faith

Free to Be What God Has Declared You Are

By Scott Keith –

Lately, I have been considering the implication of what it means to be called to be a Christian. Is it simply that Jesus has, through his life, death, and resurrection, set me free from sin, death, and the power of the Devil, and that is it? Is there nothing more? What I mean by asking those questions is that I think we underestimate our preoccupation with our need to do something. You and I need to feel active; we need to feel as though we have contributed in some fashion to the way God feels about us and treats us.

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A Different Gospel?

 

By Paul Koch –

In a day where our communication is shaped and defined by electronic media more than anything else, the art and beauty of the hand-written letter is almost a forgotten joy. E-mails and texts and Facebook updates are quick and easy ways to stay connected to family and friends, but they always seem to lack something compared to an old fashioned letter. When our thoughts and well-wishes are translated through our computers and cell phones, the individual persona is often filtered out. By comparison when you receive a hand-written letter, it is like you are receiving a part of the person who wrote it.

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Go Alone, Get It Wrong

By Paul Koch –

One of the things that I truly love about my vocation is regular participation in the study of Holy Scripture. From Tuesday mornings with a few of my colleagues and friends where we translate the text for the upcoming week to the regular midweek and Sunday morning Bible studies at church, I am fortunate to be able to engage the Word as part of my regular schedule.

Now, it may sound like a stupid thing to assert that a pastor would spend a lot of time with the Word of God and that he would enjoy it,

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Before Abraham Was…

By Paul Koch –

Today the church calendar calls for us to focus our attention on the teaching of the Holy Trinity. Now of all the days that this ancient calendar brings into focus, this one is quite unique. After all, every other day has to do with an event. Christmas, Easter, The Baptism of our Lord, Pentecost, Palm Sunday, these are all events that we then examine and learn from. But today is not an event at all. Today is the one time that we focus specifically on a doctrine. Today we focus upon the church’s teaching that we have one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the name into which we are baptized, the name that begins our worship together, the name that marks us as Christians.

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The Night I Love Confirmation Class

By Ross Engel –

Recently Paul wrote about Confirmation and hating the way it has been utilized as a sort of silver bullet to make up for years of no catechesis taking place at home. I found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read his words. My Sunday morning Bible study and I recently had had an in-depth conversation about the need for parents to step up to the plate and teach their own children the faith, so it was a timely article.

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Fireplace Church

By Cindy Koch –

For years, I was told that church was a place of refuge. My pastor spoke of this mighty fortress of strength. My Sunday school teachers taught about this safe place of pasture. My parents talked about these people as if they were familiar relatives. And so I just assumed that church was a good place.

Like the warm Christmas fire, I can remember the red brick fireplace of my youth and the warm, soft church chairs on a Sunday morning.

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Try Not to Judge This Blog

By Bob Hiller –

Your Bible is bursting at the seams with metaphors aimed at delivering God’s love for you in Christ to your ears and hearts. The language of forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, and liberation are just a few of the big themes that the Holy Spirit has chosen to convey everything God has done for you through the blood of God’s Son. We in the Lutheran camp tend to have a reputation of overemphasizing one particular way of talking about the Gospel: the legal metaphor. The technical language (for you who want to show off at the water cooler on Monday) is forensic justification.

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My Bitter Heart Is A Mask Of God

By Cindy Koch –

In June of 1999, I experienced humidity for the first time. Growing up in Coastal Southern California, the only time I ever inhaled dense wet air is when I happened to set foot in an indoor pool (which was very rare, even then). But that summer, seven months pregnant, I breathed the heavy hot atmosphere of my new home in St. Louis, Missouri. Two newly married crazy college kids had just embarked on this adventure called life. Paul and I had graduated from Concordia Irvine. He was pre-sem, and I left with a smattering of theology course credits. BA degrees done, we looked into the future excited for what the future held.

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Work Hard, Play Harder

By Jaime Nava –

As a kid, I walked to school. I started with my mom in kindergarten and walked to school all the way to my senior year in high school. Once I got to school, the bell would ring and we’d get to work. Of course, as a kid, I just wanted to be done and go have fun. Recess and lunch were nice, but it was when school was out that the fun happened. And Summer. Oh sweet glorious summer. I’d burn my feet on the street going to the local market to buy twenty-five cent candy. I’d play until the street lights came on.

