HT Cozy Reader

God's economy

This probably isn't that. Our church (UALC) after a lot of prayer bought a big chunk of land in a developing, but undeveloped area, of northwest Columbus called Mill Run. We had multiple services on Sunday at our Upper Arlington Lytham Road location (6 I think), the parking lots were crowded, supposedly the experts told us that visitors stop coming when you are 3/4 full on a Sunday, so the solution seemed to be to move further away from our 40 year old suburban location which couldn't expand. The almost 32 acres cost $2.5 million. We were sold the idea of having two campuses--but one church, and that's what we voted for--then. Every step of the way was covered in prayer and endless meetings. We even had outdoor services on the empty land, sitting on blankets and lawn chairs trying to visualize God's plan. We occupied the new building on New Year's Eve 2000 with a mortgage of $11 million, and it was virtually filled from the first day.

There has been some refinancing along the way, and other evangelical churches have been growing in the meanwhile which cuts into our "customer" base. Also, the new building has been a huge draw for young families, who love the music and programming for kids, but . . . support? During the boom times they had so many obligations, new homes, cars, vacations, etc., and now in lean times, things are just tough and some have lost their jobs. We had a huge fund raising effort to prepay the morgage about 3 years ago bringing it from $7.8 million to $1.6 million currently. We added a third campus in a well maintained urban church in a declining neighborhood which provided service opportunities--after a lot of prayer for direction. But that multi-campus, one church, idea? That has recently been abandoned, and increasingly we are moving to separate "communities." And the "extra" land--that's a problem, too. Now we are being asked to consider selling the remaining undeveloped 16 acres (which considerably enhances the park, condos and nursing home neighbors just by being pristine, semi-wooded and undeveloped).

I'm sure I'm not the only one asking this question: Who and where is the God who told us to buy the land in 1991 and 1992? Were the church leaders mistaken then? Are they mistaken now? Who is the God we prayed to during the Jublilee in 2006? The God we were praising when the people responded and so much of the debt was retired. And as an afterthought. Where are the investors who want this land when so many stores are empty in the shopping center next door?

This I know about God, for sure. He's not creating any more land for us to take care of.

These things (Acts 5:32)

"The Church does not exist to entertain the masses. She is unequal to competitition with the theater. The Church does not exist to educate the masses; she must be interested in education, but this is not her supreme vocation. The Church exists to witness to "these things," the risen Christ, the crucified Christ, the enthroned Christ, the living and working Christ. The world does not want the Church. The Church cannot save the world. The world wants the things that the Church testifies of."

G. Campbell Morgan, Westminster Pulpit, v. 2, Ch. 21, p. 173 "Witnesses."

Do you know your gifts?

This Barna Update on Christians who understand or know their gifts is interesting. Our church a few years back used the Network program by Bruce Bugbee. I scored high in Wisdom and Prophecy and Administration (really didn't understand that one, but suspect is the librarian thing since that's what I did for a career). This part of the Barna Update was interesting:

The survey also found that many people who say they have heard of spiritual gifts were not necessarily describing the same gifts outlined in the Bible. Among the gifts claimed that are not among those deemed to be spiritual gifts in the passages of scripture that teach about gifts (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:7-13, 1 Peter 4:10-11) were a sense of humor, singing, health, life, happiness, patience, a job, a house, compromise, premonition, creativity, and clairvoyance.

In total, one-fifth of all the gifts cited by respondents (21%) were attributes that do not fit the biblical lists of gifts given by God.

Televangelism empire in financial trouble

Story at One News Now.

Once one of the nation's most popular televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller is watching his life's work crumble.

His son and recent successor, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, has abruptly resigned as senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. The shimmering, glass-walled megachurch is home to the "Hour of Power" broadcast, an evangelism staple that's been on the air for more than three decades.

The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million worth of its Orange County property to pay off debt. Revenue dropped by nearly $5 million last year, according to a recent letter from the elder Schuller to elite donors. In the letter, Schuller Sr. implored the Eagle's Club members - who supply 30 percent of the church's revenue - for donations and hinted that the show might go off the air without their support.

