The true visible church on earth...

When Rome speaks of the Roman Catholic Church as the true visible church on earth, Rome means that there is no church but that church which is in communion with the Pope.  This is a visible church almost exclusively -- though it is not without is spiritual and less visibly identifiable character.  When Lutherans and others hear such a statement, we bristle at the hubris of Rome claiming that they are the one and only and, at best, the separated brethren outside of Rome are in error and live apart from this true visible church until they are united with it.  The Protestant resistance to the idea of such a true and visible communion has been replaced by a church which is primarily spiritual and therefore nearly invisible to the naked eye.  It can be occasionally glimpsed but it is more a spiritual communion of souls than the gathering of people in any one place or a confession of faith. 

The unity of this church which Rome insists is both from and back to the papacy is not so much a Protestant concern.  To be sure, the external reality of different denominations is a scandal and it would be better if we were all united and had one address for our church headquarters.  But... the great Protestant image of the church is less a one church than little bits of that one church divied up and deposited in various and different churches so that no one can ever claim the fullness and the most any one part can claim is a little chip of the whole.  Christianity has become like the various Bible versions -- an objective reality known only in spiritual or theoretical form with a subjective reality in differences and divisions in which none can claim absolute truth.  The so-called unity in diversity.

Lutherans have succombed to this kind of thinking and have begun speaking as if the great ecumenical endeavor were a physical unity before the world in which doctrincal differences are irritants that, while never fully overcome, are best ignored iin the belief that real unanimity is either impossible or not all that important -- since the best we can ever know is partial truth. So some Lutherans are content in being in communion with those who share no common teaching on Scripture, salvation, sacraments, etc., but who have decided to let the differences not be church dividing.  On the other hand, many of these Lutherans and those with whom they are in formal communion have raised up a standard more rigorous and important than common confession, namely, social justice in its manifold forms.

Some in Missouri have also given into the idea that we are but one among many, each with their own little bit of Christ and their own slant on the truth.  Until Christ comes, we cannot say which is right or wrong except in their most offensive and extreme forms.  Into this diversity party come the jarring voices of our past which insist that Lutheranism is not merely one version of the truth or one bit and piece of the church catholic, but the one, holy, catholic church on earth.  This church is not only spiritual and invisible but visible and concrete in the gathering of people around the Word rightly preached and the Sacraments rightly administered.  The one church is invisible in respect to the "who," and visible in respect to the "where."—Pastor Kurt Marquart, The Church, p. 23.

Even more bluntly.  It is claimed by our Lutheran fathers that Lutheranism existed before Luther (before Luther was, Lutheranism is).  We insist that the Confessions of our Church confess not part of the faith or one version of the faith but the evangelical and catholic faith received as the sacred deposit from the apostles and prophets and kept true and without error to the present age. Now the structures of Lutheranism may come and go and even the name of Lutheranism fully and finally disappear but the faith remains, endures, and will not be lost.

From the get go, the reformers' claim was not newness or novelty but fealty.  They sought to demonstrate that what is is that Lutherans believed, confessed, and taught was that which, from the beginning, had been believed, confessed, and taught. In the Augustana, they make the bold statement: “Our churches do not dissent from any article of the faith held by the Church catholic” (AC, Part II, 1) and in the Formula of Concord they insist that they confess “the simple, unchangeable, permanent truth” (SD, RN, 20). The later dogmaticians elaborate on this claim.  Johann Gerhard, whose four volume Confessio Catholica was written to prove the claim of catholicity for Lutheran doctrine and to give evidence of its presence in every age of the Church. Unless you disavow this intention, the very name Lutheran is itself an insistence that the orthodox, catholic, Christian, faith and doctrine confessed in this Confession is the faith the Church has held through every age.  Individual church bodies may err but this confession is faithful and true to the Scriptures.
This is not a claim of arrogance but of faithfulness.  It is not a claim that a particular church body or structure is error proof or that its boundaries define what is the true, visible church on earth.  But it is the claim that Lutherans are not a sect, do not possess merely a portion of the truth, or that they represent but one version of Christianity (equal to and not inferior to any other version of Christian doctrine).  Today more than ever, Lutherans seem to be uncomfortable with this and backtracking from the bold statements of their Confessions.

Marquart has it right.  The one church is invisible in respect to the "who," and visible in respect to the "where."  The where is defined not by claim but by confession, not by lineage but by faithfulness, not by size but by marks.  The name Lutheran is new but the confession is not.  I cannot understand why anyone would want to identify with a name that stood for any less -- unless they also believed that, for all practical purposes, there is no longer the evangelical and catholic faith but merely the leftovers of its history deposited here and there throughout the remnants of a Christianity which can never be fully known or known in its fullness (confession) or identifiable in its location.  That is the real meaning of a virtual church.

As long as there has been an orthodox Church on earth, so long there has been a Lutheran Church. It sounds strange, but it is true, the Lutheran Church is as old as the world; for it has no other doctrine than that which the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles received from God, and proclaimed. The name Lutheran, indeed, did not come into existence until three hundred years ago, but not the matter which that name signifies. Accordingly, the question, Where was the Lutheran Church before Luther? is easily answered, thus: The Lutheran Church was wherever there still were Christians who with all their heart believed in Jesus Christ and His Holy Word, and would not surrender this alone-saving faith of theirs in favor of human ordinances, or who made this Church their final refuge in the hour of death. (W. H. T. Dau in Four Hundred Years: Commemorative Essay On the Reformation, p.313).

The trigger of my insanity...

One of my favorite scenes from The Princess Bride is when there is a dust up over the word "inconceivable" and the supposed ignorant one tries to correct the allegedly intelligent one.

You keep using that word.  The political silly season has about driven me crazy and we have far to go.  One of the triggers of my distress is the abundant use by the Obama administration of the word "unprecedented."  It seems that nearly every dang thing about that administration is "unprecedented."  If you watched UN Ambassador Rice on the Sunday talk shows, she exemplified the Obama infatuation with that word.  There are a million other examples I could have chosen -- this being only the most recent.  The only problem is that whoever writes the talking memos has not bothered to look up this word.  This flagrant violation of usage is, well, unprecedented.


un·prec·e·dent·ed   [uhn-pres-i-den-tid] adjective; meaning without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled: an unprecedented event.

I am no linguist and I make my share of unprecedented errors in grammar, vocabulary, etc., but this one just about drives me crazy.  I am inclined to vote out the people who abuse this word just so I won't have to hear it abused over and over again.  I know.  That is not a very good reason for voting for or against someone.  However, if it will keep me from the brink of insanity, could someone please make them stop!!!!!  

The power of sign, symbol, and ceremony....

We are constantly told in the Church that people have outgrown the tired old signs, symbols, and ceremonies that once accompanied the worship life of God's people.  Whether it is the allure of technology or the desire for pleasurable entertainment or the comfort zone of being a spectator instead of a participant, we are ever reminded that this is not your grandfather's church (as if that were the worst thing of all).  Yet people remain enamored with signs, symbols, and ceremony.  If not in religion, then in sports or patriotism, among other places. 

Think for example.  Ashes on Ash Wednesday are a throw back to an ancient and irrelevent symbol of inward repentance and, yet, they are still so popular that people who never come to church any other day come to receive the mark of the cross in ashes traced upon their foreheads.  Their penance and conversion from sin may not be all that front and center but they remain connected simply through this ancient sign and symbol. Bishops still carry pastoral staffs (crosiers), wear purple clericals, hoist a miter upon their heads, and have a pectoral cross around their necks and episcopal ring upon their fingers even though we live in an egalitarian age in which rank and heirarchy seem to be the antithesis of the modern mind. We still have candles in church (and at home and restaurants) even though we do not need their light.  We buy little battery tea lights that mimic the dancing flame of real candles. We still use water for baptism even though the modern symbol of cleansing has long ago been replaced by a squirt of hand sanitizer and the familiar aroma of its fake scent.  We know instinctively the common fare of bread and wine even though we have an array of choices never before known to us that we might use as substitutes.  I could go on and on.