From an early age, I was taught that you work hard from nine to five. I was also taught that you play harder when you’re out.

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Lazy

By Caleb Keith –

Two days ago, Apple hosted one of its regular press conferences. The highlight of these exclusive events is the unleashing of the latest and greatest products Apple has to offer. iPhones, Macs, Apple watches, and iPads once again become extraordinary. Each edition of these devices exceeds the last in power and beauty. However, Monday’s conference, in my opinion, fell flat. The general tone of the meeting was relatively dull, and the revealed products, while still incredible, spoke more of laziness than innovation. What I left with was the revelation that Apple is just like me: lazy.

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Christian Seder?

By Jaime Nava –

Jesus entered Jerusalem during the period of the Passover. This was a time for the Jews to recall God’s saving work recorded in Exodus. The Passover meal is recorded in Exodus 12. When Jesus was in the upper room with His disciples, He was taking the old meal, a shadow, and in its place gave a new meal: Himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The meal of the first Maundy (Holy) Thursday is one we partake of every week.

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Scared Shitless

By Caleb Keith –

I vividly remember the comments, advice, and criticism of pretty much everybody I encountered when I was preparing to get married. The most common response to this information was, “How old are you?” or “I hope you know what your getting into.” Many others asserted I was throwing my life and my freedom away while only a few responded joyously or with legitimate loving concern. Questions and comments like the examples above were shallow and general concerns about age and autonomy. Two years later I find myself under the same type of scrutiny as I eagerly await the birth of my daughter.

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America Is and Will Remain Great

By Graham Glover –

We still have a long way to go in the 2016 election cycle. We may think we know who the party’s nominees are, but if there is anything this election has proven, it is that this year is entirely unpredictable. I suggest you get comfortable and fasten your seatbelt, because there are a lot of twists and turns yet to come this election year. Nobody knows what America will wake up to on November 9th. Nobody. All we know is that anything and everything is within the realm of possibility.

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A Plea to our Next President

By Graham Glover –

We are less than 9 months away from electing the next President of the United States. After months of talk and preparation, the electorate and pundits are knee deep in the primaries. There are still a lot of votes to be cast, but I suspect that after the 15th of March we will have a pretty good idea of who the nominees are going to be for each party.

Like almost every other political prognosticator, I am at a loss for how the 2016 election is unfolding.

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9.5 Theses on Theologians of Glory

By Jeff Mallinson –

This week, I have the privilege of speaking at the Christ Hold Fast Conference in Orlando, Florida. I’ll be talking about the ways in which Luther’s call is for us all to become theologians of the cross. This is no mere academic concept. It is a revolution in the way we think about religion and theology itself. Theologians of glory seek to reach God through their own effort. Theologians of the cross receive the grace of God, accomplished by Christ alone. All of this is outside of us, and insists that there is no good speculative theology: we must approach the divine only through the Incarnate One who was crucified for our sake.

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Welcome to the Matrix

By Caleb Keith –

The Matrix is one of the most recognizable movie franchises of all time. Not only is the series filled to the brim with action, but it also tackles moral dilemmas, and most importantly the philosophical idea of existence. The basic gist of the series rests on the unseen enslavement and harvesting of humanity by cybernetic beings. This race of machines relies on the electrochemical energy produced by the human mind. In an effort to harness this energy the machines imprison human minds in a virtual reality called the Matrix.

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Walkthroughs and Cheats

By Jaime Nava –

When I was a buzz-headed lad growing up with my similarly shorn siblings, we would all gather around the Nintendo and play some of the most frustrating games I have ever seen. Granted it could be that we were too young to actually understand a specific game like, say, Metal Gear. It could also be that some games were just too incredibly difficult. People actually have a term for this: Nintendo Hard. These were games that were so difficult they were nearly impossible. It was the kind of thing that caused many a kiddo to hurl the remote control in an original rage quit. Games like Contra and Double Dragon come to mind. To be honest, I can’t recall all of them; but Nintendo was hard, okay?

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For Lent, Let’s Give Up Being Drama Queens

By Joel A Hess –

Nothing is worse than a drama queen, right? Like a train wreck, we slow down our cars to watch them on reality T.V., Hollywood award shows, or perhaps we get to enjoy a live show at work or on campus. They wear their emotions on their sleeve. Well I suppose it’s just one emotion. They are upset and they want to make sure everyone knows. One can tell that they actually like being upset!

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