This Side of the Pulpit » Archive
Fasting Fast Approaching
I haven’t been good about fasting for the past….well, let’s just say a while. But with Lent approaching fast, the fast is fast approaching. Here is a link to a document I prepared for my congregation. It includes Scripture and the Confessions on the value and command to fast, articles from the Lutheran Witness and the LCMS website, as well as (simplified) guidelines for how and when to fast as we do in the western tradition. The … Read entire article »
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Patience and Evil Deaths
I think it’s sometimes better to be blindsided than to see it coming. To have the future, your fate, your new life or calling come crashing onto you rather than sitting and waiting and waiting for it to arrive, seeing the rain coming and waiting, seeing that train chugging and puffing and grinding in the distance waiting for it to make its way into the station. Waiting is nuts, especially when there’s not a cotton-picking thing you can do about it. We went through all this last summer, as Marjorie was waiting on this University and that University to decide what she had to do to finish her degree. She made the calls, submitted the applications, did everything she could and meanwhile, we had decisions to make for our family, but … Read entire article »
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Practicing what You Preach
God can be so…fair at times. Often we accuse Him of being quite unfair–giving good things to evil people, allowing disaster and illness. But other times He does what He’s asked to do in such a fair and even way. You pray for patience, so He lets you practice by raising up infuriating obstacles. Or He does like He did me Sunday. I preached on the Theology of the Cross, the necessity of taking up your cross … Read entire article »
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Power and Humility
Rachel Held Adams writes about Mark Driscoll* and such mega-church consumerist evangelicalism: When you build your church and your culture around hierarchy and power, you are naturally going to be 1) highly-organized, and 2) personality focused. But when you build your church and your culture around humility and service, you are naturally going to be 1) organic, growing at the grassroots level, and 2) less dependent on one or two flashy personalities and more dependent on the daily faithfulness of regular people…. The Mark Driscolls of this world pull in (and publicize) the big numbers because that is how they measure success…. We are part of a living, growing Kingdom in which the last will be first and the first will be last, in which the peacemakers and the merciful and the meek … Read entire article »
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A Rant which May not Impress You, if Read Correctly
“How many of us have actually ever read through the Bible? We get bits and pieces of it, but never read through chapter-by-chapter.” A layperson said this to me the other day. The more I think about it, the more upset I get. I get upset with myself for not reading Scripture devotionally as often as I should. But I get really upset with others if its true. Is it true? Are you all completely ignoring the Word of God to such an extent that your only exposure to it is the readings on Sundays and the bits and pieces and verses you might read in The Witness or the occasional Bible study you attend? Seriously? You call it the Word of God, the eternal Truth, the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
Law/Gospel Outlines?
I preached an unusual sermon Sunday. It was the infamous Law/Gospel outline. You probably have heard thousands of these. I’ve preached my fair share. Here’s the way they usually go: Here’s the Word of God. Oh, there’s law. God says you should be doing such and such. You don’t. You need Jesus to forgive you. Conclusion. It’s not a horrible outline, but I think it should be generally avoided. While Lutherans are supposed to properly distinguish Law and Gospel, that doesn’t mean to use it as an outline. Rather, it means to distinguish between the works of the Law and Gospel, the work of law and law of love, the work of flesh versus the life of the spirit and all kinds of other things. But this Sunday I saw the need to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
Sermon Writing Advice
This is inside baseball, folks, so your mileage may vary. Whatever lectionary (sequence of readings for Sundays) you use, you’ll end up with three readings and propers (introit, gradual, etc) for the Sunday. Often they work together, with a common theme bridging all the propers together. This is very common in the One Year lectionary, especially with the collect, introit and Gospel. But don’t assume they all go together the same way, or that you have to connect them. Look, especially in the Three Year lectionary, there is the feature of a lectio continua (or really a lectio semi-continua) –a series of readings from one book, not necessarily coordinated with the Gospel. And in the One Year you don’t have a one-for-one correspondence either. When you preach, look at the propers and other … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
Dare we Neglect the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity?
This article shows us why the worship of the Holy Trinity is at the heart of our Christian faith. Because we have failed to affirm the One in Three and Three in One at every time and place and place Him in the center of our worship and thought and sermons we have this false religion which denies the essence of God’s Being and Nature, denies the eternal Sonship of Jesus and yet thinks themselves as … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
Unionism and Worship
Why is it that the LCMS seems more concerned with “joint worship” and “serial prayer” with other ministers than with the forms of worship? I mean, some congregations’ worship is identical to worship at any number of protestant churches down the street from them and there are no “rules” or CTCR statements regarding this. What sends a bigger message of false unity? My saying a prayer next to a Methodist at some community event or … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
Admitting Inexperience and Leading Nonetheless
Some of the Lutheran pastors and I were supposed to study Greek this morning, but instead, we spoke about causistry and pastoral practice–wedding stuff, mostly. It is fun and thought-provoking, to consider what I usually do and how it differs with some of the other pastors’ practices. But one bit of discussion stood out for me: the importance of being earnest, of just speaking the truth. Admitting ignorance, admitting inexperience, admitting weakness. It’s actually quite powerful. It relaxes you, it relaxes those around you. It helps your hearers or co-workers or audience know what to expect. It’s even more authoritative, though it sounds like it would be the opposite. Leaders don’t want to admit they are wrong or uncertain or inexperienced. They want to be heard and followed. But when the leader … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
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- Emily H. on Fasting Fast Approaching
"There ought to at least be hummus on that plate in the picture! ;) Blessed Fast…" - Jay Hobson on Law/Gospel Outlines?
"My thoughts are to do as the text does, and let the text govern the outline. Som…" - Christopher Hall on A Rant which May not Impress You, if Read Correctly
"See. You're not impressed. :) Seriously I sympathize with what you are writin…" - Chris Jones on A Rant which May not Impress You, if Read Correctly
"This is a modern problem, which is to say that from a Christian perspective it i…" - Christopher Hall on Law/Gospel Outlines?
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