The power of sign, symbol, and ceremony is that these things bring to mind that which they sign, convey a wealth of information, perspective, and feeling even though they are mere symbols, and give us both comfort and identity even though they remain external gestures, rituals, and ceremonies.  Far from outliving them, we seem to live at a time when they are in greatest demand.  Amid the changes and changes of this mortal world and the press of modern life, we long for that which connects us to a past of fond memory and which comforts us with the certainty of those things that do not change.

Recently there has been a buzz about the addictive character of worship which capitulates to the diety of change.  The experience itself can become the same kind of rush which other experiences and substances also deliver.  The answer is to return to sign, symbol, ceremony, and liturgy.  I have overcome worship addiction through the use of time-tested, ancient worship practices, aka “liturgy”.  So says one recovering worship addict.  These things can certainly become ends in an of themselves -- no one is denying this -- yet they sign, symbolize, and point to that which is beyond and yet accessible sacramentally -- the God who is yesterday, today, and forever the same.  This is the God whose steadfast love endures forever and the familiar and ancient signs and symbols which accompany the ceremony and ritual of liturgical worship convey this never changing grace and mercy in ways that newnesss, novelty, and change cannot.  Far from moving away from these, we need to reclaim what we have already lost and relearn what has become strange to us.  Not because these are ends in and of themselves but because these are subtle yet powerful reminds of the God who changes not and this God does not constantly reinvent Himself but delivers Himself and His grace to us in the places were He has promised.  We dare not miss this.

The Light of the Dark Ages

This is an amazing video of the surprise of the Middle or Dark Ages, hidden artwork that was seldom seen even when first produced and hidden even more from modern eyes.  Worth your time!

Say it ain't so, Joe...

From Todd Wilken:  I understand that there is a question on the synod’s vicarage application asking the applicant if he is comfortable with any “contemporary liturgical elements.”  Of course, it’s a trick question. Like much of the information in the vicarage and call paperwork, this question is based on the assumption that might be something wrong with an applicant who simply answers “No.”But what if the honest answer is “No”?

Of course it is no secret that the same kind of question is on the Pastor's SET (Self Evaluation Tool) which is used by DPs to find out what their Pastors think of themselves and forwarded to congregations looking to call a Pastor.  In the SET as well as, apparently, the vicarage application, the question is not a trick question but a means of punishing those who do not agree with the direction toward contemporary worship forms and contemporary worship music.  For every DP who uses this information to make sure that he is getting a Pastor who will lead worship and use music consistent with our Confessions, there are a dozen who use it to make sure none of those narrow minded, judgmental trouble-makers get into their districts.

Let's be real here.  Flexibility on the issue of worship is considered an asset and anything else triggers a loud buzzer and blinking red light marked REJECT.  It is a shocker that this sieve is being used already in vicarage to separate out the wheat from the chaff (the chaff being those who think worship by the book).  In the end what counsel would you give?  Nothing much different from what Todd Wilken suggests -- lie and figure that you can live with about anything for a year and then bite your tongue until ordination and installation are complete.  An alternative would be to say that I uphold the Synod's Confessional position on worship forms and music.  That would delay the inevitable question and probably assure you of a call to make an appointment with the Vicarage Director at the Seminary but I doubt it would get you off the hook.

By a few measures I am considered a "successful" Parish Pastor -- I have served in two parishes whose membership, facilities, ministry, and finances have grown substantially during the time I have served there.  I wonder if I would make it through the vicarage and placement process today without severely curtailing my tongue and hiding what I really think.  Is this what it has come down to?

I do not blame the seminaries.  They have to place these vicars and candidates and in order to do so they need the support and cooperation of the District Presidents.  They are at the narrow end of the funnel and determine what gets through and what does not.  We already know of Districts which refuse candidates and vicars from Ft. Wayne (or deeply restrict their access).  Now we have one more hurdle placed before the seminaries -  it is as if we all must play the game of contemporary worship and music or we will be disqualified....  Let's pray and work for this to change!

Traditional and Modern... what does it mean?

If you have read much on this blog you know of my interest in architecture, specifically in the design and execution of space set apart for the liturgical assembly.  I have some rather strong opinions on this and yet I am not a traditionalist who believes that the most successful modern architecture is the repristination of ancient forms.

I ran across a comparison between the architectural statement two different Roman Catholic cathedrals new to the American landscape.  At first glance it is easy to see which is traditional and which is modern.  One eschews every tradition in form, shape, materials, and design to produce a design which is unmistakably 21st century.  The other seems a throw back to an ancient form, a modern repeat of something already existing in the past of cathedral design.  In the end it is not quite that simple.

The more modern design is not modern but rather radical.  It borrows from the shapes, materials, and details of an airport terminal or mall or public building but for what purpose?  Its accouterments have no logical value or symbolic purpose.  They are new and fresh but only in comparison to that which is old and familiar.  In fact, compared to the rest of what one often sees upon the urban landscape of buildings destined for public use or assembly it is rather traditional and predictable.

The more traditional design is not simply traditional.  It is rather modern.  The shapes and materials are familiar but the walls and ceiling and ornamentation bear the marks of a reserved brush, palate, and design.  It achieves a modern appearance and sense while foregoing the stark, cold, and empty feeling that so many complain about in modern architecture.  Perhaps many would have filled in the blank spaces with ornament for the sake of ornamentation's sake.  In any case, the architects have a remarkable reserve while allowing the very space itself to make the statement.  In case you are wondering, its statement is thoroughly comfortable for the purpose of this space, for the liturgical assembly.

Surprisingly, one is humble and one is infatuated with its own grandeur.  The surprise is that the traditional building expresses a fundamental humlity of design and follow through while the modern building goes to excess in ornamention that exists for no purpose whatsoever -- it is certainly not symbolism related to the faith or the Mass which goes on within its walls.  But don't just listen to me.  Read it all for yourself.  It is all right here....

The quality of the discussion within this little article is exactly the kind of thoughtful and careful conversation which needs to happen among those who design and build churches today.  I wish that my own Lutheran Church Missouri Synod had this kind of reflective evaluation ongoing over the various buildings being built by the congregations of my own communion.  Good job!

Human judgment or Divine...

Sermon preached for Pentecost 15, Proper 18B, on Sunday, September 9, 2012.