"The final months of 2008 were devastating for our ministry," the 82-year-old pastor wrote. Link.

Churches need to be built on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Not the personality of the pastor.

Story from OC Register on ouster of Schuller's son in October.

When editing scripture makes no sense

If you read the passage 1 John 4:9-12, the passage makes perfect sense, because it is the Gospel

9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

However, if you leave out verses 9-10, the cross and the atonement, then 11-12 (edited down) don't mean a lot. There's no clue in the edited version about what God did to show his love (so loved us). Here's how this passage appears in a parent newsletter from our church

"Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other . . . If we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us."

By clipping and editing, the writers of the newsletter have turned this passage on its head, putting a works spin on it, the exact opposite of its meaning. Essentially they say, anyone without Jesus is OK with God, just as long as they are loving. But is that what this passage says?

This isn't a children's newsletter, it is a parents' newsletter. Parents bringing their children to a Christian church should be able to cope with what Paul calls "the stumbling block of the cross," or "the scandal of the cross," or "the offense of the cross." (Galatians 5:11). The cross is the center of the Christian religion. It was offensive and absurd to the Jews Paul was referring to, and unfortunately, many who go by the name of Christian today still find it offensive, or at least try to hide it in the closet, lest someone else find it so. Jesus didn't go to the cross because he was a great moral teacher or led protests against the Roman government or tried to free slaves or instituted a local healing program for his followers. It was because of our sin, and this was God's solution for it.

The name and source of the newsletter is theParentLink, from Erie Christian Fellowship in Erie, PA

Good Sam, the snowman

The street was clear; the side walk slope into the church was clear. But the snow and ice had settled in the trough where street, curb and side walk meet. As I left the Lytham Road parking lot after church I heard the scrape-crunch of shovel against concrete. A man had pulled up, turned on his flashers, opened the trunk and pulled out a shovel. He cleared that dangerous spot, then put the shovel back in his van, and drove off. Maybe he was a member of the church; maybe a passer-by who stopped to help.

The link to sermons

Here's the link to the sermons by week preached at UALC. I don't visit the website frequently, and don't find it intuitive, so I'm providing the link. You can listen or download. It's not each sermon--some services have the same speaker/topic more than once, so if there are 2 X-alt or 2 traditional, you'll find just one recording. Also the list now includes Preacher's Notebook, which is the preparation for the sermon, not Sunday School. I think it really helps focus on what is heard on Sunday (I attend on Thursday, so I have some time to think about it.

A Lutheran pastor in Iraq

"We as Christians do not need to water down or make more manageable the one true faith of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which we proclaim and confess. As we confess this faith clearly and confess this faith often, the Holy Spirit will use that means of salvation, the properly preached Word and the rightly administered Sacraments, to do his miraculous work on the hearts of the hearers. This is not abstract theologizing; it becomes concrete when we faithfully put it into practice. An example is to be found in this region of Iraq, which used to be known as Assyria.

Ever since Christianity arrived here in the second century AD, the Church has had a presence, in spite of the many and tumultuous power struggles over this piece of land. In recent decades, there has been an increase of violence here against our fellow saints in Christ. Their churches have been bombed and vandalized; their lives have been threatened and even taken from them, yet they have not stopped gathering for the Supper. Neither have they ceased in their outreach to their neighbors by word and deed.

So markedly different is their existence from ours that it bears investigation. These men and women do not concern themselves with proving their right to exist, nor with proving the success of their message. Instead, they concern themselves with matters far more profound: gathering as a body of Christ in a world that despises such gatherings and faithfully reaching out in word and deed to their pagan neighbors. Here’s an evangelism program that has its roots in the Early Church, by word and action proclaiming, in a hostile environment, Christ crucified. Here they are concerned only with fidelity to the One who has called them by the Gospel, enlightened them with his gifts, sanctified and kept them in the one true faith. Whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying for these brothers and sisters in the faith, for the kingdom of God has come and is still coming in the midst of the upheaval in the Iraqi nation—as surely as it is coming in our less turbulent locales! How comforting for us and for them to know the timelessness of this message and its efficacious power, the blessed hope of the resurrection!" Preaching to the troops, Mark Nuckols, senior pastor, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas (U.S. Army Reserve brigade chaplain, deployed to northern Iraq from October 2004 to October 2005)

