We began to build plain Jane buildings and to restrict the ceremonial of the liturgy to the minimum required.  We became more content in the black robe from Geneva than the historic vesture of the Church.  We treated hymns as if they were merely ornamental and not truly confessional, a matter of personal taste in which they were mostly equal in quality.  We became utilitarian and decided that pipe organs were too costly and so the Church that produced Bach found itself unable to utilize Bach’s music in the Divine Service.  We turned choirs from their primary role as leaders of the congregational song and gave them a ministry which was only slightly different from Methodism and its parade of the choir up front to perform for the enjoyment of … Read entire article »

I really enjoyed a sermon I recently read by St. Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr, as recorded in The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers (4 Volume Set). While the sermon was included for the the Fourth Sunday in Lent, the sermon itself was a long exhortation on giving alms and the value of alms for our salvation. I thought he must have been one of those Fathers who gave everything away and languished in poverty for the sake of the Gospel. Not so. And his story is much more complicated than that. He was born into some wealth, and gathered perhaps even more, but at one point only gave a portion to the poor, keeping his Villa and then some. Nevertheless, the poor of Carthage loved him and when he was … Read entire article »

Which place does God want me? I mean seriously…which place does God want me to serve, at Redeemer in Enid, or at Grace in Tulsa? That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? So I should pray and pray and even fast maybe (it is Lent, after all) and figure out where God wants me. Except it’s not that hard. God has issued a divine call to both places. I still have the divine call to serve Redeemer Lutheran in Enid. And I have the divine call to serve as senior pastor at Grace Lutheran in Tulsa. Both apply. Both are real. Both are divine calls, God’s will expressed through the congregation, through God’s people. He has called me to be in two places at once. So I have freedom. Freedom to decide where … Read entire article »

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 »

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 »

Christ has destroyed the power of death and opened the Kingdom of Heaven. Right? So what does this mean? Death is something that can be destroyed, and the Kingdom of Heaven was not open before. Where did people go when they died prior to Jesus’ death and resurrection? Was Moses in Heaven? What gives? Sometimes you hear the answer that they were in “heaven” already because they believed that the Messiah would come eventually. They had faith in … Read entire article »