    We all have our ideas about what a Christian should look like or who fits into the kingdom of God.  Today Jesus stretches the imagination of those images and holds up two very unlikely characters as worthy of the Kingdom of God by grace.  It is the story of two Gentiles, of two outsiders who have no lineage or claim but to whom God showed His rich mercy.  One is a Syrophoenecian woman whose daughter is possessed by a demon and the other a deaf mute..  Neither seems a good candidate for God's grace.  At best they were both dogs sniffing after the leftovers of God's grace that was meant for the children of Israel.  Yet the kingdom of God is never about what you deserve and is always about the grace of God for the unworthy and the undeserving.
    Grace is always gift – those who receive grace are always unworthy.  It does not matter how they appear on the outside.  Some folks do look good on the outside but the grace of God is reserved for sinners.  Our external righteousness may impress the world but God sees the heart.  We may think that God has come for the good, for those who deserve His favor, but Scripture tells us God is no respecter of person’s lineage or address or accomplishments.  Here lineage certainly matters.  It matters who your ancestors were, where they came from, and what they accomplished.  Though we have no real monarchy in America, we still have dynasties where the same family figures prominently into politics or the boardroom or finance.  Last names open doors and family connections count.  But not in the kingdom of God.  We can lay no claim to be sons of Abraham for God can make stones into His sons if He wishes.
    If lineage counts for part of it, another part of what counts is location.  The power of an address.  Who can forget the contrast of Green Acres with Park Avenue or the little bit country versus the little bit rock and roll?  I recall being impressed when the District Office where I first served had the address of 360 Park Avenue South. We all make judgements on the basis of where you live or where you come from – but not God.  We have all made our dream drives through the neighborhoods with the big new houses or the tree lined boulevards of the old estates.  We know the score.  We know the power of an address to say you are somebody or you are nobody but God counts none of these.  Instead He seeks repentance.
     If lineage or location are important, the final thing that matters is what have you done?  It is not merely in mountains of money that lives matter but in accomplishment.  The age old definition of worth has something to do with what you have accomplished or what you have accumulated.  Our age is no better.  As I like to remind folks, the golden rule is that he who has the most gold rules.  In the same way, stature makes a difference.  In terms of lineage, location, and life, the two folks who came to Jesus had nothing to approve them before God.  They came with only the hope that God’s grace would be given to undeserving and the unworthy.
    Divine judgment does not mirror human judgment.  God is not swayed by lineage.  God can turn stones into sons of Abraham.  God is not impressed with location.  Israel had everything and yet suffered exile over and over again because their everything did not translate into faith.  Life accomplishments and what you accumulate does not move God.  God is not impressed with our stuff or our accomplishments.  In divine judgment, grace alone matters.
    Grace is accessed of confession and faith.  The woman who came to plead with her daughter did not argue with Jesus.  "I am not a dog."  Instead she admitted that she was unworthy but in this unworthiness was also the faith that was content with the leftovers and crumbs of God's grace and favor.  We come before God not to argue how bad a sinner we might be but to confess that we are sinful, unclean, and unworthy of His grace.  When we admit in humble confession that we come as the unworthy and undeserving, the heart of God is always moved to mercy. 
    Confession is not simply something we do to get it out of the way but the repentant attitude of the heart that shapes and defines the whole of our Christian faith.  The worst of sins is when we act as if confession was for beginners in the faith and maturity moves us beyond humble confession.
    Faith is so often defined in human terms – what we know and how well we understand it and our choice or decision to abide by it.  This is a terrible definition of faith, about as good as the political promises we have already tired of hearing because we know they are not worth much.  Faith is trust, trust not in yourself but in God.  Trust that Jesus can and will do as He has promised.  Trust that what Jesus says is truth.  That water saves, that this bread is His body and this cup His blood, that we are forgiven by His blood...
    The woman who came pleading for her daughter came in faith asking Jesus to do what she believed He could and would do.  The people who brought the deaf man to Jesus brought him there not because they believed might do something but because they trusted that He would do something for this man in need.  Trust is what a child knows better than an adult and trust is what the Spirit works in our fearful and stubborn hearts.  Trust is the currency of the realm of God's kingdom – trust in the Lord and not in rulers or princes or this world’s treasures.
    Finally, note the response to God’s mercy.  The people zealously proclaimed what God had done.  They were astonished by the fact that Jesus' actions lived up to His words.  He has DONE all things well.  Tragically we talk to the world more about us than about God.  We talk about what we think or what we like or what we want.  Faith proclaims what God has done, lifting high the cross before the world, so that God can draw all people unto Himself.  If our witness is not working, could it be that our words are more about us than the Word of the Lord made flesh?
    The fatal flaw of Judaism was that it attempted to define the kingdom of God by lineage, location, or life.  God defines His kingdom as grace given to the unworthy and undeserving.  James says the danger of forgetting this fact and treating people differently here on earth.  We might also point to the danger of presuming God judges as we do – merely by what we see.  To the poor and rich alike, the call is repentance and the joyous claim is to grace.  Jesus has not come for good people but for sinners.  He seeks not to be impressed but the humility of faith that confesses sin and trusts in the mercy already make known by the cross.  Where Jesus finds this humble heart of faith, grace is without limit to forgive sin, to restore the fallen, to equip the sinner with righteousness.  God grant it.  Amen.

How long did you think it would take?

Remember all the dust up at an Iowa House hearing a year or so ago?  Recall the name Zach Wahls?  He was the very effective speaker who was raised by two moms and who told his story before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee that went viral on YouTube.  He has become quite the celebrity.

Lenoir-Rhyne University's Lineberger Center for Cultural and Educational Renewal and the LR Campus Activities Board presents An Afternoon with Author Zach Wahls at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. Best known for his moving address in front of the Iowa House Judiciary Committee regarding a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in that state, Wahls tries to answer the question, "What makes a family?"

Wahls tried to answer that very question when he testified before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee in January 2011. The son of two lesbian mothers, the 19-year-old University of Iowa engineering student had no idea that his heartfelt testimony that day would spread like viral wildfire, and even land him on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

The interesting thing here?  Well, Lenoir-Rhyne and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary have merged and the first theological lecture offered by this newly merged institution is not a Luther scholar or an exegete of some renown or even a political figure on the merger of church and state.  Nope, they kick it off with an extended discussion of family from the distinct perspective of a guy who had two lesbian moms.

Now I watched his testimony and there is no denying that this guy is an effective speaker, looks good before a camera, showed some grace as he made the news and talk show circuit, and has told an appealing story.  Whether you agree or disagree with him, you have to grant him that.  The problem is that his story is but one story about an issue that needs fewer stories and more facts, fewer emotional appeals and more straightforward debate, fewer personal perspectives and more Biblical perspective.

My issue is not Zach Wahls.  You can listen if you want.  My issue is with the departure from an academic and theological focus to one which essential abandons dogma, truth, and confession on the altar of experience and anecdote.  Believe me, we have plenty enough of this already going on throughout Lutheranism.  At those institutions who aspire to or are charged by their constitutive bodies as the places for pastoral education and formation, something greater is owed than an appearance by a popular and effective young man telling a story.  Without casting aspersions upon him, the issue of what is family is not and dare not be left to anecdote.  It deserves nothing less than the fullest and best discussion of the Biblical, Confessional, and historical intersects with the modern mind and the direction of our culture.

Truth to be told, I was not surprised by this.  I am not surprised by this.  But I am deeply saddened by this foray into experience as the great arbiter of truth, morality, and virtue.  Maybe Mr. Wahls does have a story to tell but the mind of the Church had better listen more to the voice of Scripture, the perspective of the Confessions, and the historical practice and position of Christianity than to experience on either side of this issue.  This is hardly an auspicious beginning for the educational and theological partnership of one seminary and one Lutheran college.  It may well, however, be the precursor of how some Lutherans in the future will approach other issues and make decisions that represent a clear and distinct disconnect from Scripture, from Confession, and from tradition.  And that is what worries more most of all.

BTW I noticed that on the LTSS web site they have newly become an RIC institution (part of a network of intentionally gay friendly congregations and institutions).  How quickly change can move a church body and its institutions from one position to another.  The big challenge for the ELCA is how much of this kind of change can the pews bear before the weight of it all empties them to the manifold Lutheran choices out there besides the ELCA.

We don't need men... we don't need women...

