Those in church on Sunday probably remember that my voice wasn’t so great. In the last six hours it’s grown much worse, though I can still whisper okay. At this point, the Tuesday Bible class is only about 13 hours away, and it seems unlikely that my voice will improve enough in that time to make the class possible. Lutheran Family Fellowship doesn’t really require my presence. An elder or any of the men could conduct the opening devotion, reading the third letter of John as the Chapter (The second-last book of the New Testament).

I’ll post an update later today, toward evening, about whether things are looking up for Wednesday, including confirmation class at Concordia.

More to come…

The meaning in a Christian’s life comes from God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures. While that may sound weak to someone who prefers to define his own life, it’s really far stronger. Human knowledge changes, and human opinions fluctuate with the wind. The Bible, meanwhile, came from our unchanging Creator, and is both His message and His power on earth to bless or curse. To find the meaning of your life in God’s Word is to find the true meaning in your life.

Christians recognize this meaning through our customs and traditions. Some of our practices serve as capsules for God’s Word itself, like the liturgy of the Church and the lectionary of readings, prayers, and other related morsels that cover the entire Church Year. Other things we do serve the lesser, but still important function of reminding ourselves of what’s important. In this way, the traditions we have received from our forefathers help to preserve the meaning they contain. Likewise, the traditions we choose to pass on to the next generation fulfill their purpose insofar as they communicate our faith and our values through time.

Though human traditions are by definition neither commanded nor forbidden by God, we should not lightly discard them. Instead, we should try to retain their full importance by understanding the meaning behind them and following them for the sake of that meaning.

Sometimes the meaning has a lasting importance, but sometimes it does not. Sometimes we remember the meaning of a tradition very well, but other times we retain the practice and unfortunately forget the whole reason why. There are good reasons to end a tradition, and it’s no sin to do so. But as long as we do understand a particular practice, it seems wise to remember it, and share that meaning as much as we can. (See Joshua 4:5-7.)

We should also understand that traditions vary from place to place, from church to church, from synod to synod, and from family to family. This is not bad, but it can lead to confusion if we fail to understand and teach the meaning behind the traditions. We can promote unity between churches by being aware of other practices and the reasons for them, and possibly even adopting the same practices for the sake of good order. There are many examples of this in church history, such as the church orders written by Johannes Bugenhagen and Martin Chemnitz.

Our parish consists of two congregations, and the younger of them is already over 25 years old. Some of our households are new to the Lutheran Church, while others grew up in it. Our families each have their own ideas of which traditions are important, and for what reasons. So I invite all of our families to submit a list of those Christian traditions that you like to observe, along with a short description of each one. Please include (as appropriate):

1. The date or days that apply,
2. a title,
3. a description of how it is observed,
4. its origin, and
5. its purpose or meaning.

We can assemble all of them into a growing anthology that will help us to understand one another and to promote unity within and between our congregations. The anthology could possibly be published as early as January.

This prayer comes from our synod president.

Heavenly Father, we give thanks to you . . .

• for continuing to pour out your love and mercy.
• for sending your Son to rescue us from the power of sin and damnation by granting us your free and full forgiveness.
• for caring for us daily, though we do not deserve any of your kindness.
• for having your holy angels watch over our coming and going.
• for the abundance of foods we enjoy as you daily provide for our sustenance.
• for enabling us to have medicines and doctors and nurses to treat our ailments, as we rely on your healing power to restore health in keeping with whatever is your good and gracious will.
• for blessing our nation and granting us the freedoms we enjoy.
• for good and seasonable weather where we can enjoy the wonders of your creation.
• for giving us men and women who are willing to risk their lives as they faithfully serve in our armed forces.
• for granting us churches to attend where your Word is preached and your sacraments are properly administered.
• for pastors, teachers and missionaries.
• for giving us opportunities to further your kingdom through the efforts of our synod, our Lutheran elementary schools, our Bethany College, and our Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary.
• for providing us with the means of grace whereby you grant us your highest blessings as secured through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
• We also thank you for giving us the outlet of prayer to bring our petitions before your throne and to praise your holy name.

In Jesus’ name we pray and live. Amen.

These will take a while to load, since they’re big files.

Bull Barn Party 2011

Photo Story Church 2010-11

You just can’t get away from references to “millions of years” of earth history, or the supposed gradual evolution of mankind from lower organisms. These are popular mainly because a vocal crowd of people in the world want to stick their thumb in God’s eye. Here’s something from Answers in Genesis that shows why they should keep their thumbs to themselves. HT: The RAsburry Patch.

