Life, times, and musings of a seminarian & family
This site is now optimized for browsing with an iPhone. This probably only benefits me and a few others. Oh well.
In other news, we have no home phone and instead opted for cell phones. Anne’s new number is 260-579-6772. My number is 260-579-0833. Email and snail mail address stay the same. Questions? Just call!
steadfastlutherans.org » Special Texas Lutheran Youth Gathering Edition of “The LCMS in Her Own Words” by Pastor Rossow
Where do I start? Pastor Wilken has introduced us to a nightmare called the Texas Lutheran Youth Gathering. The problems with this event go far beyond the fact that they have chosen a non-Lutheran, woman pastor to be the Lead Worshiper of the gathering, which Pastor Wilken ably pointed out for us. A simple review of the program for the event reveals several other problems that demonstrate the failure of the current leadership of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod to lead this church body as the confessional Lutheran synod that is intended to be and as required by Scripture.
After reading this post I encourage you to go to the website of the gathering and the other links provided below and see that this is not some lunatic rant about obscure, fringe liberals in the LCMS. The following is a description of the largest district youth gathering in the largest district in our synod and how it is, from top to bottom, a heterodox (false teaching mixed in with the truth) event targeted at the most fragile of all Christians, our teenage youth. Everything cited and asserted below is open to public scrutiny and I welcome anyone and everyone to use the data available on the listed websites to disprove my thesis below that the LCMS is in big, big trouble, if indeed it thinks it is a confessional Lutheran synod.
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
As vicarage is complete and there is no assigned fourth-year field work, my family has the priviledge of attending a church of our choosing. We already narrowed the choices to two, maybe three and visited one of those two today. Bethany is an English District congregation. They follow Divine Service Setting One from the hymnal Lutheran Worship. Everything is “by the book”. There was a processional, traditional vestments, and sung introit, gradual, and alleluia. Solid hymnody was chosen including Luther’s “From Depths of Woe”.
But the litmus test for any congregation aren’t all the delightful orthodox practices but the content of the preaching. Pr. Trouten did a terrific job of distinguishing Law and Gospel in his treatment of the Gospel text for Trinity 11 (Luke 18:9-14).
Cyberbrethren: A Lutheran Blog: Treasury of Daily Prayer - Table of Contents and Introduction
Rev. McCain posted a pre-publication sample of the upcoming daily prayer book. This book is a welcome addition to the daily devotional resources already available. Rather than work with a stack of books (prayer book, hymnal, bible), this text will be a one-stop source. Fathers can lead efficiently. My kids get restless as I flop around from book to book. The easy step-by-step nature, front-to-back with ribbons sounds terrific. I anxiously await.
DPD Productions has an interesting little catechism disc for children. The sample has me curious enough to order one. What do you think?
Fourth Commandment (mp3)
Tags: catechism
The folks over at Liturgy Solutions (independent music authors for the Divine Service) have started an excellent blog. The recent post discussing Daniel Zager (of Eastman School of Music) and his presentation at the recent WELS music/liturgy conference is especially good. I urge you to add them to your ever-burgeoning blogroll…
…Read the rest of this post »
Four and Twenty Blackbirds: In Praise of Cowboy Boots
Where Nagel could preach the Gospel as though there were no tomorrow, Korby could preach the Law. His preaching of the Law left you in the dust, and it was sure to be answered by an equally powerful word of Gospel. But it was the law in all its diagnostic, killing severity that I remember most. You tasted the dust of your death when Korby was in the pulpit, and he pulled no punches when it came to his use of the language.Liturgically, Korby was a man who had no patience with high-church chancel prancing or low-church pietism. He wore his pastoral robes like work clothes, including the black cowboy boots. He was known to scold congregations, my own included, who did not respond to a prayer or blessing with a vigorous priestly “Amen.” He would come out of the chancel to put hymnals into the hands of non-participants with an admonition to “open your mouth and sing.” He even called audibles in the chancel like Tom Brady at the line of scrimmage, suddenly deciding by some strange movement of the Spirit to “sing another psalm or hymn,” much to the consternation of organists and liturgical assistants. His wife Jeanne tells of Kenneth’s “lining” of unfamiliar hymns in the old American-Shaker tradition. He would speak a line and the congregation would then sing the line alternately through the verses. She also testifies that Kenneth would, for no apparent reason, momentarily leave the confines of the pulpit during a sermon to wander into the chancel or the nave. The Word could not be bound but had to have free course and be preached when Kenneth was the preacher.
Issues, Etc. Radio Program had a great segment yesterday on men, their leadership, and the catechesis in the church. It was a pastor roundtable and touched on many hotbuttons. Its well worth the listen, especially for the plug for my pastor’s column at Brothers John Steadfast. Listen here: Show16072108H1S2.mp3
Apparently I broke the blog shortly before the move. Then I forgot to finish fixing it. Then we moved and I was offline. Then I was supposed to unpack and not play around on the internet. Then we left to visit Lockport, attend my friend Mark Birkholz’s ordination, and then enjoy some time at Steve and Christine’s house in Indiana.
Yesterday, it became apparent that the multitude of emails needed to be checked. In the process, I noticed I neglected to post my final sermon from vicarage. Ah, then I discover the blog is broken. A bit of fixing and voila! Here is the blog again.
The Concordia Theological Seminary community invites you to listen to the Morning Office held daily at 10:00 a.m. The audio from the Chapel service is posted daily, and is typically available by 12:00 p.m. (Eastern). Click on the day of the week below to begin replay of that day's chapel service.