One of the mantras of the extreme side of feminism is the idea that men are not necessary to women.  At one point in time that might have been overkill.  Today it is an accurate statement of reality.  Women do not need men.  They do not need them to be born.  They do need the sperm from a man but that can be delivered in ways that minimize the male impact or influence upon the child's life.  They do not need men to grow up.  We live in a culture which loves the illusion that parents have no gender and that one loving parent is all that is necessary to raise up a well-rounded, well-educated, and well-formed adult.  They do not need men to affirm their beauty, their worth, or their talents.  Women (like men) are told over and over again that you do this or become that for yourself -- not to please or satisfy anyone else.  They do not need men to succeed.  In fact men are generally seen as impediments or obstacles to be overcome on the road to career success and achievement.  Marriage and children (at least at the wrong time) are often seen as liabilities on this ladder to success.  Women do not need men when it comes to that time when they might desire their own children and begin the cycle all over again.

Women do not need men.  Funny, because it was men who did not need women that seemed to cause the flower of feminism in the first place.  Men had families because they were expected of them but work, career, and, eventually, play were the dominant goals of misogynist males.  Women have learned from their flawed counterparts and have become just as independent as the men were before them.  Women do not need men so men do not need to be men.  They can remain boys -- with their toys, with their interests, with their self-centered focus upon happiness and pleasure.  Many of them have learned that mom can still take care of them and will take care of them long after their dads had left home and gone on their own.  Women do not need men and men (at least some of them) seem perfectly content not to be men at all.

I say this not to condemn women or men.  I say this because it frames the trouble we have with marriage.  We are not really sure what to do with it.  So many have decided that marriage is not worth it or not necessary for their goals and happiness.  They are perfectly content to live together in short term unions without the messy complications of legal marriage.  They are perfectly content to fulfill their social and sexual needs in other ways besides marriage.  One author has suggested that the hook up culture works fine now for women (and men are happy to comply).  In The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin recently defended the hookup culture as essential to female success and equality. Given the pressure of a high-powered career, she claims, “an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.” In order to carve out time for work, women need the same option men have long enjoyed: “the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career.”

Of course,  we know better.  But it is into this culture we send forth our young men and women and it is the press of these viewpoints that wears at the noble character of marriage.  How we fight this battle depends upon many things but I think that one tack we can take is to directly address the issue of whether or not men need women and women need men.  In our increasingly isolated culture, need is often seen as weakness and technology substitutes for personal relationship.  The article has hit upon one important issue:  A life that has no room for serious romantic partners can’t have much space for deep friendships either.  It is not merely our romantic relationships that are suffering.  We are having finding it harder and harder to make, nurture, and sustain deep friendships as well.  In a sense, as this author has put it, we have invented a new monasticism which, like the old, finds marriage unnecessary or at least irrelevent, but which is unwilling to forego sexual pleasure. 

The modern life has reserved the intensity of our commitments for job/career and pleasure.  Whether these jobs or careers are the traditional sacrificial vocations of public service (teachers, for example) or the traditional domain of business, we seem to delight in what we have given up in order to achieve our career goals.  In many cases we have made personal pleasure and career success synonyms.  Since it is difficult to sustain any kind of relationship while intensity is reserved for job and self, these become the things we give up for our higher priorities.  The hook up culture gives us the illusion of relationships while providing sexual release absent any love, commitment, or consequence.  We have essentially created a new culture -- secular monasticism.  How long or how well this survives is ultimately dependent upon the satisfaction of those who practice it.  In the mean time, we in the Church can be prepared to bind up those who come to us broken and bleeding -- the self-sufficient who found that needing no one simply leaves you empty and alone.

God does not need your good works but your neighbor does...

An excellent article by an excellent author!  In the online Canadian Lutheran magazine, Gene Edward Vieth explores the extraordinary that is there in the ordinary of our vocations and locations -- the domains where God has placed to fulfill His purpose and do the good works that flow naturally from our baptism into Christ and the work of the Spirit within us...  The vocation of ordinary life which is not so ordinary!

Take a read here... it is a good article.  Thanks for the tip, Anonymous!

The Multi-Site Church

In one article I read where in 1990 there were only 10 multi-site congregations in the US.  At the time the technology was new and expensive and Christians were just waking up to the potential uses of such technology.  By 2005, however, the number of multi-site churches had exploded to 1500!  In the last five years, that number has more than tripled.  Gone are the days when this was a phenomenon limited to mega-churches with big budgets and a super high profile leader.  Now it is the preferred methodology for mission planting and has become accessible to nearly every local congregation due to the easy access to and low cost of technology.  Currently there something like 1600 mega churches but three times that number utilizing multi-site strategies.  These are not limited to non-denominationals and mainline churches are buying into this big time.

According to the Rev. Gary Shockley, executive director of New Church Starts at the Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church, at least 50% of the 621 new churches started by the UMC since January of 2008 were multi-site venues. What’s more, Shockley goes on to say that of the 1,000 new churches they intend to start between 2013 and 2016, they are “targeting 60% to be multi-sites, extensions or satellites of vibrant existing United Methodist Churches.”  It is hard to get more mainline Protestant than the United Methodist Church.  But the strategy is also creeping into such churches as the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, as well.  As congregations in older denominations borrow methodologies from those on the "cutting edge" of evangelicalism, the communal aspects of their congregational life (such as the Lord's Supper) have already retreated from Sunday morning and thus there is little standing in the way of magnifying the impact of a charismatic preacher through the use of multi-sites and the big screen.  It does not seem that modern folks are adverse to watching their preacher on video, either.  Perhaps the manifold use of screens in the daily life of most folks (smart phones, tablets, video games, computers, etc.) has made it easier to transition to a worship service in which the preacher is not live but digitally projected.

A great article has raised all sorts of questions about this -- from the cult of personality which is a real and potential down side to the practical effects of such geographic distance for people supposed connected together as one congregation in different locations.  Sadly, the one and only thing that seems to unite these folks is the face of the man on the big screen.

While the answer may not be pleasing to the ears of those that lead these churches, an argument could be made that as opposed to centering the practice of the church on the life, death and resurrection of the Christ and the proclamation of His Word, many of these churches have made a subtle shift towards centering the church on “the proclamation.” That is to say, an argument could be made that many of these churches are leaning more upon the rhetorical giftings of their Senior Pastors than they are upon the content of their message. And when they begin to slide in this direction, they begin the slow, inevitable descent into what is commonly referred to as the “cult of personality.”

I will leave it to you to read and draw your own conclusions but it would seem to me that multi-site congregations only further the church down the slippery slide to a virtual congregation in which personal connections and what is believed, confessed, and taught have taken a distant second to the oratorical skills of a preacher whose task and responsibility is to become an ever greater personality and celebrity for a people further and further removed from the life and pastoral care of that individual.  In my mind, this is one trend that the LCMS needs to forego.

Satellite congregations -- congregations which function more as preaching stations with a real, live Pastor and essential functions but whose governance, financial support, and fuller array of programs eminate from one central location is a far different thing.  Here we realize that it may not be possible to plant independent congregation in certain areas but that by drawing on the strengths of an established mother, these daughters can be give some time to solidify, to grow, and to become independent congregations.  It is much less prone to the weaknesses of multi-sites where the preacher is digital and the music is live and the venue is much like a simulcast event for entertainment than it is the living, breathing Church of Christ.  In certain scenarios, such a satellite set up may be a fruitful means to the longer term goal of planting new congregations.  Multi-site congregations are generally not interested in planting other churches -- only bring the show to more people and thereby reaping the benefits of satellites without actually offering to the people there a real church and a real Pastor.

How do we remember...

It is hard to imagine.  As I heard of the remembrance events in Afghanistan planned for the 9-11 anniversary today, I was shocked as the media person reminded us that many of the soldiers serving there were as young as 7 years old when the twin towers fell, the Pentagon was hit, and the plan went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  How time passes and yet how fresh the wounds!

