Eleanor (Ellie) Grace Barry

showtime(!)

With our stopwatch in hand, we are heading off to the hospital.


Thanks for the prayers...
we will let folks know who are the winners of the BarryPatch Guessing Game

Makeover: Barry Homepage

The long address on the .mac no longer exists. If you just use the above address as your bookmark it will persist, even during the sites overhaul.

Anticipation

Remember the final couple of days before Christmas when there is a gaggle of gifts under the tree, and having to wait patiently for them? Or remember the excitement and anticipation before kickoff, where you nervously seek things to distract yet keep you focused on doing your job?

Well, that is basically our stage of life right now...except for one problem-those focus upon me and what I get.
While, Lindsay and I are waiting for our child to come into this world and the countdown nears to her due date (3 days), we are eager to meet this child: to learn, to grow, to love, and to serve.

For me, that is the biggest perspective I want to take into parenthood. Not this idea that a child is mine and for my entertainment or fulfillment, but rather view him/her as someone created by God and in deep need of our service.

I remember being at a youth camp with a bunch of middle schoolers, when the female leader--a mother of a 6th grader--came up to me bawling after a worship service. As we talked, she explained that she was having trouble letting her child run around with the older kids. While she wanted to protect and "mother" him, she had realized that he is not fully hers but God's child. Her parental responsibility is to serve and protect this child so that it may grow in faith and become free in Christ.

I pray during those sleeplessness nights and the earpiercing cries and whatever else parenthood has in store for me, that I can remember that "this ain't about me," but rather it is an opportunity to graciously love through sacrifice (of sleep and sanity) for another.

And at any moment our life is about to be turned upside down and inside it.

Trust

An interesting letter to the editor by David Cameron appeared last week in the Presbyterian Outlook regarding the New Wineskin Association of Churches. The writer asked why this group of churches would consider leaving the PC(USA) denomination due to the possibility that the Authoratitive Interpretation may lead to local option, because the EPC--the denomination which the NWAC would possibly join--is already employing local option.

While it is an interesting question, I think the answer is the same as the systemic problem of our current polity within the PC(USA): Trust. The NWAC and likeminded PC(USA) churches would feel safe and secure within the EPC theologically and with regard to scriptural authority, therefore they would be able to trust other church's within the new denomination to uphold the standards they, themselves, adamently believe in.

Likewise, the reason that the AI will not work within the current state of the PC(USA) is due to the lack of trust from one CPM to another. If we believed that the Holy Spirit was still actively guiding and leading all of our Committee's on the Preparation of MInistry to adequately admonish, encourage and challenge candidates for ministry (not to mention sessions with regard to elders), then local option would not be problem.

However, as most candidates can attest, the current process with CPM is rarely anything other than a beaurcratic hoop. Beyond the one point of contact (the liasion), the committee's rarely are involved in the supporting and encouraging of the candidate, are not familiar with his/her Christian practices (worship, prayer, etc.) and generally not familiar with the person beyond a once a year interview. This prevents the CPM from providing admonishment and discipline in the call process.

Therefore, since we are in a season of dis-trust, and with little innovative and strong leadership (which is resulting in the push for more congregational and less connectional form of polity--i.e. property, local option), I am fearful of where the PC(USA) church will be led. While I am an old EPC member and align well with their theology, I see real harm in the NWAC proposal because by leaving one place, where they do not trust the new polity, in order to join another, which practices the exact polity they distrust, will produce a homogenious theological unit. To me, these seems analogous to "white flight."

Personally, I believe this issue of denominational (dis)trust begins with a candidate's interactions with the Presbytery through the CPM, which no longer seems to provide a safe, supportive and trustworthy environment, but merely an obsticle to get through.

Devastating

What's more devastating than the Panther SuperBowl loss by a Vinatari kick?

Losing by inches on your 23rd and final attempt at a Daytona 500. Well at least we are second in points.

Congrats to Erik

For being the .1%,
and giving me my worst beat.

Theory and Practice

I have been wrestling with these two for a few weeks as my studies, personal reflections and experiences all merge.
In theory, we are justified by God. (By theory, I do not suggest that it does not actually happen, but rather in our being); in practice, we are not yet fully sanctified; my actions do not reveal my being at all times.

What then are my responsibilities as a Christian. Do I have the responsibility to spend time in prayer and reading the Bible? Do I have the responsibility to provide spiritual direction? Do I have the responsibility to witness to Christ at all times? Obviously the answer is yes, but the problem is when we focus primarly on these actions we can forget the purpose of our life (or some may call it the "Goal of Vocation").

I am reminded about my Young Life area director who proudly claimed that he has had quiet time for 11 straight years, having never missed a morning (that was 6 years ago, so perhaps now it is like 17 years). He then tried to impose this practice upon the rest us suggesting that we would not fulfill our ministry effectively if we did not do likewise. Yet as a college kid, I knew that in theory it did not matter because God loves me regardless of my efforts.

