Say What?

Remember that one time that God did that thing where he gave super specific instructions to a bunch of shepherds who were wandering around in a desert? He even set it down in stone so there would be absolutely no doubt as to what was supposed to go down. But even then, people still didn't seem to know what in the world to do and so they spent 40 years wondering and wandering in a big circle.

Flash forward a few millennia - God kind of gave up on the whole setting things in stone idea; it was a tragic fail the first time, and has caused all sorts of strange things since, best not risk that tactic again. So instead, we get to sit around scratching our heads trying to navigate the world of "calling" and "vocation" and "purpose". Making "goals" and doing "strategic planning". Trying to "keep doors open" and "make room for God's will in our lives". Great...

Forgive the sarcasm, but does nobody else see the absolute vanity of this jargon? Is this really the best way Christians have for talking about how to figure out what to do with our lives? Lived experience doesn't really seem to line up with these patronizing answers (big surprise).

So, how can we go about figuring out how to live lives that line up with Christ's will for our lives? I really have no idea, it probably looks differently for everyone.

Honestly the only answer that makes sense is so clichéd and christiany that it hurts to type it, but I think praying about it is the only thing we can do. This sucks for someone like me who never could get the hang of praying, but maybe that's the reason so many of us are wandering and wondering, we simply aren't really praying.

That being said, the prayer that Jesus taught us doesn't guarantee us answers to our question of "So what's next Lord?" To that he says, "Give us THIS day our daily bread"... hmmm sneaky Jesus.

So once again I find myself back to where I started with this whole thinking, living, and being a Christian thing. "And these three remain, Faith, Hope, and Love". I'll have faith that by asking for my daily bread in constant prayer and petition, the hopes that I have will be transformed to the way of Love and in some way I'll find myself accidentally following Jesus.

Here's to putting our hope in things unseen! (cf. 2 Cor. 4:18)

What is Theology and who does it?

This spring I graduated from Providence University College with a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical and Theological studies. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will be pursuing further education and theological training throughout my life but unfortunately for me, that means alienation from most members of my home faith community. Theology as a discipline is misunderstood, doubted, and ultimately dismissed - and the practitioners of such a discipline are looked at askance as being at risk of losing their faith. Roger Olson has recently written a series of posts exploring this which I have included links to below. I found that, while I have not reached the PhD level in this field, I am already beset by the attitudes and prejudices he describes. Theology is the lifeblood of healthy churches, the worst thing Christians can do (so of course it is the very thing we do), is remove it from our church life. If I could make a tentative gesture towards what I believe my vocational calling is in life, it would be to work towards rectifying this theologically and therefore spiritually bankrupt position the church has landed itself in. I hope these posts of Olson's challenge and encourage you.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
(*To the list of theologians at the end of Part 3, I think a must add would be Stanley Hauerwas.)

Form Matters: a Suggestion for the Leading of Corporate Worship

I would like to begin this discussion of the use of music in Christian worship with an historical survey of three major forms of music that have been used in western worship throughout church history. (Disclaimer, these descriptions are rather simplistic, as it would take far too long to fully establish how each of these forms came to be established and for that I apologize in advance).

The first of these forms is chant. Before the development of harmony in tonal music, chants were used as the music of the Church. Originally derived from the Jewish practice of chanting Torah and the Psalms, Christianity used chants in worship from its earliest expressions. Chant remained the dominant form of worship for the church through to the Middle Ages and is still used in many traditions today. While musically rather unsophisticated, chant is easy for worshippers to learn as it utilizes simple melodies and is written to fit the shape of the text. This form is often used in a call and response fashion where the cantor begins a phrase and the congregation responds, or antiphonally, with two choirs, or halves of the congregation responding to each other. Worshippers get a sense that the words they are chanting have the weight of tradition; this is how Christians from time immemorial have worshipped, and the worshipper joins into that tradition becoming one voice in the eternal choir of the Church. The interplay between leader and congregant, or different sections of the congregation, reminds worshippers that we live in community with one another. As this is a text driven form, the theology of such texts is often incredibly rich and orthodox. Many texts are derived straight from the scriptures or have been the established texts of the church for centuries. The simple undecorated melody, while perhaps squelching personal creativity, reminds worshippers that God speaks through the Church and the Amen is sung in the unity of humility before the authority of Christ. There are of course criticisms that can be leveled against this form, especially when it is insisted upon as the only appropriate form of Christian worship. It can be seen, especially through modern lenses, as an affront to personal creativity and expression, in other words, it can appear stifling of the individual. It is not my purpose to defend any particular form, as all forms of worship are ultimately fallible and susceptible to corruption. But I would suggest that perhaps the use of chant today would be appropriate to bring into balance the out of control individualism that our current culture suffers under.