Bill Mackenbach

Bill Mackenbach and I were in the nursing home ministry together at our church and recently he has been in a nursing home himself. This morning my husband found out at church that he died last night while in prayer with our senior pastor. What an exit for the Lord's servant! He truly was a man of God. I got to know him first in the Stephen's Ministry (something the church had back in the 80s) when I was visiting a wife, and he the husband; also their 3 children were about the same ages as ours, so we felt a bond there too. He was one of the most jolly, loving, funny guys I've ever had the pleasure to know. There will be laughter in heaven today!

Update from Daily Standard: He was born Jan. 25, 1935, in St. Marys, to Fred J. and Mabel Tangeman Mackenbach. He was married for over 51 years to Gretchen Larsh, who survives.

Other survivors are two sons, J. Eric (Kari Ann) and Kenneth Judd, all of Columbus; a daughter, Lara Ann Mackenbach (Jeffrey Raymond) Froling, Columbus; a brother, Frederick William, Palos Verdes, Calif.; two brothers-in-law, Stephen (June) Larsh, and David (Janis) Larsh; a sister-in-law, Sandra Larsh; and two grandchildren.
He was founder/owner of Mackenbach & Associates, Upper Arlington, for over 38 years, a member of Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, and its Alpha program and Bible study group, the Columbus Alzheimer's Association Board and several other professional organizations. He was a 1953 graduate of St. Marys Memorial High School and a 1957 graduate of the Ohio State University, Columbus, and its Delta Tau Delta fraternity and O.S.U. President's Club. He recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the fraternity for his commitment of excellence to the organization.
Celebration of Life services are 3 p.m. Saturday at the church, the Rev. Paul Ulring officiating. Private burial is at a later date.

Contributions can be made to the Memorial Fund of the church or the ALS Association (Lou Gehrig's disease).

The next mission field--Europe

School closings with a bit of Lutheran history

While watching the screen crawl for school closings today (4 below zero in Columbus, wind chill much lower, minus 25), I noticed Beautiful Savior Lutheran School. I don't have school age kids, but our exercise class doesn't meet when UA schools are closed. So I plugged into their website, but was disappointed to see it is in Cincinnati, not Columbus. I also noticed the church was Evangelical Lutheran Church, not Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Not being up on my Lutheran synods (although a member since 1976), I did a brief google search, and found:

The Evangelical Lutheran Church or ELC was formed in 1917 as the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA). The NLCA was formed by merger of the Hauge Synod (est. 1876), the Norwegian Synod (est. 1853), and the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (est. 1890). The Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church, commonly called the Norwegian Synod, was founded in February 1853 in Iowa. ...
The NLCA changed its name to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC) in 1946. In 1960, the ELC joined with other Lutheran churches to form the now-defunct American Lutheran Church. This coalescence of Lutheran churches continued into recent times, with the ALC joining others to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1988. American Lutheran Church logo The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was a Christian Protestant denomination in the United States that existed from 1960 to 1987. ...

So, technically they are part of the same synod as my church, UALC, part of the ELCA, but I'm guessing they are more conservative. Any thoughts from anyone who know the history better than I?

Kenyan priest serves American congregation

This is a real heart warmer! Don't miss the story about The Rev. Chrispin Oneko who was so inspired by the American missionary who came to his village when he was a child, that he became a priest, first in Kenya, then Jamaica, and eventually Kentucky. Link.

"We are approaching the end of another year. Jesus has walked with us during 2008. He has been present together with the Father and the Spirit in the Holy Scriptures and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He has heard our prayers and carried us throughout the year. Now, as the old year ends and a new one nears, we, too, pray, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” The future is unknown, but with Jesus by our side, we are safe and secure." From Portals of Prayer, selection for Dec. 30, 2008.

