This Side of the Pulpit » Entries tagged with "teaching"
Confession, Respect and Faith
I had a great Confirmation class yesterday, teaching the kids about Confession and Absolution and especially private confession. They were fascinated by the idea that my daughter could confess anything to me as her pastor, and Dad would never mention it, speak of it…or even punish her for it. They were having some serious PK envy–probably the first time in their life. One girl asked a very good question, though. She asked what would happen if she confessed to something and I thought less of her, or treated her differently after that. That is the exact fear most of us have when it comes to private confession–the fear that our secrets will be exposed. I don’t know if it’s true for all pastors, but in the first place I explained to her … Read entire article »
Filed under: Theology
Another Class Finished
I finished my adult education class last night. The majority of the time we spent reading The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals, a quite excellent book outlining what Confessional Lutheranism looks and feels like. I have some minor quibbles with the book as far as his take on Lutheranism and Lutheran doctrine, but all in all, if one wants to get a feel for what the LCMS is/could have been, it’s pretty good. What worked well about the class is that I intentionally structured it as an information class, not necessarily as a catechetical/membership class. It made the non-Lutheran participants more comfortable and took the pressure off “buying it” and placed it on understanding it. What didn’t work so well is that now the class is finished, … Read entire article »
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The Resurrection and the Life
February 1st, 2011 | Add a Comment
Phillip raised an important question in his comment on the previous post: what is the relationship between bad–or no–teaching and rejection of teaching begin? First, church members need to make sure they are reading Scripture. Pastors can teach all they can till they are blue in the face, but if Christians are not reading the Word of God, actively attending to it, then all kinds of falsehood and wrong impressions can fester. Bible study is an important tool as well. Second, Pastors need to make sure they are speaking Scripturally when it comes to speaking about death and the resurrection. I try to avoid saying that we will “go to Heaven when we die” because Scripture does not speak like that much. It can be misunderstood as well. We need to make … Read entire article »
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