The next form we shall turn our attention to is that of the hymn. Often written in four-part harmony, modern hymnody derived much of its melodic inspiration from the popular music of the time, mainly famous snatches of opera music, or catchy drinking tunes from the local pubs. This redemption of culture can be seen to glorify God as worshippers set right the disordered things of this world that have fallen astray. The text of hymns is gradually unfolding, and so all of the verses should be sung to appreciate the narrative nature of this form. Many people make the claim that hymns generally have better theology than modern music, this is frankly not true; there are many hymns with absolute rubbish theology, the thing is, they’ve all been forgotten and the hymns we continue to remember are generally the classics. The use of the four-part harmony allows all members of a congregation to find his or her place in the music. Whereas other forms can be sung in a key too high for some and too low for others, theses harmonized pieces create avenues for each voice type to be able to worship at a comfortable level. The end result of a harmonized piece of music is a song that has a definite direction, but the intricate interplay of voices, the tension of dissonance and resolution, creates a rather robust picture of how humanity itself interacts. So in the form of the hymn we get participants worshipping in a manner that reflects the way in which they live their lives, constantly in various stages of tension or resolution with one another but ultimately creating a glorious sonic image of rightly ordered creation presenting itself before the Creator. This is a very incarnational picture of the Church worshipping the incarnated one. As one hymn says, “All God’s creatures’ got a place in the choir, some sing low, and some sing higher…”

Fast-forward to the present day. With the advent of the Vineyard movement, the Seeker church, and various other evangelical and charismatic strains of Christianity, the Praise and Worship chorus has sprung up as immensely popular. Once again reflecting the popular music of the times, this music allows for great personal expression, creativity and improvisation. There is a certain freedom from the oppression of established guidelines that allows artists, or worship leaders to act spontaneously under the guidance of the Holy Spirit without the fear of interrupting the liturgy, or messing with a sacred form. It is a highly emotionally charged form which allows worshippers to easily become involved in the music, usually utilizing simple repetitive lyrics that are easy to learn and improvise on. Worshippers may sing melody or choose to make up their own harmonies as they are led to do so with the ideal effect of a mass of people singing one theme while elaborating and decorating it with all of the unique attributes that God has blessed his people with.

Now, an admonition to the worship music leaders of Churches. This brief sampling of church music is but a sketch of the plethora of musical options available to the Church. I have said nothing here of spirituals, chorales, Taize, etc., but I’m sure you are aware of the broad expanse of options. Now some traditions may be more tightly identified with certain forms than others and that is ok, but for churches with freedom to experiment, do not limit yourselves to one form! Chant allows for great unity, but can become stifling and oppressive, and congregants may easily disengage from it. Used appropriately however, it can become a great meditative tool and re-introduce a sense of the sacred and ancient traditions of the Church back into our liturgically bankrupt services. As a singer of choral music, I myself rather enjoy hymns, and deeply appreciate the intertwining of my voice with that of my brothers and sisters in a great symbol of human solidarity and diversity. However, I recognize that in many communities, the tradition of choral music has faded away so that many will find this form difficult to enter into as some formation of skill through practice is required. As so many in evangelical churches today are unable to use this form, it may bring much benefit to a congregation to introduce the singing of at least one hymn per service, encouraging worshippers to use the hymnals for these songs rather than projecting the lyrics on the screen. In this way, worshippers learn to listen to one another and to find their proper place in the harmony rather than being bulldozed by a melody that may be quite difficult for their voice range to sing. Finally, I feel that I have the most words of correction for the Praise and Worship genre. This is due largely to the fact that it is the form with which I am most familiar, and while I have had many wonderfully meaningful worship experiences within this form, I have learned also the pitfalls of it. Too often, as in our secular pop music, it is tenor or soprano voices which tend to dominate this genre. Many of the songwriters write melodies that are largely in the upper register, or, because they are all trained singers, range from a very low point to a very high point. This makes it difficult for many worshippers to join in as their voices simply cannot sing the notes that the leader is capable of. Great care should therefore be taken to choose keys that are at a moderate range to ensure that the maximum number of untrained singers will be able to raise their voices in praise. As for improvisation and elaboration; a certain level of this may in fact be appropriate, but leaders must be constantly aware, especially in presenting new songs, that most members of the congregation will not be able to follow sudden vocal elaborations or solos. When a singer does this, he or she effectively transforms from a symbol that leads the congregation into worshipping God, and becomes an object of attention in his or her own right. There may be room for some exclamatory vocal celebrations, especially within the context of a familiar, repetitive song where there is no way the congregation will be led astray from their assigned part in the song; but I would caution against the individuality and glory grabbing that the performing of solos so often accomplishes. As all of the forms that we have discussed have their roots in the culture in which they grew up, so too does the Praise and Worship form. As individualism is the dominant paradigm of our culture, this form tends to celebrate and promote it more so as well. This is all well and good, for which each one of us come to Christ as individuals, but at the same time, we are part of the Church, we are communal beings, just as the Trinity is communal, and so we must take precautions against stressing individualism too much.