In 1974, ELS pastor Rodger Dale wrote about The Task of Instruction. This excerpt from Telling the Next Generation comes from pages 49-50, offering a critique from 37 years ago that may be even more applicable today than it was in the year Pastor Dale wrote it.

The American home, by far the most important school for Christianity, is in shambles. And of all the reasons, one of the foremost is that we think we are too busy to practice the basic principles of Christian living. Our lives are busy, but too often we confuse self-centeredness with legitimate tasks. To have a successful home we must serve each other, not ourselves.

Children in today’s average American home suffer from what we might call “parental drain.” Their parents “drain” themselves with their own activities so that little is left of them, emotionally, to give to their children. Parents need the little time they have at home to relax. Children are often made to feel like intruders upon their parent’s badly needed relaxation. The obvious problem is that children are placed lower on the list of priorities than work and recreation. The results are tragic.

Parents, especially working mothers, ought to consider carefully whether they are “burning themselves out” for others and for unnecessary material benefits so that little is left for their most important possession of all, their children. The higher standard of living offers little satisfaction to a child who lacks the comfort of parental attention and guidance. The lack of understanding in teen years most surely results from lack of communication ten years earlier. This is not to say that a mother cannot work outside the home or that the father cannot be busy. We are saying that children should not be “sacrificed” on the list of priorities because of covetousness. Children should be given the highest priority next to God himself.

But by far the most critical problem in the average American home is the lack of family worship — real, creative worship. Religion is practiced as a sideline. Too often religion is compartmentalized into the Sunday morning slot. The rest of the week, God is just on call. Even in homes where there are daily devotions, they are usually not as creative and effective as they should be.

The successful family in this culture must learn to know and worship God in their home, the arena of greatest influence. Children must learn in the home to know God’s Word well enough to meet challenges to their faith. We emphasize the home because it is estimated that the average child is under the influence and instruction of the church only one percent of the time. A Christian day school education raises the percentage considerably, but even so, a masterful job of education must be performed in the home to meet the challenges of today’s culture.

Dr. Hendricks compares child-raising in today’s environment to building a fire in the rain:

Inculcating Christian standards is like building a fire in the rain. It requires willful determination, against all odds, to do what seems impossible. It calls for expertise — for know-how which understands the nature of the child and the nature of the hostile world. It demands a stubborn perseverence to keep fanning the flickering flame, to keep protecting the hot coals. A warm young life, glowing for Christ, is the most needed commodity in the damp, depressing chill of the marketplace today.

On p. 43 in the same book, this excerpt written by Wilhelm Petersen explains why it’s not quite enough to make use of children’s education opportunities at church.

Christian parents may be tempted to think that if they send their children to Sunday school, vacation Bible school, or perhaps a Christian day school that then they have done their duty in instructing their children. Surely, a Christian parent will want to make use of these agencies which the church offers to feed the lambs, but what God told Moses to tell the parents of his day applies to us today, too, “And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). From this we see that the important matter of instruction is not to be a hit-and-miss affair, but a constant daily thing in the home. In this picture we see a family gathered around a table where the father, or one of the family, reads a section from the Bible or devotional book; we see a mother reading a Bible story to her little ones at bedtime; we see a parent answering the hundred and one queries of the youngsters. Fortunate the children that are brought up in this atmosphere! To be pitied, truly pitied, are the children who never hear God’s name mentioned in the home, except perhaps in cursing.

This excerpt is from p. 40 in the same book, the words of Gerhard Friedrich Bente, who served as the editor for the most noteworthy edition of the Lutheran Confessions in the last century, the Concordia Triglotta.

In his German Order of Worship, 1526, we read: “For if the parents and guardians are unwilling to take such pains with the young, either personally or through others, Catechism [instruction] will never be established.”

In this he was confirmed by the experiences he had while on his tour of visitation. If the children were to memorize the Catechism and learn to understand it, they must be instructed and questioned individually, a task to which the Church was unequal, and for the accomplishment of which also the small number of schools was altogether inadequate. Parents, however, were able to reach the children individually. They had the time and opportunity, too, morning, noon, and evening, at the table, etc. Furthermore, they had the greatest interest in this matter, the children being their own flesh and blood. And they, in the first place, were commanded by God to provide for the proper training of their children.

