Reflections From Sunday Evening

Today we joined in recognizing and celebrating Ralph Shackelford's 95th birthday. Ralph is a World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He is great patriot, a great American, a Christian and member of Platte Woods UMC. Ralph is our friend and a long time part of our faith community. Happy Birthday Ralph. Today we continued our series on The Music of Life. We take a different form of music and let that set our context in which we hear the Scripture and find our insights. We have used Jazz, Country and today Rock Music. Some would hesitate to use such a "secular" medium in church. But there is a reason to use various styles and types of music and mediums to communicate the gospel. Today I mentioned that we are operating from the belief that Jesus Christ came to redeem and transform, not only our individual lives or even the entire cosmos, but also culture. I believe Jesus seeks to be the transformer of culture. If we believed Jesus was against culture and came primarily to judge we would not use these various types of music. Our practice is a result of our belief that Jesus seeks to transform all things, even culture. (I did not make this up. Consider H. Richard Niebuhr's classic work "Christ and Culture." It's been a good day. I hope you've had a good day too. steve