Choose your forms wisely therefore, being conscious of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Use variety, for as God has revealed himself with many images, metaphors and names, so to should our worship seek to glorify him with the varying images, metaphors and symbols that these various forms create. The way in which we worship, will inevitably shape the type of people we become. It is impossible to assume a certain posture before God, and practice a various way of life in our worship, and not be effected by it. The way we practice our worship before God should be done with care therefore, keeping in mind the type of Christians we desire to be formed as. As James writes, “Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). Be mindful of the ways in which our worship leads us to the realization of this goal. For that is the true goal of worship.

A brief theology of daily life

Conventional wisdom gives us many pithy sayings such as, “We’re here for a good time, not a long time”, “YOLO (you only live once)”, “Live for the moment”, etc. Most Christians are rightfully horrified at the apparently flippant attitude towards life that such slogans seem to promulgate. Yet Qoheleth writing in Ecclesiastes reminds us that indeed much of life is meaningless, a mere chasing after the wind. All of our plans and schemes so often come to naught that it would be wise to learn to eat, and drink, and enjoy our lives. Rather than being “busy” always (my constant crime), we would do well to learn to rest and enjoy the day that the Lord has made. As Jean Vanier reminds us in his book Community and Growth,

If we are in community only to ‘do things’, its daily life will not nourish us; we will be constantly thinking ahead, because we can always find something urgent to be done. If we live in a poor neighbourhood or with people in distress, we are constantly challenged. Daily life is only nourishing when we have discovered the wisdom of the present moment and the presence of God in small things. It is only nourishing when we have given up fighting reality and accept it, discovering the message and gift of the moment. If we see housework or cooking simply as chores which have to be got through, we will get tired and irritable; we will not be able to see the beauty around us. But if we discover that we live with God and our brothers and sisters through what has to be done in the present moment, we become peaceful. We stop looking to the future; we take time to live. We are no longer in a hurry because we have discovered that there is gift and grace in the present of the book-keeping, the meetings, the chores and the welcome. (Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, 170).

When rest has been established, and an appreciation for “life in the moment” has been cultivated, God’s immanent work in his creation becomes exceedingly, abundantly clear to our eyes, we can say truthfully along with the songwriter, Lord, “these days I can’t find where you’re not”.

Life is a gift, Christ’s purpose in coming was not to negate that gift but to say yes to it. He has established a reality in which Life can be lived in wonder and fullness, giving thanks to God from whom all blessings flow. You only live once, why not make the most of it to the glory of God the father, maker of heaven and earth and Lord of Life.

In a similar vein, my great-grandfather Norman Turnbull wrote this poem in deep appreciation of the treasure that life is. He understood that the living of life itself is a great reward and that we may be content in the day to day, not restlessly yearning for some utopian ideal that will never arrive.

The Wealth of Life

Life is ever new, each morning a different day;

It pulses through all our souls afresh, beckons us on our way.

Life teaches us strength and love if we its lesson will heed,

Forgetting self in the nobler task of helping another in need.

Life itself is a picture, we daub with the hues of time

Bending ourselves to sorrow, or heights of glory sublime.