One more week to see the Blue Shoes Art Show

If you'll be attending the New Year's Eve Jazz Service at Mill Run on December 31, walk up to the second floor gallery area and enjoy the Fairfield Blue Shoes MRDD exhibit, hosted by the Visual Arts Ministry of UALC and promoted by Cheryl Fey, art director with Blue Shoe Arts, who said the self-taught artists receive all the money their art brings in, minus the cost of their supplies. These are some of the most delightful, colorful paintings we've ever exhibited. We fell in love with the first one, Noah's Ark--notice the animals are sea sick. I would have never thought of that! The second photo shows some wonderful butterflies--want to guess what their bodies are made of? Salt shaker caps. The third one has almost perfect perspective and is an orchestra. There are so many things to see in this painting you could look at it for hours. Click to enlarge.





Reminder: The Mill Run Campus is now closed on Friday and Saturday to save energy costs. So if you want to see the show, check it out on Thursday, or on Sunday if you attend services there.

Merry Christmas

We had several Christmas Eve services last night then one today at 10 a.m. at Lytham Road (traditional worship, 1960s style architecture). I heard the family behind me whispering:

"This smells like a church. I like it when a church has pews."

For all the pews
who from their labors rest
In oak and walnut we formerly confessed
Your name O Jesus
be forever, blest,
Alleluia, Alleluia!

We are waiting

The following is taken from The Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century, Penguin Classics, 1993. It is written by Guerric of Igny.

We are waiting now for the anniversary day of Christ's birth, which we shall shortly see, God willing, Scripture requires, it seems to me, that our spirit should be so lifted up and transported with joy that it longs to run towards the approaching Christ; and, projecting itself into the future, it chafes at delays as it strains to see what is yet to come. I think myself that the many passages in Scripture exhorting us to hasten towards him refer not only to the second coming but also to the first. How so? Because just as, at his second coming, we shall run towards him with physical energy and joy, so do we hasten to Bethlehem with jubilant heart and spirit. You know that at the resurrection, having put on new bodies, according to the Apostle's teaching we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall be with the Lord for ever. But even here there is no lack of clouds that will carry our spirits to high things, and then we shall be with the Lord if only for half an hour. . . this coming of the Lord to the individual soul is frequent in this middle time between his first and final comings, conforming us to the first and preparing us for the last. (from "The second sermon for Advent," p. 129-133 of Penguin edition)

O Key of David

O key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and none can shut; you shut and none can open: come and free the captives from prison, and break down the walls of death. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

O Lord of Light, Who Made the Stars

Final verse, which I jotted down in church Sunday

To God the Father and the Son
And Holy Spirit, Three in One.
Praise, honor, might, and glory be
From age to age eternally.

Latin hymn c. 9th century

In Latin, from Godzdogz

Conditor alme siderum,
aeterna lux credentium,
Christe, redemptor omnium,
exaudi preces supplicum.

Qui condolens interitu
mortis perire saeculum,
salvasti mundum languidum,
donans reis remedium.

Vergente mundi vespere,
uti sponsus de thalamo,
egressus honestissima
Virginis matris clausula.

Cuius forti potentiae
genu curvantur omnia;
caelestia, terrestria
nutu fatentur subdita.

Te, deprecamur hagie,
venture iudex saeculi,
conserva nos in tempore
hostis a telo perfidi.

Laus, honor, virtus, gloria,
Deo Patri et Filio
Sancto simul Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula. Amen.

This is a difficult quiz!

But try it anyway. If you are LCMS you'll probably do better than I did.

You are 80% Lutheran! This is most certainly true.

 

Not a perfect score. What does this mean? You have room for growth in understanding Lutheran terminology and culture. Good thing Salvation is by Grace and not by merit. We can add nothing to what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. But it never hurts to learn a little more about the church on earth. Thanks for taking the quiz!

How Lutheran Are You?
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