Fewer Spaghetti Suppers

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery on the October 24th Issues, Etc. show:

I would like to see pastors conduct classes in their congregations, in their churches, that would bring people up to speed on this. Indeed, this gives me an opportunity for ranting and raving. The fact of the matter is that very few churches do anything in apologetics, in the defense of the faith. And this is one of the reasons why our young people go off to college without any real understanding of how to refute the critics of Christianity and they are blown right out of the water by secular professors. ...We should have fewer spaghetti suppers and more serious work on the defense of the faith in our churches.

photo credit: ambery

Know that the Lord Is God Indeed

All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with mirth, His praise forthtell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.

Know that the Lord is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make.
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.

O enter then His gates with praise;
Appproach with joy His courts unto.
Praise, laud, and bless His name always,
For it is seemly so to do.

For Why? The Lord our God is good:
His mercy is forever sure.
His truth at all times firmly stood
And shall from age to age endure.

To Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The God whom heav'n and earth adore,
From us and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.

LSB, 791

The Emerging Church, Part 1: What’s Emerging?

Over the past couple of years Emerging Church leaders such as Dan Kimball and Leonard Sweet have been offered the podium at various speaking engagements in the LCMS, and aspects of “emerging” thought are making their way onto the whiteboards of Lutheran classrooms, conference agendas, and pastors’ sermon texts, inviting the obvious question, “What’s emerging?”

The Emerging Church cannot actually be called a “church” in the denominational sense, but is rather a loose affiliation of individuals, churches, and organizations that discuss and share similar ideas. The beginnings of this movement or “conversation” grew out of a need to “effectively” reach the younger generation with the Gospel, who often hold to a more postmodern viewpoint. Members of the Emerging community include people from all points along the theological sliding scale, ranging from those who want to remain within their current “tradition” and are just looking for a few “tips,” to those who want to totally reinvent Christianity (yes, they actually use the word reinvent).

There are those leaders in the conversation whose theology is fairly conservative and generally orthodox (although sometimes with notable aberrations in certain areas), such as Mark Driscoll and Dan Kimball. There are also leaders whose theology is more than a little questionable, cast somewhere near the heretical nether regions, including Rob Bell, Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, and Doug Pagitt. Finally, there are those people who didn’t necessarily set out to be an Emerging Church type, but are admired far and wide for their emergent ideas. This category would include people like Walter Brueggemann, Leonard Sweet, and N. T. Wright (because of his justification-jettisoning consort with the New Perspective on Paul).

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Simulcasting

After much arm twisting on Pastor Rossow's part, and fear and trembling on my part, I've decided to write an occasional article for The Brothers of John the Steadfast. Some of those articles I'll also post here, so if you frequent the BJS site, (which wouldn't be a bad idea), you may get double vision.

photo credit: jenny downing

The Magnificat

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever."
Luke 1:46-55 (ESV)

photo credit: Niali McAuley

Fundraising Gone Awry

Host Todd Wilken, on the October 27th Issues, Etc. show:

I was speaking at a congregation yesterday, on a Reformation Sunday, about the efforts to raise money by selling of indulgences, and it struck me as I was speaking, that the Church even today, not even going back to the 16th century, the Church even today is very deft at finding ways to turn even the most sacred doctrines, or it's worst errors, into a fundraising opportunity. Not much has changed.

Get Ready

My family can attest that I’m not a big drinker. When we host the neighborhood Bunco party, I’ll run out and grab some beer. If there’s any left over, it’ll sit on the garage shelf ‘til the next neighborhood Bunco party, eight or nine months later. Not that I’m a teetotaler. I’ll have an occasional beer when I’m out on the road or over at my neighbor Gary’s house. But I’m thinking I’m going to have to raise my personal one-beer limit to a two-beer limit by incrementally increasing my weekly consumption a bit. Why? Because the first annual Brothers of John the Steadfast National Conference is coming up – “No pietists allowed.”

If you’re not familiar with The Brothers of John the Steadfast, their mission statement reads

The Brothers of John the Steadfast, brings together Lutheran laymen to defend and promote the orthodox Christian faith which is taught in the Lutheran Confessions, provide financial support for Christian new media (e.g. Issues, Etc.), and to support other endeavors selected by its membership that defend and promote the cause of confessional Lutheranism.

The conference is slated for February 13th and 14th at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, IL. The guest speakers include Pastor Todd Wilken and all-around good guy Chris Rosebrough, host of the Fighting for the Faith radio program. I’d encourage all of you to check out the Brothers of John the Steadfast, including the ladies, and you teetotalers out there, and join us in Naperville in February.

