnation as our condemnation, Christ's resurrection as our resurrection. We are to be found in Christ, hidden in Christ, so that, when you see each of us, you see Christ. When a pennant sinner turning away from sin, sorrowful from sin, looking and trusting that God will receive you in Jesus Christ, that person will be received as scriptures guarantee it. This person will be able to get into heaven. (If this sounds stilted, it is intentional; I tried to quote the host as much as I could without adding my thoughts into his answer)In Mark Chapter 10 and Luke Chapter 10 and Chapter 18, Jesus is asked, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" In each of these three stories in the Gospels, Jesus responds by asking a question about following the law. And in Mark 10 and Luke 18, Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor. In Luke 10, Jesus adds the Parable of the Samaritan.

Is there a difference in how the host of the podcast and how Jesus answers the question in the scriptures? Are they saying the same thing in two different ways? It seems that Jesus gets to the point directly – the actions of the person, how one lives his/her life. Some might argue that the host of the radio program would get to how one lives, but he articulated the answer within propositional thinking. His approach to ‘getting into heaven’ was accepting yourself as a sinner separate from God and trusting in a substitutionary view of atonement. Trusting that the punishment you deserve from your sin is placed upon Christ on the cross. It seems that many would articulate salvation in propositional thinking because people want clear directions. Jesus answered through a vague question about how one is to live his/her life from day-to-day. If the rich young ruler sold his possessions, then what was he to do? How many times must we love our neighbor as the Samaritan loved his? Too many people try to put salvation into a pretty box that leads to the life hereafter by propositional thinking, but Jesus connects internal life to the present in righteous living.

In Acts Chapter 16, a prison guard asks Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” They respond by answering, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.” When Paul answered this question he did not respond as Jesus. It seems that Paul put an emphasis on belief, while Jesus put an emphasis on actions, or we could be putting our preconceived notions on what Paul was saying by belief through the lenses of the Enlightenment without letting Paul describe salvation on his own terms. Even if Paul did not answer differently than Jesus, our present day approach to salvation seems to reflect a more Pauline approach through belief than Jesus’ words through the approach that focuses on actions and righteous living. Many times we are so focused on living in heaven we forget to think about how to live on earth.
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3-D Ultrasounds

Tammy and I went to Lexington Fetal Photography to acquire more detailed pictures of our beautiful little boy. Here are some of the pictures:


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Pictures of Our New Vehicles

Here is my 1999 Ford Ranger XLT

Here is Tammy's 2002 Ford Escape XLT

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The Addition to Our Family

Tammy is pregnant! This ultrasound is almost two months old; Tammy is due on Christmas Eve. We go on August 9th for our next ultrasound, which then we will be able to discover the gender of our baby.
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