Pastoral Meanderings

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23, preached on Sunday, October 11, 2009 You don't have to be very Lutheran to ...

Alice Cristene nee' Skaufel Ellis, born January 17, 1939, in Carpio, North Dakota, to Birger and Ruth Skaufel. She died Saturday, Octob...

Doris Alfrieda Simpson was born March 13, 1919 in Detroit, MI daughter of the late William Pankratz and Alice Louise Neumann Pankratz. On No...

Every year our confirmands are required to write a brief, two page report on an assigned topic (Such as "What is Baptism and What does...

Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff on Luther's catholicity: “Luther’s main intention was to go back to the New Testament, to revive the...

When I left seminary for my first call 30 years ago, the average tenure of a Pastor in his first parish was about 22 months. There are reas...

At some point in time among Protestants, the worship service began to be seen as a vehicle for evangelism and outreach. In fact, some have ...

Funeral practices could probably take up a hundred posts and still we would but scratch the surface. Suffice it to say that the industry is...

Bette Midler's is one of my favorite voices -- I will long remember when Johnny Carson signed off the Tonight Show and Bette sang his te...

I recently read something on line that announced that young people are increasingly illiterate when it comes to the church's song -- the...

Go to the average church meeting and much of the conversation ends up about money... Go to a Board of Directors/Church Council meeting and t...

I had a conversation the other day about preaching. The person with whom I was speaking had never spent a minute in a pulpit but had some v...

For much of Christian history, the Church catechized through the liturgy -- that is through the Mass and the Daily Offices (Matins/Morning P...

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote "We have so much to say about the Bible that we are not prepared to hear what the Bible has to ...

It does not take more than a few seconds to search for articles and videos (click here for a very informative video) on change and technolog...

We were privileged to have Dr. Paul Maier preach at both services yesterday, in addition to a seminar on Saturday. He said it was the first...

When I was 13 or so my congregation needed an organist to sub while our regular organist would be away. Since I played piano, I was drafted...

Reminded to me today by my friend Paul Maier... from Jaroslav Pelikan... If Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, nothing else matters... If ...

Some years ago a girl in my parish began dating a Church of Christ boy and attending with him with some regularity (at the same time attendi...

"True righteousness has compassion, false righteousness is indignant." by Gregory the Great, quoted by Martin Luther, quoted by Da...