It brings to mind the ongoing debate about how to remember 9-11.  Some believe that the day should be a federal holiday, the likes of Memorial Day or Veterans (nee Armistice) Day.  Others believe that there should be no formal remembrance at all.  I admit to being conflicted on this point.  On the one hand, the more we set aside federal holidays for special causes, the less significant those days and the easier it is to forget what they mean.  Take Memorial Day, for example.  Whom do we remember on Memorial Day?  It has become more a generic day of remembrance of all dead than the day we remember the members of the Armed Forces who gave their lives to protect our freedom.  What is the meaning of Veterans Day?  Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.  Then, in 1945, WWII veteran Raymond Weeks from Birmingham, Alabama had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans.  On June 1, 1954, Armistice Day became Veterans Day.  By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001 (Public Law 107-89), the Congress has designated September 11 of each year as “Patriot Day,” and by Public Law 111-13, approved April 21, 2009, the Congress has requested the observance of September 11 as an annually recognized “National Day of Service and Remembrance."  I am not exactly sure this has the same force as a full fledged holiday but there we have it.

We have no days specific to events -- Memorial Day encompasses all the members of the military who died in service to their country and Veterans Day includes the veterans of all the wars and of all service to the Armed Forces of the US.  That leads me to think that we should not have a specific day for the terrible events of  9-11 and yet a few moments of silence on the actual day and at the actual time the attacks began seems to pale in comparison to the radical impact these events have had upon the life of our country and the lives of soldiers and citizens.


Just something to think about as we pause to remember....

The digital edition of The Lutheran Witness

I got my link in the mail and here it is for all to see...

Click here with your CPH account log in...https://www.cph.org/witness/currentissue.aspx

An old joke remembered again...

During a Eucharistic Congress, a number of priests from different orders are gathered in a church for Vespers. While they are praying, a fuse blows and all the lights go out.

The Benedictines continue praying from memory, without missing a beat.

The Jesuits begin to discuss whether the blown fuse means they are dispensed from the obligation to pray Vespers.

The Franciscans compose a song of praise for God’s gift of darkness.

The Dominicans revisit their ongoing debate on light as a signification of the transmission of divine knowledge.

The Carmelites fall into silence and slow, steady breathing.

The parish priest, who is hosting the others, goes to the basement and replaces the fuse.

The terrible lie that neither sin nor virtue counts at all...

Sermon preached for Pentecost 15, Proper 17B, on Sunday, September 2, 2012.

    It is easy to look around in the halls of justice and to conclude that guilt and innocence no longer count – only how you can manipulate the law to work for you.  It is also easy to conclude from the way goodness is portrayed in our modern culture that virtue no longer counts.  Then, when we get into Church on Sunday morning, we figure that neither our sins nor our virtues count before God.  It is as if we have traded talk of sin and righteousness for sincerity and the belief that matters of the heart count more than thoughts, words or deeds.  Sadly, the simplistic side of the Gospel has come to mean we are forgiven of sin to go right back out there and return to our sinful ways.  Since we believed you are saved by faith and not by works, it is tempting to conclude that neither sinful behavior nor virtue matters all that much.  God saves you from one and the other does not really count at all.
    Both conclusions are false.  Bad behavior counts.  Sin counts.  Sin is not some minor little irritation or flaw, it defiles us and disfigures us until our lives bear no resemblance at all to the life we were created to lead.  Sin wells up from within us out of hearts so soiled and stained by sin that they don't even notice it anymore.  Evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness – did anything get missed in that list?  They count.  They curse us with death.  They steal God from us until we are left with hate, fear, and bitterness and they steal away our relationships with one another.
    Sin cannot be avoided or overlooked.  It must be dealt with head on.  As St. Paul says, we keep working sin and earning the good wages of death until we are rich with its lies, guilt, and death.  Sin counts.  Sin kills. Because of sin we are spiraling out of control toward a destiny of harm much worse than this life can inflict upon us.  We are headed toward eternal death in which the only thing left to us is suffering, the only thing known by us is pain, and the only future is this suffering and death, temporal and eternal.
     Yes, bad behavior and sin counts.  But so does good behavior and virtue!.  Holiness is not theory.  Holiness is practical.  Now, holiness will not win you salvation nor will it turn God's heart around to your point of view.  But this is not necessary; it has already been done through the death and resurrection of Christ.  Your works do not supplement what Christ has done.  It is because of what Christ has done, you are capable of any good pleasing to God.  Because you are in Christ God is pleased to consider your righteousness through the lens of Christ.  You were created for goodness, for good works and it is for this Christ has redeemed you.  Faith does not involve a choice between the external or the internal.  Faith lays claim to the transformational power of Christ to make us what He has declared us to be – righteous and holy.
    You were created for good works.  God has in Christ restored you to this holy calling and purpose.  This is why James insists that faith without works is dead.  Faith is never without good works.  What we were incapable of because of sin, is now our calling because of Christ.  Good behavior and virtue still counts and Christian life is meant to be the fruitful domain of holy and pure thoughts, of good and honest conversation, and of actions that show forth the love of Him who saved you.
    We wear not a righteousness of our own manufacture but the righteousness of Christ.  We do not do the good works that honor us but the works of Christ that honor Him.  It is a simplistic faith that reduces Christianity to the idea that "I was bad, God forgave me and now I am off the hook."  We are not born again of water and the word to live lives isolated from Christ and His power.  We were born again in baptism to live in Christ the new life which He has bestowed on us.  This is not some burden on us against our wills but the fruit of wills created anew in Christ Jesus to be His own and to live under Him in His kingdom that has no end.
    It is an equally pernicious lie to think that salvation simply means God has given me a second chance to be good on my own.  What terrible bondage it is to receive forgiveness in Christ only to go right back to living on your own and trying to keep the commandments and become the good person you know you should be.  This lie has given birth to the idea of constant conversions, of constant revivals, of constant born again experiences that flourish only for a moment and fail because we just did not try hard enough.
    Our sins count against us and must meet the redeeming power of Christ's blood to set us free.  Our good works count only because Christ lives in us and He is the one producing those works by the power of His righteousness and Spirit within us.  God is not merely concerned with the external of our lives nor is God satisfied to own merely our spirits.  He has redeemed us body, soul, and spirit, to live in Christ the new life that Christ has given us, right now and right here but also in eternity.  He has equipped us for the good deeds the Spirit works and this is our baptismal gift and vocation.
     From the heart made new come lives that display Christ's mercy to the world.  What God desires us to show the world is not what others can also accomplish if they try hard enough.  No, what God seeks from us is to display before the world the righteousness with which we were clothed in baptism.  We are to show forth the new person born of baptism’s womb – forgiven, living in a state of grace, and showing forth in our lives the good works of Him who has called us from darkness into His marvelous light.
    It is a terrible lie and the worst of all prisons to think that our good works can buy the heart of God.  It is also a waste since Christ has paid our debt for sin fully and completely.  But it is also a destructive lie and bondage to think that good works matter nothing at all.  In our world of choices between two things, James and Jesus bring them together.  Sin is not merely external but wells up from within the heart.  Christ has created new hearts in us by baptism so that the grace that we claim by faith may manifest itself in thoughts, words, and deeds that honor the Lord and befit our identity as the children of God.  Amen.

Suffering as the ultimate evil...

In an incisive piece called Our Neurotic Fear of Suffering, Wesley J. Smith describes how we have gone from suffering and pain being an ordinary part of life to a life in which the absence of suffering or pain is seen as the highest good.  There was a poignant line in his piece:  Suffering was the hard price one paid for being alive.

