By Bob Hiller –
Don’t you hate those sappy sermon illustrations in which the pastor stands up and uses some cutesy moment from the life of his children to describe some biblical principle? My kids hate them too. If that is you, you’ll forgive my blog this week, as I’m totally using my son’s t-ball career as an illustration for the Christian life.
By Joel A. Hess –
Initially, I completely disagreed with those taking a knee during the national anthem. I certainly thought it was disrespectful to the men and women who gave their life for us to pay athletes millions of dollars. But then I asked myself if there would be a time when I would take a knee.
By Cindy Koch –
They know how to keep us coming back. They give us just enough to have us running back for more. A sprinkle here, a taste there, but not too much… Just a little bit of Jesus.
By Scott Keith –
“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular.” These are the words spoken by Edward R. Murrow as encouragement to those who would stand up in opposition to then Senator McCarthy’s hearings designed to root out all dissenters, whether they were guilty of being communists or not. Mr. Murrow goes on to remind us all of a simple yet exceptionally difficult reality: “We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.”
By Joel A. Hess –
George Atley was killed while serving with the Central African Mission. There were no witnesses, but the evidence indicates that Atley was confronted by a band of hostile tribesmen. He was carrying a fully loaded, 10-chamber Winchester rifle and had to choose either to shoot his attackers and run the risk of negating the work of the mission in that area or not to defend himself and be killed. When his body was later found in a stream, it was evident that he had chosen the latter. Nearby lay his rifle, all 10 chambers still loaded.
By Bob Hiller –
Last summer, as the Major League Baseball season approached the playoffs, the YouVersion Bible app on my smartphone capitalized by offering a devotional for athletes written by professional ball players. I guess the way it worked was each player was either given or chose a particular verse of Scripture and wrote a devotion based on the text. I figured I ought to take a gander as I do write about the intersection of sports and theology. I was prepared for the worst. Much to my delight, however, some of the devotions weren’t half bad! In fact, more than one centered on the bloody cross and free forgiveness of Christ Jesus! Others were a bit more predictable. You know the ones where Paul’s encouragement to the Philippians, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” is applied to making the JV volleyball squad or overcoming an injury. (Can you imagine Paul sitting in his cell thinking to himself, “How will I inspire that poor 13-year-old kid who can’t hit a free throw to save his life? Ah, I know! Philippians 4:13!”) To use a delightful sports metaphor, these devotions were really hit or miss!
By Cindy Koch –
I know I’m not the only one. We’ve all done it at one time or another. It usually surfaces when we are at a crossroad, important decision, or uncomfortable spot. Sometimes it is in response to something really terrible—a death, loss, or extreme sin we find within. It flashes through the mind of almost everyone who loves our Creator, Redeemer, and Preserver. We take a reflective step back and ask, “What is God’s will for my life?”
By Paul Koch –
Back in 2006, our church body released a new hymnal for use in all congregations under the title Lutheran Service Book. As far as hymnbooks go, and within my limited experience, I think this is one a real gem. The resources bound into this one book are invaluable. As soon as it was in print, my congregation ordered enough to replace all our old hymnals. When the first box showed up, I eagerly opened it up and took one of the first copies for myself. The church’s hymnbook became my hymnbook.
By Joel A. Hess –
Many people, even those who are remotely familiar with Christianity, know the popular story of Peter walking on the water. Oh sure, Jesus was more successful at this miraculous task, but we are far more excited about Peter’s experiment, right?
By Tim Winterstein –
How do minds change? We tend to assume that if only we can present our opinions in the right way, and if the other person would simply be reasonable, then our rational opinions would surely change their rational minds. Those assumptions lead us to the conclusion that if I present my opinion and the other person doesn’t change his or her mind, then that person must be unreasonable or something worse. Who wouldn’t be willing to change his or her mind when confronted with the excellent and reasonable arguments I present, about which I am already convinced? So, disagreement has become not a sign of a rational, contingent opinion held in good faith, but a sign of a disease or poison that must be eradicated in order for reason and justice to prevail. That’s not a good recipe for civil discussion.
By Cindy Koch –
The invisible wall of generation usually keeps me on my side of the courtyard on Sunday mornings. Right after church, however, the central coffee station is a hustled mixture of young and old. And there the coffee flows, not quite quick enough for some of us. Waiting in line, we pass friendly smiles and sweet “How do you do’s?” But as soon as the divine liquid morning blessing fills our flimsy Styrofoam cup, we part ways back to our usual conversation spot.