Life seems a burden to some, to others a blithesome play;

We make or mar, but on each alone falls the burden of the way.

Over and all around us are worlds we may never know

Yet every spring life moves anew beneath the soft white snow.

Perpetual, everlasting, a promise sure as the sun,

Life covers again the earth with green, new growth from the sod has sprung.

Growth of the spirit, growth of the world, growth of God’s own good,

Life the beginning, life the end, each must be understood.

Life is our school and we live it, each in his choice of way;

Lessons we learn at our father’s knee were taught in our Saviour’s day.

Whatever our greatest riches and plans and rosy dreams of wealth,

None offer to us a greater reward than just living life itself.

You cannot serve both God and Money: a Sermon

I delivered my first sermon this past Sunday at Rossburn Alliance Church - they didn't crucify me, so obviously I'm not doing it quite right yet. Enjoy!

Please turn with me to Matthew 6:24-34

You cannot serve both God and money.

In 2008 the global economy slid into a recession and the markets in America plummeted out of control. With many major corporations facing financial ruin, the American government was begged to provide a bail-out package for these Wall Street tycoons whose fiscal irresponsibility had finally caught up with them; everyone agreed that this decision to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars was necessary. Soon after, President Barack Obama put forth his plan for a national healthcare program known as Obamacare. The opposition to such a plan almost reawakened the Red Scare in some American Republicans, the bill eventually went through but has become one of the most demonized pieces of legislature in American history.

You cannot serve both God and money.

The Harper Conservatives achieved a majority government in the last election, promising that they were the only ones capable of steering Canadians through these rough economic times. Meanwhile our long enjoyed favourable reputation abroad continues to deteriorate as the government creates harsher and harsher foreign policies and continues to neglect its treaty responsibilities to our First Peoples, many of whom are living in appalling conditions that would be unimaginable even in 3^rd world countries - instead pushing through omnibus bill after omnibus bill bent on attracting foreign investment and economic advantage.

You cannot serve both God and money.

At the inauguration of Obama’s second term in office he swore his oath on the bible of Martin Luther King Jr., a freedom fighter for the rights of the “least of these”, regardless of their skin color. Meanwhile, the lives of young soldiers are sacrificed in the Middle East in an alleged “war on terror”, and countless innocent civilians live in constant fear of being caught in the crossfire. “Our cause is just!” some would say – though no Just War theories ever allow for the bombing of innocent civilian populations. One tends to wonder how much our thirst for oil is really at root in these acts of slaughter.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Now, before we dive into this text a little bit more, I have a couple of confessions to make. While I grew up in an Alliance church, which tends to explain these crazy ideas of mine being a missionary, I must admit that while at Prov I had a conversion of sorts, some would say I finally saw the light… that’s right, I became a  Mennonite (gasp)! Part of that process involved learning a taste of their theology and from what I gather, the Sermon on the Mount – which is where our text is taken from today – is a really important passage for those guys. You see, different denominational traditions tend to read the Bible differently, placing different passages as having more or less importance in how they interpret the rest of scripture i.e.,  Pentecostals love Acts, Evangelicals love the great commission and Romans, and Mennonites love the Sermon on the mount. The Mennonites are committed to reading this text as actual literal instructions for how to live, whereas some other traditions tend to spiritualize it a bit more. I come to you today with the Mennonite conviction that this passage has some real implications for how we are to act.

You cannot serve both God and Money.

Have you ever felt that tension? Have you ever been offered a chance to serve God but turned it down because you didn’t have the money? Or the time? Or maybe you’ve just never really been open to pursuing some opportunities too much because you know that they might leave you financially vulnerable? After all, we need to think of the families that we have to support…

Sometimes even while serving God, we can still get seduced by the idol of money. I know I have. This year at Providence, as some of you may know, I spearheaded the organization of a missions trip to the Dominican Republic. In terms of organization – it was a complete disaster. I’ve never been on a missions trip before so I had no idea what I was getting myself into, or what to expect. I didn’t fully understand the organization we had been partnering with and so it turned out that all of our communication was being mediated by an unnecessary third party which made responses to simple questions take weeks to get answers for. Details such as cost and itinerary were made known to us extremely late in the game, I think I found out how much it was going to cost about a month before we left – inconveniently for me, the price per person for the trip was about $200 a person more than I had quoted the rest of the team, so I had to figure out how to make up the difference, and we found out what we were doing about a week before we left. I was a wreck. I slept about 6 hours a night, lying in bed worrying about finding money, and feeling like a failure that I didn’t know the answers to any of the questions my team mates wanted to know. Worries centered around money were consuming me.

