A bit about me . . .
I, Barry Danylak, was raised in Wheaton, Illinois and grew up attending the Wheaton Bible Church. After graduating from Wheaton College with a major in Mathematics and a minor in Biblical Studies, I went on to complete a M.S. in Mathematics at the University of Minnesota. Moving back to Illinois after university, I joined AT&T as a Member of the Technical Staff with Bell Laboratories. In 1991 I began attending College Church in Wheaton and joined the leadership and teaching team of the single adult Sunday School class. Desiring to broaden my theological base, I soon pursued an M.A. in Christian Thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School focusing on Church History and Systematic Theology. During my 13 years at AT&T, (Lucent Technologies after 1996), I enjoyed opportunities working in various areas of Quality and Process Engineering. I have always loved large scale problem solving and my time at Bell Laboratories provided no end of systemic problems to tackle involving people, processes and product development. In 2001 I felt God calling me to move to on to a different type of systemic problem solving. As a lay leader in single adult ministry in the church, I became challenged with some theological questions about the place and purpose of single people within the church. Though many churches have single adults ministries, few have given serious reflection to the place and purpose of singles within the household of faith. My journey in 2001 would lead me down a road of exploring this question on two levels. First was the theological question of how to reconcile the New Testament's affirmation of singleness as something "good" in light of the general emphasis of Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament on the importance of marriage and children. Second was the exegetical question of how to interpret a central and very difficult passage on marriage and singleness (1 Corinthians 7) in light of its cultural context. After completing an M.A. in Biblical Exegesis at Wheaton College, I had the opportunity to pursue a PhD. on 1 Corinthians 7 with the University of Cambridge. Seven years later the theological project has been realized in the book Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life, while the exegetical project as been the focus of my PhD. thesis, Secular Singleness and Paul`s Reponse in 1 Corinthians 7. The thesis was approved by the university for the degree in June, 2012. Currently I serve as the Community Pastor for Single Adult Ministries at Centre Street Church in Calgary, Alberta, and I am an adjunct professor of theology at Rocky Mountain College also in Calgary.