I will leave it to Wesley J. Smith and his piece to sort out the medical and cultural aspects of this all.  Instead, I want to focus on how this aversion to suffering has shaped our approach to work, the way we see marriage, our view of family, our choice for (or against) having children, and, finally, how our expectations of the faith/God have changed.

Generations of people have toiled at jobs they detested, in workplaces filled with danger, and enduring pain through their labors.  Now, however, we expect that everyone has some sort of right to a job they like, they enjoy, that is safe, and without the potential of pain or suffering.  Unfortunately, there are necessary jobs and responsibilities required in our society and culture in which these cannot be avoided.  My father is a plumber and he is required to deal with less than pleasant things all the time and the money is not incentive enough to make up for these duties.  Yet he has done this pretty much without complaint for more than 60 years.  My wife is a registered nurse; she has and continues to deal with unpleasant things in an environment fraught with the potential of danger and, though the money helps, it does not cover all the stress, pain, and trouble of her vocation.  As a Pastor I have given up days off, gotten out of bed in the middle of the night, and gone days without sleep all to be with the people in my care.  It surely does not measure up to the suffering of my dad or my wife but it has not been pleasant, nonetheless.

Marriage has been romanticized into an ideal that is both unattainable and unrealistic.  People have come to believe that marriage should primarily be a source of happiness and pleasure and that when marriage fails to deliver, it is reason enough to end it all.  Not all that long ago marriages were largely arranged or sorted out without infatuation or a life of happiness and fulfillment entering into the discussion.  That did not mean that these marriages were without love, affection, happiness or pleasure.  It merely means that husbands and wives did not see making each other happy as their primary purpose.  They were there to share the burdens and toils of this mortal life, to care for one another, to bring up children, and to work pretty much until their health prevented or they died.

One of the primary reasons couples have fewer children is that they realize the financial and personal cost of having these children and they want to spend the money, time, and energy more on themselves than expending them on children.  Children have always been a burden but it was a burden thought worth bearing.  Children have always brought with them some measure of suffering and pain but parents believed these were worth bearing for the sake of a higher good.  Now we find our culture questioning the value of children, whether the cost and suffering of having those children is worth it, and making choices to limit the number of children or even deciding not to having children largely to avoid the price in dollars and pain.  We plan our families around our career goals, our financial choices, and our feelings.  Sometimes we even think of children the way we think of infections or disease -- to be avoided at all costs.

How we deal with aging is also involved in our aversion to suffering and pain.  We don't like to be reminded of the mental and physical frailty that sometimes comes with old age so we avoid the elderly.  Countless great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents go without family visit and support because the families don't want to deal with the down side of aging.  Where caring for elderly family members was once understood as simply part of the nature of family, we often look for places to ditch those who can no longer care for themselves so that we do not have to bear some of the burden of their suffering.  We have come to a modern conclusion that quality of life is the most important criteria for dealing with the aged and we have presumed that death is preferable to any element of life compromised or diminished by age.

So when we look to faith and to God, we primarily look for someone and something to alleviate our suffering and relieve our pain.  It is unthinkable to many Christians that our consolation is that God suffers or bleeds for us and with us.  They can only conceive of comfort in terms of the absence of pain and suffering.  So the church becomes the place where we go to fix marriages in pain, to repair job situations that are unsatisfactory, to improve financial situations that cannot afford the cost of our pleasure and happiness, and to define values more consistent with our expectations than Scripture.  The scandal of the cross is that suffering has become the means of our redemption -- not the means of taking away every potential pain of this mortal life that we have come to expect.  So the word of the cross has disappeared from some of the preaching and the cross has been quietly replace with other symbols more amenable to our aversion to suffering and our problem with pain.  It is not the problem of pain that we face but the pain that is our biggest problem -- greater than sin and bigger than death.  Ditch the crucifix and its image of the suffering Savior and find us a religious symbol that inspires our happiness and confirms our belief that pain is the enemy God needs to deal with -- not sin, not the devil, not evil, and not death.

Just a few thoughts occasioned by one line in a great little article...

The difficulty of making the Crystal a real Cathedral...

I have listened with interest as some have heralded and others lamented the purchase of the Crystal Cathedral by the Diocese of Orange.  All agree it was a bargain --  the whole thirty-one-acre property and its four buildings for $53 million.  Even if you spend another $100 million renovating the property, it is still a steal compared to the cost of building new (upwards of $250 million).  But the issue here is not who got the bargain of the decade.  The issue is how to convert the icon of religion as entertainment into a real cathedral and an appropriate setting for the Mass.

One author is not so sure it can be done or it should be done (if, indeed, it can be).  Duncan G. Stroik is a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame and he has been a careful but vocal critic of modern architecture and its failure to house the central purpose of a building for Roman Catholic use -- the Mass.  His own words:  One of the major criticisms of Catholic architecture during the past fifty years is that it has incorrectly adopted many of the forms of low-church Protestantism: the theater form, a fear of sacred images, asymmetrical layouts, vacuous sanctuaries, minimalist liturgical elements, prominently placed Jacuzzis for baptism, and the banishment of the Blessed Sacrament to the baptistry. The altar area becomes a stage with a focus on entertainment alongside praise bands that perform upbeat music.

I can certainly resonate with his criticism.  In fact, I would argue that we Lutherans have fallen victim to the false assumptions of modern architecture and bought into its weaknesses when constructing our own facilities for worship.  We have forgotten what the purpose of that sacred space is about and so we have borrowed from foreign sources to construct something which succeeds or fails less on looks or appearance than service to the Word and Sacraments and the promotion of the faith.

How many Lutheran buildings are minimalist structures without a clear line of sight to altar (often barely a table) with nary a font or pulpit to stand out?  How many Lutheran buildings are blank canvases devoted more to stark, gray or white space than to the great images of art and glass that once dominated our past?  The jutting images of poured concrete have replaced the polychromed altar pieces of the past and the whimsy of modern architectural form which is still uncomfortable with man as primary occupant and worship as primary purpose.  Until we repent of these architectural monstrosities dominated by screens, speakers, and soloists, we will find the faith of our Confessions as unfitting as some have found the idea of a real Cathedral in place of the fake crystal one in California.

Extremism in support of Obama is no vice...

You can't blame Obama for this.  But clearly some of his supporters have betrayed their understanding of religion and Christianity.  In this view, Jesus had a younger brother.  His name was Barry...  The same supporters might well think that the younger has surpassed the elder in this strange take on faith.  Just goes to show you how silly this silly season can get... and why so many folks no longer take politics seriously (as it should be taken)...  Obama's alleged birth certificate (lets have some fun here) and an editorial comment on it....

We laugh at irreverence...

“We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile.”  — Hilaire Belloc, This That and the Other (1912)

A friend sent on this quote.  I did not find it on my own.  But it is so darn true.  We love to laugh even when our laughter comes at the expense of those things most sacred and holy.  I am not saying we should not laugh at ourselves -- we should - but dare not laugh at things sacred and holy.  It is one thing to laugh at ourselves and our foolishness.  It is quote another to laugh at the things of God as if they were not sacred but profane, not salutary but merely impotent.  We need to make sure we know the difference.

I reported here over the years about times when I have gone to District or even Synodical events only to sit in my chair and endure the mocking of the latest and greatest guru of this, that, and the other, while he or she made fun of my Church (not the Lake Wobegon humor that laughs at our foolishness but the mocking of our sacramental identity, our liturgical expression of our confession, and our reverence for the means of grace.  It is not funny when the laughter mocks the faith.

I know Garrison Kiellor says that Lutherans love not to take themselves or their things too seriously but I, for one, don't know where we got the idea that we can learn something from those who mock our values, belittle our confession, and make a joke of what is sacred and holy.  Make fun of ourselves yes but not of God or the things of God. 