(Read vv. 31-33 again)

Jesus tells us to not worry, so do our shrinks! Everyone and anyone can tell you that worrying gets us nowhere. So how do we cease worrying about money? How do we live lives of service to God rather than to money?

I would like to suggest to you that what Jesus is doing in this sermon is describing those odd people who later come to be known as Christians, that group of people whose very lives are shaped and formed by life in a community of practice….. “Community of Practice”, what do I mean by that? This is an important phrase that deserves some unpacking.

The Community of Practice, or the Church is, well, us. But it is crucial to note that our identity is not decided merely by some set of propositions we believe. Rather the our beliefs manifest in formational practices which we engage in regularly. I’m not advocating here some sort of works based salvation, but merely expounding upon the principle we find in James, “you show me your faith, and I’ll show you my works” of course meaning that faith that is not made manifest in our daily practices is no faith at all but merely a deception of the mind.

So what are these practices? Well I’m not talking just about making sure our daily devotionals get done, or showing up to church or even praying before meals. Piety is not the sole task for Christians. I’m talking about lives of worship, centered in prayer, that are lived out in tangible ways such as; refusing to kill one another, how about spending time with the widow and the orphan… or in our language, the ostracized, the mentally ill, the addicts, the homeless, the homosexuals. Guys I’m talking about all those people out there who have been forced to the edges of society and are keenly in need of love.

One such young man quickly comes to my mind this morning.

(You may have heard about the young aboriginal man from Gambler who passed away a couple weeks ago, he drank himself to death, in the middle of his drunkenness, downed a bottle of draino, which ate him from the inside out, I grew up with this guy and while we were never close friends, I could see that there was not a lot of love in his life – his home life left something to be desired and he found attention from less than reputable sources. Upon hearing of his death, I wondered how his life could have turned out if he had had the love in his life that I have experienced)

It looks like Jesus is actually suggesting that we start living lives of vulnerability, serving God out of our poverty and insecurity rather than out of our security and wealth. As Stanley Hauerwas writes, ““We are told not to lay up treasure for ourselves, so we must learn to share. We are told not to be anxious, not to try to ensure our future, thus making it necessary to rely on one another for our food, our clothing, and our housing.” Gene Davenport, in his wonderful book on the Sermon on the Mount, Into the Darkness, reminds us that “when the first hearers of Matthew's Gospel heard Jesus' call to suffer rather than to inflict suffering, to accept death rather than to inflict death, to reject all efforts to save themselves from their plight by military action and to leave their deliverance to God, they knew that the one who gave such scandalous instruction had himself lived and died in accord with that call.”

We all know the content of the Sermon on the Mount. It has so many of the inconvenient teachings that seem impossible to us. Asking us not even to hate one another? Not even to look at each other with lust? Or maybe most impossible… especially for me, not to worry?

This year in planning that missions trip I was placed in a position of poverty. There was a point in this process when it looked like we were going to be thousands of dollars short. In one of my many panic stricken nights I came to the conclusion that the only option available was to pay the difference out of my remaining student loan money and figure it out later. My team was tapped out, I was tapped out, financially, mentally and emotionally.

And that friends, is when the words of Jesus came back to me. As it is written, “Blessed are the poor, who understand their need for God”, this is how the NLT translators decided to render the more commonly known beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” found in Matthew 5. I often look at the beatitudes and say, what’s so “blessed” about these people, but it was brought to my attention at Providence that a better understanding of this word for our context is “happy” so happy are those who find themselves in a place of poverty, who understand their need for God. I’m here to testify to the truth of that. There is a peace that passes all understanding when you find yourself in a position of true poverty where only God can be your source of life, only his divine working can sustain you, when all of your efforts have been in vain. The saints understood this; those ancient mystics of the church who lived in poverty, depending upon God for everything, saints like St. Francis for example, a monk who chose created an order of Christians who dedicate themselves to a life of poverty to fully appreciate the grace that can only come from God. It is no accident that the new Pope chose the name Francis – he sees that in a world where so often, governments, corporations, and individuals are setting up money as their God, there is great need for the Church to offer a different form of life, one that acknowledges God as God and refuses to allow money to be the all-consuming force it can so easily become.