However, the damage was that at the same time, I became static and did not seek to actively engage God through prayer and meditation because the bar had been set so high I knew my practices would never surmount.

I've noticed in myself and in others around seminary, that the same feelings can easily arise. Prayer and meditation on the scriptures becomes a nice theory, but not really a practice we participate in because we dilute everything (such as studying for an NT midterm) into spiritual practices. Once everything becomes spiritual practices, however, then nothing really becomes a spiritual discipline.

Therefore, we will constantly be in this justification-sanctification, theory-practice tension, but if we remain static and do not attempt to live into the particular practices (prayer, scripture and spiritual direction) which we theoritically have been given freedom and license to, then we have failed to live out our goal of vocation which is as Witnesses to Jesus Christ.

*with apologies for the intentional repitition of Karl Barth and Eugene Peterson without citation.

Worst Sunday of The Year

Well folks, it is that time of year again.
The worst Sunday of The Year,
It occurs ever year at this time,
and unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it.

We were teased yesterday with
the Pro Bowl and the Budwesier Shootout,
but unfortunately on this Sabbath,
there is neither Football nor NASCAR.

I know what you are thinking:
but what about Easter, Mother's Day,
and the Superbowl Bye Week.
Alas with those days you are in the midst of either season, but today my friends we are naught.

We are in the already but not yet,
The Superbowl has already occurred, but the Superbowl of Racing has not yet.

Therefore, take comfort and let us wait patiently, for next week we shall all rejoice.

peace and blessings on this, the worst Sunday of the Year.

Good news/Bad news (Genesis 40)

Joseph's cellmates both longed to know the answers to their dreams, yet both were probably hesitant because of what it could mean for their future. However, once the baker heard how good the news of his friend was, he was probably eager to know his own future. Suddenly the facts of his dream were inconsequential, because he imagined that he deserved an equal promise as the cupbearer.

It is when we think we are going to be praised, going to be rewarded, that we are finally willing to open up and share our dreams.

Yet what happens when those dreams are crushed by reality? When the good news we expect is actually not?

How to run when it is...

Yesterday, Lindsay, myself and Savannah headed out to the trail for a jog. At the turn around point we were passed by the Princeton Cross Country team, I wonder what their reaction to seeing me, a 37week pregnant woman and a pug running a 5-k was.

An Inconvenient Groundhog Day

Well, it appears that Punxsutawny Phil is aware of the inconvenient truth, because it will be an early Spring.

While I know there are hundreds of other issues on the church's agenda, it does not mean that one should be ignored or neglected due to other overwhelming issues. Some may argue that eco-concern is not pertinent because the church's main focus should be upon proclaiming the good news of Christ, yet by suggesting that we are ignoring the full story of Christ. By seeking to help people discover who they are in relation to God, it will reveal also who they are in relation to each other and the World, because God came to us in the real time and space of history--into His physical creation.

Recently, the president-elect of the Christian Coalition was forced to step down because he wanted to extend the agenda beyond abortion and homosexuality to include Creation Care. This exemplifies, especially in the evanglelical church, the lack of motivation and concern for ecological issues--the focus is upon piety, but misses that ethical living with regards to the enviroment is also about piety. The church does have a responsibility, because poor eco-theology as witnessed in the Oklahoma Senator who has referred to Climate Change as a "hoax." He also claims that it is anti-biblical because God tells Adam and Eve to "forcefully exploit" the earth in order to be fruitful and multiple.

This is an unfortunate rendering of Genesis 1:27, where God has given a humanity a vocation--the stewardship of the "good earth." Also, since Revelation talks about the new heaven and earth coming down to this present reality, we see that from the beginning to the end God is intimately connected with His creation. This is most effectively revealed in the Incarnation. By Jesus Christ coming in flesh, and being bodily resurrected, it shows that God has self-limited Himself to show that this religion of His is not merely spiritual, but incorporates the reality of the physical world.

Therefore, while some may wish to argue that first we need to get folks "converted," then we can get them living it out, they are missing the fundamental point of the Gospel. Evangelism and Discipleship cannot be divided, Christ's call to Philip and Andrew was to come and follow him--to learn by living.

This means that we cannot ignore or neglect God's call for us to be stewards to the world, to ignore the inconvenient truth that the way we are selfishly living and forcefully controlling the earth is counter to God's principle call upon our lives.

We are called to live in relationship to God, to each other and to the world.

A great discussion that is more articulate and informative is on Bill Moyer's Podcast, the episode is called "is God green?" It shows the variety of debates and movements within the evangelical church, and highlights that even a few are attempting to embody this call for Creation Care.

So, while we, the church, is trying to figure out AIDs in Africa, Poverty throughout the world, issues of homosexuality and abortion, war, famine, the salvation of individuals, postmodernism, postChristendom, and the host of other dealings in our society, let us consider ways that we can add eco-concern so that people will realize that their faith impacts every aspect of their life and is not just some Sunday spiritual experience.