The fathers and mothers, therefore, these natural and divinely appointed teachers of the children, Luther was at great pains to enlist for the urgent work of instructing the young. They should see that the children and servants not only attended the Catechism-sermons in church, but also memorized the text and learned to understand it. The Christian homes should again become home-churches, homeschools, where the housefathers were both house-priests and house-teachers, performing the office of the ministry there just as the pastors did in the churches.

With ever-increasing energy Luther, therefore, urged the parents to study the Catechism in order to be able to teach it to their children.

It’s a joy to be a member of the Church. Church membership is one metaphor, a figure of speech, for the idea of being part of the body of Christ. It’s a biblical metaphor, used in several places, like 1 Corinthians 6:15, Ephesians 4:25, and Ephesians 5:30. Another common metaphor is that the Church is our mother, even as God is our Father. We, then, are the children of the Church brought forth through the watery womb of holy baptism.

No matter how you describe it, Church membership is a joyful thing. Here we mean the so-called “invisible” Church, also called the “holy Christian Church” in the Apostles’ Creed. Contrary to the teaching of Rome, it is not confined to a particular Christian denomination. The Church exists wherever people believe the Gospel, so that its outward signs are the pure Word of God and the Sacraments of Christ, administered according to His will.

If you have been brought into the Church, then you may remember words like this from your own baptism or another:

As witness to this Sacrament, you are to assist him with Christian love and faithful prayers. Remind him of the heavenly grace of his Baptism. Give spiritual counsel and aid, so that he is brought up in the true knowledge and worship of God. Teach him the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. Place in his hands the Holy Scriptures, and insure that he is brought to the services of God’s house, that he is provided future instruction in the Christian faith, to the end that he may come to the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, and thus, abiding in baptismal grace and in communion with the Church, he may lead a godly life to the praise and honor of Jesus Christ. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, p. 136)

Those words are directed particularly to the parents of a newly-baptized child, and to the sponsors of that child. The tradition of having sponsors is a beneficial tradition, though not required. In a way, those words have always seemed to apply to the entire body of witnesses: every saint in attendance at the baptism. The reason others might attend the baptism is because it’s important. The reason we conduct a baptism when the Church is assembled is partly because the entire church is welcoming a new child of our heavenly Father as he is born again of water and the Spirit. (John 3:5) We all assume a collective responsibility to help carry out the tasks assigned to the Christian parents and sponsors. If that child were to end up orphaned (not out of the question in some circumstances), then it is the Church’s responsibility to provide the care he needs.

What care does a Christian child need? More than anything else, he needs Jesus. He needs to know his Savior. If the time comes soon for him to leave this world (not out of the question either), nothing will be more valuable than faith in Christ. Everything else is secondary, though it may be important. Notice again the requirements of parents and sponsors. Do they strike you as rather challenging? What parents actually live up to all of those things? Which parents could not stand to improve? What are the best ways a parent might go about fulfilling these requirements?

The same exact questions could be asked about the way the Church fulfills its responsibility toward the Christian child. Could we stand to improve? Most definitely. What are the best ways we might go about fulfilling those godly responsibilities? To do so would be another great joy for the members of the body of Christ. Even if the tasks were burdensome, and even if it required some sacrifice of comfort or convenience, the task ensures that a child of God will make it through this world into eternal life. What could be more important, or more satisfying?

Therefore, we should all ask such questions, and answer them in the best way we can. Don’t leave the parents among us to fend for themselves in a world hostile to the purity of our faith. Every member of the Church has a vested interest and a share in the responsibility to provide a solid start for the next generation. Even the secular world recognizes something like this, so it taxes every property owner to support public schools, whether or not there are any children living on the property. But in the Church, we can see that the Gospel, the very same thing that government-run schools must omit, is the thing that ought to come first and overshadow all schooling. If it does not, then the Church and the parents have failed in their sacred responsibility.

If we lack Christian parochial schools where everything is taught in connection with the Gospel, then the need for the Church to act becomes much more urgent. Secular education is not spiritually neutral. Since it’s a product of this sinful world, its spiritual bent is against the Word of God. It can be no other way. Therefore, parents and the Church must work doubly hard and be extra vigilant against the erosion of the saving Word of God in the life of their children. Again, a difficult task. But again, a joyful part of membership in the body of Christ.