There is, at least, one caveat.  Sometimes we make fun of ourselves as cover or relief for taking seriously the flaws and failures of our sins.  It is surely easier to laugh at sin than confess it.  But repentance does not take lightly our wrongs or it will inevitably lead us to take lightly what God has done to forgive it (sending forth His Son to die in our place).  We can laugh at our foolishness and there is plenty of fodder here to keep us laughing but we dare not laugh at sin or use humor to deflect the pointing finger of the law that calls us to account.  We take sin seriously.  We take redemption seriously.  We take the means of grace seriously.

Respect is not a common virtue today.  Our language is vulgar (sometimes even in church).  Our behavior is crude.  Our comedy is blasphemous.  Our dress is casual -- for our comfort instead of the honor of the occasion.  Our need to laugh greater than our desire for repentance.  I like laughter.  But the problem we have is that irreverence keeps going further and further and it has become a consuming fire that has left a trail of destruction of our once sacred institutions, truths, practices and shrines (both in and out of church).

God will not be mocked.  We may think that there is nothing wrong with a little irreverence but it may be a costly delusion.  Again, don't get me wrong.  The people who know me know I love a good laugh.  But not over things sacred.  The Mass is not a comedy monologue and the job of the preacher or liturgist is not to entertain.  It does nothing to assist the holy purpose of God's calling us into His house to mock or belittle that house with irreverence.  It does just the opposite.  It deprives us of the one serious thing that we dare not mock or make the object of humor.

Another perspective on circumcision...

Remember the post a few weeks back about the German courts determination that circumcision is child abuse and the efforts to prevent circumcision (even ritual circumcision inherent to Jewish and Islamic practice)?  Here is a new wrinkle.

On one hand the first prosecution is underway. A Rabbi in Germany is being prosecuted for performing circumcisions (some are saying this is a civil and not criminal prosecution but I do not know for sure).   Apparently, it is being exported to Norway as well.

On the other, we hear this from Johns Hopkins.

A team of disease experts and health economists at Johns Hopkins warns that steadily declining rates of U.S. infant male circumcision could add more than $4.4 billion in avoidable health care costs if rates over the next decade drop to levels now seen in Europe.

In a report to be published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine online Aug. 20, the Johns Hopkins experts say the added expense stems from new cases and higher rates of sexually transmitted infections and related cancers among uncircumcised men and their female partners. They say the study is believed to be the first cost analysis to account for increased rates of multiple infectious diseases associated with lower rates of male circumcision, including HIV/AIDS, herpes and genital warts, as well as cervical and penile cancers.

Apparently Johns Hopkins researchers are looking strictly at the health costs of infections, cancers, etc. more prevalent in uncircumcised males and their sexual partners than uncircumcised.  They are warning of about $313 worth of additional health care costs for each decision not to circumcise a baby boy.  This is on top of the addition $2Billion already added to health care costs since circumcision rates in the US dropped from hearly 80% to about 55%. 

Now the American Academy of Pediatrics has decided he is no longer neutral toward circumcision and is decidedly pro this procedures.  A leaked copy of the new American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy statement on circumcision, scheduled to be released on Monday, reveals a change in the prestigious medical body’s previous position (set in 1999) on the medical benefits of the procedure from “neutral” to “pro.” It details how a comprehensive evaluation of research from the last 15 years demonstrates that the medical benefits of circumcision—including “prevention of urinary tract infections, penile cancer, and transmission of some sexually transmitted infections”—outweigh the risks.

It just goes to show you that there are several sides to each argument and consequences of every choice.  But, of course, the issue in Germany is not circumcision, per se, but the issue of Jewish persecution and the Nazi atrocities.  Some are wondering if newer generations have forgotten the cry post WWII nie wieder.  Others are wondering what other religious practices might slip under the watchful eye of jurisprudence and end up being outlawed. 

I just thought you might want to know...

Obsessions and their bondage...

One of the obsessions of the modern political arena is polling.  We poll and poll and poll until we think we know what people think they want us to think and then we poll some more.  Our politicians and candidates for office cannot pick out a tie or comb their hair without polling data to see how people might respond.  It is a paralysis that threatens the very vitality of the American system of government.  We elect people who we think will listen to us and they poll us to see if they are on the right side of things (the prevailing side) and then we complain because they do what we wanted and it was the wrong thing.  We tell candidates what we want them to think and complain that they are captive people when elected (captive to the folks who got them elected).  Honestly, if I could do one thing this silly season of electioneering I would ban all polls (or at least limit them to once a month).

As bad as this obsession is to the political process, it is even worse in the Church.  We are obsessed with any and all kinds of measurements of satisfaction and success.  We are always asking or being asked the old Ed Koch question, "How am I doing?"  I get emails asking for quarterly statistics on attendance, baptisms, new members received, adult confirmations, etc...  I do not know what happens to the information returned to those querrying the church about the state of the church.  I am not sure I want to know.  I turn in monthly reports to the Elders and Church Council (attendance, communions, pastoral acts, pastoral calls, sick and shut in visits, member contacts, miles driven, etc...).  They are looked over and promptly filed away or tossed out hardly ever to be referred to again.  At our weekly staff meetings we review how things went last Sunday, during the weekly events, and at special events in the life of the congregation (some evaluations more formal and others less, with some objective data and other perceptions unsubstantiated by fact).  Then there are those performance evaluations and their own stats, measurements, and meanings.  How fun is sitting down with a review board who will judge you and what you have done (with the outcome being more or less money)?  Of course the numbers we chart most seriously are the ones with dollar signs in front of them -- the ultimate poll numbers.  Are we taking money in, making expenses, is it rising, plateauing, or falling...

Sometimes I feel like the dieter who pulls out the scale every morning to see the bad news.  Is this really how we are supposed to do things as a Church?  It is not that I think we need to get rid of the numbers.  We need some of them.  What we need to ditch is our obsession, dare I say enslavement, to those numbers.  How much can one snapshot in time really say about the life of the Church?  The health of the Church?  Do we really want to be defined simply by prevailing trends (up or down)?  How do we factor in faithfulness?  How do we evaluate speaking truth that none of us wants to tell and even fewer want to hear?  How do we quantify or measure spiritual growth, maturity, increased holiness and righteousness?

Transforming Churches Network (or what other derivation of those initials is now being used) and many other revitalization programs are fueled by numbers, by measurements, by conclusions based upon those numbers.  Everything has to go except growth -- that is the one thing we are here for and we chart this growth by numbers of people contacted, by the perception of those in the community around us, by the attendance numbers, by the new folks (read that unchurched) folks brought it, and by the financial figures that mean success in every language.  So taking a dying congregation and make the terminally ill tell you how they are feeling and what they are doing about it as the clock ticks their life away... nothing sets people on fire for Jesus like statistics!

No, I think we need to deal with the addiction and wean ourselves off our obsession with naval gazing -- the constant and generally fruitless pursuit of what folks are thinking, what they like, how things are being received, and the statistics behind all of it.  What freedom we might encounter if we could just cast off the shackles (or chains, as Joe Biden might put it) of constant measurement and just do the work of the kingdom and be the Church of Christ. 

Oh, well, it was a nice thought, even if somewhat unrealistic....

You know it when you see it...

Remember that old statement by a Supreme Court Justice about the difficulty in writing a legal definition of pornography but "he knows it when he sees it?"  Well, I guess the same could be said of  ugly vestments, ugly churches, and ugly church art.  In this case, a blog has made a go of posting pictures of the offensive vestments, art, and church buildings but it is by no means definitive.  In fact, it seems to be but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  This blog has the potential to outlive its current owner and writer.  There is just so much that is ugly when it comes to churches and clergy (not speaking of their persons here but what they wear as vestments).

