Baby Contest, Round 1

** Round 1 Over **

** Comments Closed **

** New Clues in Round 2 **

I was blessed with the opportunity to see my daughter again today. Cast in varied shades of grey we watched as she balled her tiny fist to rub her eyes and tucked her lower lip into her mouth to suck on it. So young at 22 weeks yet already developing mannerisms, habits, and a personality. The joy and anticipation of awaiting the birth of a child is a phase of life marked by extremes. The hope of new life is coupled with the temptation of anxiety at the fragility of that life; the excitement of sharing experiences with a new member of the family dances with the realization of responsibility. One thing is becoming increasingly clear as we look towards the future, and that is the necessity of God and the community of His church for the upbringing of a child. Shanna and I must depend upon God and upon those He has placed around us to make up for our individual weaknesses.

It is with the realization of the role of community in our lives both now and in the life we are bringing into this world that we invite the myriad members of the various communities that intersect our lives to have some fun with us as we eagerly await being introduced to our daughter. To that end, we are going to have a contest here on my blog to see if anybody can guess the name we have chosen for our daughter.

Here’s how it works. In the comments to this blog posting you can place your guess for the first and middle name. As time progresses I will post updated blog entries with new clues to help you hone your guesses. Allow me to enumerate the key rules:

1) Each round will last about 2 weeks, at which time I will put up a new Baby Contest post with a new set of clues.
2) Each guess must include an attempt at both the first and middle name.
3) All guesses must be as a comment to the most recent Baby Contest post here in my blog.
4) Only 5 guesses per contestant per round.
5) Each guess must be made in such a way that we know who you are and how to contact you. Blogger will give you the option of affiliating your comment with your google account or simply a name and email address. You can use whichever method you want so long as we know how to contact you should you win.
6) To win, you must guess both the first and middle name and spell them correctly.

Wait! You mentioned a prize, right?!? Yes, yes, I did indeed. My wife will be making a quilted item (a lap quilt or a wall hanging... she is still combing through quilting magazines for ideas) as the prize for the winner. You can check her blog ssparrowinflight.blogspot.com where she will occasionally post about the prize quilt as she makes it.

So, without further introduction, here is the first set of clues:

Clue 1-1:

Both the first and middle name are girls' names (meaning they are distinguishable as feminine names).

Clue 1-2:

Not a name we’ve named before, 

    but part of life both old and new.

Someday soon or someday far, 

    our daughter’s name will still ring true. 

Prayer for the Children (from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer):

ALMIGHTY God, heavenly Father, who hast blessed us with the joy and care of children; Give us light and strength so to train them, that they may love whatsoever things are true and pure and lovely and of good report, following the example of their Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Finding the Anglican Way - Part 3, The Folly of Relevance

If the church becomes like the world, then the world won’t see the church as a beacon of hope amidst the gloom of a sinful life. This was the basis of what Bishop Sutton shared with the class this evening in providing his introduction to the topic of liturgy and worship. If I was more of an outspoken and vocal individual I would have jumped up with a hearty amen and a rousing round of applause. This has been a soap-box issue for me for the last few years and it is one of the major draws of the Anglican church for Shanna and me.

What about being relevant, you might ask. Relevancy is currently a common banner cry for many churches. Just look at the billboards proclaiming the merits of a local church with the word “relevant” placed centermost on the placard. I find it interesting that the more churches buy into the lure of the relevant-centric ecclesiology of our modern culture the less interest people in our culture have in the church. We often blame such a decline on the media, the political system, or some other influence outside of the church, but I think the blame can be placed squarely on a general movement in modern churches to pursue cultural relevance above all else. 

There is a two-fold problem with thinking that the church needs to reflect the culture to become relevant to that culture. The first is the faulty thinking that somehow the truth of the Bible isn’t relevant enough on its own but needs to be aided by the schemes and mechanizations of depraved humanity. A professor of mine asked a poignant question once when he asked, “are we supposed to apply the Bible to our lives or our lives to the Bible?” This is a key question. It is us who need to change and adapt to the unchanging truth of God. Unfortunately, we often think of the Bible as a book that needs to be approached so as to draw out meaning for modern humanity from the cultural depths in which it is mired. Rather than this, we need to approach Holy Scripture with the realization that it is I who needs to be pulled from the cultural bog that festers in every corner of this sin-soaked world.

The second is that we forget that we belong to another Kingdom, a Divine Kingdom, a Kingdom not of this world. As a result, we are merely sojourners in this world as we journey through life. We are called to be counter-cultural as we live our lives in a way that demonstrates that being aligned to this Kingdom provides an enviable alternative to being aligned to the kingdom of the world. When the church pursues cultural relevance as one of its highest callings it quickly loses one of the major components of its identity. It was Christ himself who prayed for His church as it was in this world but not to be of this world just prior to praying that they would be sanctified by the steadfast truth of Almighty God (John 17:16-17).

Realize that I’m addressing this in general terms. Much can and should be written to nuance this issue with the necessity of presenting the truth of God and the worship of Christ’s Church in a language and cultural idiom that is recognizable (hence the translation of Holy Scripture into the indigenous tongues of so many people worldwide). But there is a stark difference between adapting the truth of Scripture and the worship of the church so that is understood by the culture and changing it so it is acceptable to that culture. A great gulf exists between adapting for the purpose of understanding and changing for the purpose of acceptance. When it is changed with the motivation of being accepted then the focal point becomes the fickle culture rather than the Unchanging God; we risk falling victim to the snare of which St. Paul warned of worshipping the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25).