The weekend will include a Vespers Service, the Divine Service, a trip to a chocolate bar, a wine tasting hosted by Chris Rosebrough, breakfast, a workout in the gym, and “other piety-stretching outings” as well (I’ll leave those to your imagination).

If you really want to get ready for the conference, I suggest you develop a liking for Pastor Wilken’s favorite beverage, Budweiser & Clamato Chelada, ¡La Combinación Perfecta!, or Chelada for short. Now that you’re totally off balance, I’ll let you in on the bad news, i.e., what’s in it. This stuff is actually made by Anheuser Busch, and is a mixture of Budweiser (or Bud Light) and clamato juice. For the uninitiated, clamato juice is secret code for tomato juice mixed with clam juice. I know. Exactly how do you get juice from a clam, and which end does it come out of, assuming a clam has got an “end?” At any rate, hopefully I’ll track Pastor Wilken down at the conference and we can hoist a frosty cold Chelada together.

But seriously folks! Come to the conference, where we can, together, celebrate our oneness in Christ, our oneness in our Confession, and build each other up. Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

photo credit: Caveman 92223

Synodical Restructuring? Whoa!

In other words, the congregations need to speak now or forever hold their peace. I am lovingly asking you to consider taking the following steps toward assisting your congregations in avoiding what could be a mistake of absolutely stunning proportions on the part of the national church body.

Quoted above are the words of Pastor Daniel Torkelson regarding the proposed Synodical restructuring that is now on the table. Pastor Torkelson was a delegate to the August convocation on restructuring, and offers some good advice on what can be done to stop the bad parts of the proposed restructuring from becoming a reality. You can view his entire letter to the South Wisconsin District at Pastor Tom Chryst's blog Preachrblog.

Havin' Fun In the Emerald City

Who are those guys? They're three of the Brothers of John the Steadfast, hanging out in Seattle. That's Jim Pierce on the left, yours truly in the center, and Pastor Tim Rossow on the right. We got together, along with Pastor Rossow's wife Phyllis (who took the photo), for a little fellowship and to compare notes across from the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle.

Jim Pierce is a good friend of mine, author of the blog Confessional's Bytes, and a frequent denizen of The Wittenberg Trail. He lives in the Seattle area along with his wife and two kids.

Pastor Rossow serves as senior pastor at Bethany Lutheran in Naperville, Illinois, and is the man behind The Brothers of John the Steadfast website. You might also recognize his voice from his appearances on Issues, Etc.

I met up with Pastor Rossow and Phyllis a week ago, with Pastor Rossow buying me lunch. Today, he also bought me a pastry and drink. After that, Jim bought me lunch at a fancy French restaurant, plus paid for my parking. With friends like these, who needs a job! Anybody else coming out to Seattle? I'm available.

Times spent with fellow Christians who share a common Confession are a treasure and a gift from God. I'm looking forward to spending more time with other like-minded Lutherans at the Brothers of John the Steadfast National Conference in February, which will be the topic of tomorrow's post.

P.S. Both Jim and Pastor Rossow also blogged about our get together - it's what bloggers do! Since Jim is also a chef, he was able to name off the names of the places we frequented and the names of my entree and appetizer - none of which I could relate to my wife once I returned home. Here's Jim's post, and here's Pastor Rossow's post.

What Must We Do?

Quoting C.F.W. Walther, from Pastor John Moe's essay "What Makes a Christian?: A Look at the Great Commission."

When our synod, the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, thirty-six years ago met for the first time in the God-blessed city of Chicago, it was a small, despised little band of only twelve poor congregations. The church which in this country still called itself evangelical-Lutheran lay in utter ruin. The teaching of our church was unknown territory for it. The small number of preachers who still knew something about it and wanted to stick to it were considered people with limited mental capacities, and the hope was that they would soon die out. The Lutheran Confessions were hardly known even by name anymore, and they were considered documents of earlier unenlightened times, now long obsolete. Instead of Luther's doctrine in the church that called itself Lutheran, the teaching of Zwingli and obvious rationalism was in vogue, coupled with fanatic methods of conversion. ... To want to transplant the Old Lutheran church, which submitted to every letter of the Word of God, to this land of untamed love for liberty seemed in real fact to be a completely hopeless, worse than foolish undertaking. But far from letting itself be made to falter, our synod did not ask: What must we do to become large and numerous? But it only asked: What must we do to be found faithful before the Lord of the church ? Our synod knew that success was not in its hands. Success is therefore left to God. (C.F.W. Walther, CJ, 15:3, p.226-7)