I have long appreciated the contributions of Chistopher Johnson and his blog, Bad Vestments, and have posted a link here from time to time.  Now you can read an interview where he reveals a bit more about his mission and purpose in life -- exposing our bad taste.

As I said, it is a work that will live on past his own life, perhaps the lives of the several who will surely have to continue this holy mission of good taste exposing bad taste.  You may not be able to define in words bad vestments (or ugly churches or terrible church art) but, like porn, you know it when you see it.

ULC gone... CLC also gone...

I have spent weeks in Mankato while a child of mine was attending a Lutheran college in that neck of the woods and grew to like the community.  Another Pastor who vicared there said that at the time of his internship there were Lutheran congregations of seven differen jurisdictions.  What a diverse Lutheran presence!  Apparently, that diversity only continues to grow -- if not in jurisdictional form at least in ministry and worship "style" (as some like to put it).  Someone from that area who still gets the paper there forwarded this to me.

You can read the Mankato press report here.  I quote a few paragraphs here....

Campus Lutheran Chapel lost its building though with less conflict than University Lutheran Chapel.  In this case the building was not torn down but redone -- for a new life on the edge, so to speak.

When the building at the corner of Birchwood and Ellis Avenue went up for sale recently, Hosanna Lutheran Church became interested in offering a church there to not only reach out to the campus, but the outlying community.
“We’ve always thought it would be a good thing to be invested in young-adult life,” said Darren Scruggs, 44, who was a youth director for 10 years at Hosanna. “We want to be a resource for the neighborhood and to reach out to the Highland Park neighborhood, which is really a diverse part of Mankato.”

Scruggs said the church plans to continue the 7 p.m. Wednesday services, officiated by Meyer, and add Sunday services when school is in session. Services at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays begin Sept. 9, and will be officiated by Scruggs.

“It’s so much fun to be able to get to meet all the new people,” Scruggs said. “Without getting too churchy, it’s just fun to see what God is up to.”

Scruggs is doing online training to be a pastor and will be ordained next fall.

Take particular note of the line in bold:   “Without getting too churchy, it’s just fun to see what God is up to.”  Gadfry, we sure would not want to get too churchy.  What a turn off that is.  And what a turn on it is to see what God is up to.  If only God posted His facebook status we would not need church at all to find out what He is up do.  We could sit at home and see what is happening in His divine life just like we sit at home (or at Starbucks on the smart phone or tablet) finding out what everyone else is up to.  I think I can safely say that He is probably busy.  Wonder what His satus is?  Single, Relationship, Married?  Oh, well, God, keep me posted.

I thought the whole nature of the Church was that we did know by His self-disclosure in Christ what He was up to and that this living Word was the center of our life together... My bad...

Good poster...

Multiplying Missional Leaders

A source pointed me to this (remind me to give him proper thanks at another time).  I am passing it on to you because I know the readers of this blog are missional folk who want to multiply the missional leaders in their Lutheran congregations, Districts, and throughout the Synod.

From the PR:

Our development programs are not about releasing leaders to the missional frontier, but volunteers keeping the machine of the church running. To be sure, we should attend to the organization of the church, for it is a significant thing when the scattered church gathers. But as the Church stares precipitous decline in the face—as we look to re-embrace the missio Dei—we must learn again the art that Jesus mastered: the task of multiplying missional leaders and releasing them to the cracks and crevices of society where there is little-to-no Kingdom presence.

People often like quippy sayings like, “We want to be known more for our sending capacity than our seating capacity.” This book is about how that can become a reality in your community.

I want to thank the source because I have been left floundering in my knowledge of and inability to fulfill the missio Dei and now I know -- it is the task of multiplying missional leaders and releasing them to the cracks and crevices of society where there is little or now Kingdom presence.  Because that is what Jesus did.

What a shame I went to seminary so long ago before we had cracked the code and figured out what the missio Dei really is.  What a shame that I wasted 32 years of service as a Pastor simply preaching the Word of God (rightly dividing the Law and Gospel) and administering the Sacraments according to Christ's institution.  What a shame that I was laboring so long under the mistaken understanding that Christ wanted the Gospel proclaimed and the blessed Sacraments administered as the means of grace to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify His Church on earth in preparation for His coming again in glory when I should have been focusing my attention on leadership development and raising up certain kinds of leaders with certain kinds of minds and skillsets (missional). What a shame I have so many books in my library but have insufficient works on motivational theory, vision casting, missional leadership development, and, of course, my favorite, "coming up with quippy little sayings that people often like."

Am I being disingenuous.  Of course.  And not a little snarky as well.  Oh, well, I have been huddling with all the wrong people when I should have been tweeting more with Mike Breen as my main homie.  I guess the damage is done.  I am a washout from the college of cool (wow does that sound dated).  Perhaps it would be better if I would simply limp off stage and go off into some dying congregation and work my maintenance theories there so that they stay open long enough for me to bury the last bronzie or dinosauer left in the pews....

Churches acting like churches....

This from the Bob Smietana and The Tennessean.  You can read it all here....

When it comes to the numbers, the difference between mainline churches in Middle Tennessee and those in the country as a whole are striking, according to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

From 2000 to 2010, the Episcopal Church declined 15.7 percent nationwide but grew by 26.7 percent in the Nashville metropolitan area, which includes Franklin and Murfreesboro. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was down 22 percent nationally but up 8.8 percent locally. United Methodists declined 9.9 percent nationally but grew here by 9.2 percent.

David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, said that churches in general benefit from being in the South, where religion is still an important part of life.

Churches that act like churches also have an advantage, he said.

While most people in American say they are Christian, many don’t have ties to a specific church. Those who do go to church want to be part of a religious group and not a social club.

My Comments:

Funny.  We are told by national jurisdictions and mission planners that churches that act like churches are dead or on their way there.  Maybe not.  Bob Smeitana, a great religion beat reporter, wrote a story on liberal churches in Nashville that are bucking the trend of decline prevalent on the national level.  Among the things he wrote is that these churches are not one issue churches and they have not shed the ordinary churchly identity because of their liberal stance.  They emphasize good worship, they have Bible study, and they look, act, and sound like real churches -- not social clubs or political organizations.

Imagine that.  Churches growing because they do not look, act, and sound like anything but a church!  Perhaps we might get the message that we do not have to ditch all the familiar trappings of church in order to reach people and grow.  It seems we are getting signals from all sorts of voices outside the regular channels telling us just that.  Will we listen?  I am not sure.  I hope so.

It seems like forever we have heard it repeated over and over again that in order to grow we have to ditch the very things that identify us as church -- liturgical worship, Biblical preaching, confessional identity, catechetical training, etc... Our new LCMS missions have more in common with the side shows of the evangelical emergent church than with the churches whose mission support pays their bills. The time is now to challenge the common wisdom and return to the uncommon wisdom of churches unafraid and unashamed to be church.

Without debating the rightness or wrongness of their theological opinions, these congregations act churchly and so they suggest to us that changing the design of our worship service, church music, pastoral appearance, etc... is not THE key to growing.  A focus on people, a commitment to excellence in worship, an embrace of the churchly identity, and Bible classes and teaching works even in a more liberal context to reach and keep people.  Imagine, just imagine if you will, if we Lutherans capitalized upon those strengths -- people focused, the best in liturgical worship, church unashamed of being church, and the evangelical and catholic center upon Scripture and the Confessions -- why, we might even impress ourselves!

Great story... great commercial...

An Abridged History of Music... in about 3 minutes

So it skips a few things... relax... enjoy...