This whole concept is one of the primary elements that drew my wife and I to the Anglican Way. When you enter into traditional liturgical worship you are forced to submit yourself to the covenant community of which Christ is head and, in so far as the liturgy is rooted in Holy Scripture, to the Word of God. The result of this process is that my wife and I feel like we worshipped God for the first time once we began attending a liturgical church (more on this in future posts). I challenge you to shed the call of being relevant to the culture and embrace a life that is submissive to Christ even though it is contrary to the cultural perspective.

“General Prayer for the Church” from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (page 37):

O GRACIOUS Father, we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church; that thou wouldst be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of him who died and rose again, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

The Bonding Power of the Senses

Our physical senses are amazing, especially when they experience something for the first time. They bind memories and emotions into our minds. The sense of touch is especially profound in building connections between people. Whether it's a the first time holding your significant other's hand, the first kiss with your spouse, or the first time holding your child in your arms, there is a bond formed with that first touch. I've had the joy of experiencing the first two listed above and am eager to experience the third in the coming months. A recent touch was nearly as special, though, and that was feeling my little girl kick for the first time. I knew I loved my daughter before I knew we were expecting a daughter, but there is a new bond that has formed on the basis of that first touch sensation.

I think the ritual and ceremony of the liturgy allows the strengthening of that bond in our relationship with God. All of the senses are brought to bear on the beauty of worship. The sound of the music and the chorus voices of the congregation, the smell of the burning candles and (if it is a solemn ceremony) of the incense, the taste of the wine, the sight of the sun shining through the stained glass, and the feeling of the wafer in your hands and the eucharist cup as it is pressed to your lips. When we allow our physical senses to become part of our expression of thanksgiving, reverence, and communion with God the bond between creature and Creator is strengthened.

Savor your senses as a means for being drawn to our Savior; allow them to solidify your bond with Him. Just as the feeling of a loved ones hand in yours carries with it the totality of the emotions and the weight of the commitment you have towards that other, allow the physical expression of your relationship to God carry the same emotion and sense of commitment. We are physical beings and in need of physical worship. So as you worship Him in spirit and truth, don't forget to worship Him in sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch.

The Christian Collective: Shedding the Individual

How important is individuality to you? For many within western society it’s one of the highest callings. You can see this in the pursuit of fame by many in the upcoming generation, it is highlighted in the fervor of political debate when some individual freedom or right is perceived to have been reduced, and it is perpetuated by the gears of capitalism that prod people to purchase items that simultaneously accentuate their individuality while binding them to the acceptable public image.

The challenge for the believer is that we were created for community. The Genesis account makes it clear that we were not created to be alone (Gen 2:18), the narrative account of the Old Testament describes the formation of a covenant community in the people of Israel, the church in Acts is described in terms of fellowship and gathering (Acts 1:14; 2:46), John’s apocalypse describes the throne room of God as being filled with worshipping saints all in white robes (Rev 7:9), and if you need any other motivation, the pivotal doctrine of the Trinity demands the existence of community within the godhead from eternity past through all time (see the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds). We are a people of community.

One of the difficulties of being a people of community is that we are at war with individualism within society. I was recently confronted by how pervasive this battle is by way of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Within this science fiction series, one of the prominent enemies of the intrepid crew of the USS Voyager is the Borg. The Borg are the ultimate collective community. All individuality has been suppressed and all action is in service of the good of the collective. When new alien species are encountered the Borg respond by callously assimilating them into the collective consciousness of the community. If a species tries to resist, their response is simply, “resistance is futile” as they overwhelm the weaker race. Set in contrast to this collective force is the crew of Voyager. Their philosophy of individuality is what allows them to overcome the collective mind of the Borg. Constantly, the heroic value of individuality is pit against the cold conformity of the villainous hive. Time and time again individuality proves to be what gives the crew the strength to overcome this foe.

In many ways I think the creators of Star Trek are providing a commentary on their worldview; a humanistic worldview that sees the church as a danger to the right of the individual to develop and thrive. When the Borg speak, they speak as an eerie chorus of myriad unison voices that sounds remarkably similar to a church congregation reciting a creed or some other corporate reading. I don’t think this is a coincidence. The church is the enemy of the humanistic ideal of individual freedom. If one places individuality too high on his or her priority list then the church becomes a villainous entity that seeks to override individual identity and replace it with a collective identity. For many in western society (including many within the church) this perspective is probably familiar, and the censure of the church for destroying individuality is applauded.

If we are to follow Jesus’ teaching, though, then we are called to give up our individuality for the sake of entering the covenant community of Christ. Is not one of the two greatest commandments to love your neighbor? Does not Paul in Romans 12:10 exhort us to, “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another”? Does not Jesus teach that love is being willing to give up your life for a friend? (John 15:13) Does not Jesus, on the night before He is sentenced to die, pray that the unity of those who believe in Him through the preaching of His disciples would be “one” in the same way that Jesus and the Father are one? (John 17:20-23) We are called to enter into a collective community that stands in stark contrast to the predominant perspective of our world.

I would encourage you to examine the role that individuality plays in your own worldview. If community is not high on the list than I would challenge you to find out why. We are called to collective community, and for the believer that collective is the church. While this collective is not heartless and villainous like the Borg, in so far as the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt 16:18), in the end we can boldly say, “resistance is futile.”