You cannot serve both God and money.

This year was almost like a constant argument between God and myself. God would say, “Ryan, are you prepared to trust me to provide for all of your needs?”

“Yes of course,” I would respond.

“Ok, prove it,” he would retort. And then there would be silence, agonizing silence, and nothing would work out… Right when I would be on the verge of finally giving up hope, God’s providence would prevail and just the right amount of money would come in, or the email that was overdue by a month would finally arrive, etc.

What is our response to God’s question of “Do you trust me”? Is it, “Yes God, I trust you, but  I’m going to make sure something else is in place that will come through, just in case you don’t”? I know that it is for me too often. Jesus is challenging us here. He is saying that what lies at the root of this temptation is our love of money, security, and self-sufficiency.  Especially in our individualistic North American culture, the idea of being dependent on others is deplorable to us! “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ For the pagans chase after such things…” Jesus is calling us to lay aside our dead identity as self-sufficient, strong, independent, Canadians, and accept the new life that he has for us. A life of poverty, a life that recognizes our absolute dependence on God

You cannot serve both God and money – for the Pagans chase after such things as money, and security.

That is a challenge to us. There is a reason the rich young ruler went away from Jesus very sad when told that he had to give all he had to the poor. What Jesus is asking is not merely that we give up our possessions, but that we admit his lordship in our lives. He is asking us to be vulnerable enough to allow him to provide – to give him our whole lives. What kind of faith can we really claim to have if we are responsible for providing for all of our needs?

So what does this mean? Do we give away everything without a thought in the world and trust that God will take care of it? Probably not. There is something to be said for discernment, wise stewardship, etc. etc., all the good ol’ Christian financial advice. BUT it does at the very least, demand that when we are confronted with an opportunity to further God’s kingdom, we act. This text tells us that in the community of practice into which we have been brought, we can no longer use the excuse of “I can’t afford it” or “I don’t have time” or “This will threaten my longterm fiscal security”. For it is pagans who chase after such things.

You cannot serve both God and Money.

Who will you serve?

A response to "Jesus and Objective Truth"

In a recent blog post by the Tyndale philosophy dept., the anti-postmodern view that Jesus is in fact objective truth was argued by Rich Davis and Paul Franks, as the comment section was closed to me, I could not ask for clarification on a couple of points and thus this is my response to just one part of the argument which I took particular exception to. Here is a link to the entire article if you are interested: http://tyndalephilosophy.com/2013/04/16/jesus-and-objective-truth/

Davis and Franks make the distinction between belief in and belief that, a distinction which I hope to show is a faulty one. Here is the quote:

"First, Willimon misunderstands the relation between belief that and belief in. You can’t rightly believe in (i.e., trust, put your faith in) someone unless you believe that they exist. You have to believe certain objective truths about Jesus; otherwise you can’t be his disciple. As the writer of Hebrews says, “anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb 11:6). So there’s at least two propositions you have to believe before you can put your trust in Christ. Indeed, it isn’t rational to give your life to someone who either isn’t really there (i.e., lacks objective existence) or is the product of your imagination (i.e., has subjective existence alone). Belief that (i.e., assent to objective truth) is a precondition for belief in."

It is my  view that the distinction between "belief that" and "belief in" is a faulty one that grows out of a very particular view of salvation as formulated by popular American Evangelicalism. Typical of this version of evangelicalism is the assumption that we are confronted with the truth of Christ and what he has done for us, and from the realization "that" he has done this, we are encouraged to make the move to have belief "in" this truth. We are confronted with the undeniable truth of God as Christ, and from this are expected to make the decision of how to respond to it, ideally of course, making Jesus Lord of one's life.

Is this really how the belief process works? Can there be other ways of formulating this? Is the move from "belief that" to "belief in" a necessary one?

I think not.

Book one of Augustine's Confessions begins with an interesting observation, and I quote,

"Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first: to call on You or to praise You? And, again, to know You or to call on You? Who can call on You, not knowing You? For he that does not know You may call on You as something other than You are. Or, is it rather that we call on You that we may know You (emphasis added)?"