By Bob Hiller –
Have you ever heard that one can preach too much Gospel? Have you ever encountered phrases like “cheap grace” or “easy-believe-ism?” Perhaps you’ve heard a preacher wax on about how the Gospel of salvation by grace alone is true, but it is the “milk” for baby Christians. At some point, the sermon goes, we need to move past the baby food (in this case, the Gospel) and get to the solid food of Christian living. An over-emphasis on justification or grace alone waters down the faith and makes it too easy. We need, it is said, to graduate from the elementary teachings of justification and move into the more mature teachings on sanctification.
By Joel A. Hess –
Some time ago I attended a D. James Kennedy Evangelism Explosion training seminar. He’s the one who invented the “if you were to die today, would you go to heaven or hell” evangelism intro question. Nice question, right?
By Paul Koch –
“What must I do to be saved?” asks the young professional who somehow found his way to the pastor’s study after another weekend of regret and shame. There is clearly a lot on this man’s mind, a lot that weighs him down and causes him to stare off into the distance as he gathers his thoughts for his next confession. It might have been any number of hedonistic pursuits that fill him with regret. Then again, it might be a longing for something better, something more permanent and sure. With shaky hands and bloodshot eyes, he asks again, “What must I do to be saved?”
By Ross Engel –
Few things are quite as frustrating as waiting for a response. Whether you’re waiting for a response to an email, a returned phone call, an answer to a question, or a million other things, time sure seems to drag on and on while you wait. And the longer one waits, the more frustrated they get. It’s easy to get impatient.
By Ross Engel –
When tragedy strikes, the thing to do these days is to start a hash tag campaign. It is short, easy to do, and takes no effort or action on the part of the individual. By posting with the right hash tag, everyone else who is using the same hash tag knows that you stand in solidarity with them. Some events even come with their own background pictures that you can use to change your social media profile picture to really show your support. One of the best things about a hash tag campaign is that the folks that don’t know about it or don’t use the hash tag, are an opportunity for the hash tag user to tout some moral superiority, even if they aren’t actually doing what has been hash tagged. Seriously, how many people actually are praying for whatever it is they’ve hash tagged?
By Paul Koch –
Over the past ten years or so of listening to the experts at pastors’ conferences talk in hushed tones about the slow and sure decline of the mainline denominations or speak brashly about intergenerational ministry and our failure to engage the millennials, the common encouragement of their fears and worries has not gone unnoticed. Quite simply, we are reminded over and again that the way things used to work just doesn’t work anymore. If we are to live and thrive, we need to change. We need to adapt and perhaps even mimic the techniques of those we disagree with theologically so that we remain relevant.
By Ross Engel –
This is an exciting week in the lives of the future pastors of the LCMS. Both of our synod’s seminaries hosted their annual call and vicarage placement services. These are anxious moments as fourth-year seminarians patiently wait through an evening Vespers service to find out where they will serve for their first Divine Call. Second-year students get to find out where they will be placed for their one year of vicarage (like a pastoral internship). The running joke has always been that calls and vicarage assignments are determined by the throw of a dart at a map of the USA, but I’ve been told that there is much more to the process.
By Paul Koch –
I love reading John 20:19-31. It is read every single year on the Sunday after Easter in churches around the world, and rightly so. After all, this is the account of our Lord’s appearance to the disciples in the upper room after His resurrection from the dead. This reading contains the tale of doubting Thomas and the longing desire to see and even touch our risen Lord. And most especially, this text answers the question, “now what?” Now that our Lord has suffered and died and risen from the dead, what do we do? Where do we go from here? What is the next step? This is what is presented to us in this incredible text.
By Bob Hiller –
This past week, I was caught off guard by a conversation with one of the dear saints in my congregation. In normal pastoral fashion, I was asking him how our church could pray for him. In a typical response, he asked that I pray for his unbearable arthritis pain. It was just your typical pastoral conversation. But then my friend said something that took me by surprise. After asking for prayers he said, “But you know, I just think about Jesus suffering on the cross, bearing the sins of the whole world for those six hours, and the pain he endured for me. If my Lord can do that for me, I’m sure I can deal with this pain if it is His will.”