Augustine here I think is suggesting a reversal of the "belief that " to "belief in" paradigm. Rather than our functional "belief in" Jesus as Lord flowing from our knowledge of him as such, we first confess it to be true, praying in faith of that truth and eventually come to know the truth of it. The move is one from "belief in" to "belief that".

It seems that on an everyday level of lived reality, this is how we come to know the truth of Christ. We confess a truth in faith, regardless of our level of epistemic certainty, and through the confession of it, and living with that confession, we come to know the veracity of the claim that we confess. By living in and through the confession of faith, we are either convinced of the truth of that confession or are disappointed and must move beyond that particular confession.

Therefore, I think it is safe to say that Christian belief does not move from the "that" to the "in" as a necessary condition, but can, and in fact often does move from the practice of "belief in" to "belief that".

Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord

This speech was delivered April 19, 2013 at the Banquet of the Providence University College 86th Graduation:

Well, here we stand at the end, and as most of us have learned here at Prov over the past few years, there is a specific way to end our times of worship together:

“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!”

With these words we have ended our times of worship here at Prov over these last number of years. And as much as Providence has been a fact of our daily lives for the duration of our time here, life at Providence has been one giant act of worship as we have learned, grown, and served in a plethora of ways. As this year has been drawing to a close the question that has been burning on my mind, as I’m sure it has been on many of yours, has been, “soooo what now? Where do we go from here?”

There have been a couple mottos that have terrified me and encouraged me throughout my time at Prov. The first is the official school motto, “Knowledge and Character for Leadership and Service”. This always kind of scared me, “Do they expect me to actually serve and lead at some point? Don’t they know what kind of person I am?” The second motto is similar, and it is carved above the doors to the school, “Enter to Learn, go forth to Teach” which always made think, “oh no, I better make sure I actually learn something here if they expect me to teach somebody someday”.

            Fortunately, these mottos also carried with them the promise that somehow, we would “Learn”, that we would receive “Knowledge and Character” – in short, we wouldn’t be left up the Rat River without a paddle.

            So, where do we go from here? Presumably we’ve learned something, received some knowledge, and had our characters shaped by our various triumphs, trials, and tribulations at this institution, and now it is time to Teach, now it is time to Lead and Serve. The sending that we have heard time and time again at our worship services over the years begins to make sense. In the midst of the confusion and mystery of transition, we are empowered to go forth in the peace of Christ to love him and serve him in whatever shape that ends up taking. Really, the only response appropriate to such a promise is an exclamation of praise and thus we say, “Thanks be to God, Hallelujah.”

Now, one last time, please join me in the sending;

“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!”

Farewell

Facebook, you've been a good friend to me for many years now. Always showing me the carefully polished version of myself that I want to see, my narcissistic ego has never been better than during our lengthy and intimate relationship. Now, however, it is time for us to, "see other people".

I thought we could just be friends, but you wanted more than that didn't you? I've shared more with you than with most of my non-virtual friends, which, upon thinking about it, is really quite pathetic.

Don't think that I'll forget all the good times we had, I'm grateful for the ways in which you helped me make and maintain friendships that I would have otherwise not had, but I really want to get to know those people now, not just the shiny pixelated version you offer me.

Maybe I'll see you again someday Facebook, but for now, I think it would be best if we just existed in this shared world together, but apart.

Love,

Ryan

In Memoriam

Dr. Schell there are really no words to describe how much you meant to me. Always ready with a quiet smile, a witty comment and a beautiful song, you touched deeply the lives of all your students. Thank-you for all that you taught me, my love of choral music is due in large part to your patient work. Whenever I sing in a choir I will think of you and your sacrifice of praise. I can't wait to sing with you again in heaven.

O God Beyond All Praising

O God beyond all praising,

we worship you today

and sing the love amazing

that songs cannot repay;

for we can only wonder

at every gift you send,

at blessings without number

and mercies without end:

we lift our hearts before you

and wait upon your word,

we honor and adore you,

our great and mighty Lord.

Then hear, O gracious Savior,

accept the love we bring,

that we who know your favor

may serve you as our king;

and whether our tomorrows

be filled with good or ill,

we'II triumph through our sorrows

and rise to bless you still:

to marvel at your beauty

and glory in your ways,

and make a joyful duty

our sacrifice of praise.

Sing on Dr. Schell. Sing on!