Christians call home NOW

Today I was poking around in Internet Archive (digitized media of all type) and just plugged in "Christian" and visual media, and got about 500 hits. For "Islam" and media I got over 8,000. This is media of any kind--from old missionary movies to modern alternative rock concerts by Christians with a message, to audio of sermons from the 60s. Unfortunately, the one I pulled up (among the Christian group) was a very overweight, blond preacher in orange shorts, brown t-shirt, navy bandana around his forehead, wandering around a stage. I won't even give you his name--he should be ashamed. His appearance was so distracting, I didn't stick around to hear the message, could've been a put-on, put-down of Christianity--but from the whoops and hollars from the audience, the "kids" loved it. In the Islam section I found a very nicely done film on God and creation--the Koranic view combined with current science. Flipping through the thumb-nails in the Islam section, I'd say they are serious. I don't know how many techies my church employs, but there are a lot of them, plus volunteers. Someone needs to begin uploading our sermons and Sunday school instruction.

I often wonder how Paul did it. 20,000 miles and 38 years. He managed to convert people FROM their pagan culture to the Christian faith, without partaking in the orgies, pagan worship, lasciviousness, the art, the music or the philosophy which in the Roman world must have been overpowering. Except for one who said,

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Cor. 2:2

This is not a call to have more babies

It's too late for that. It's a call to evangelize the Muslim

Now we know, don't we?

On January 22, the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama issued a statement: "While [abortion] is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make."

Uh, you mean like in the 1850s the pro-slavery politicians and the white abolitionists could have said, "we are united in our determination to reduce slavery, but we support owners in their choices. . ."

or in the 1950s the civil rights supporters and Klan could have said, "we are united in our desire to reduce lynchings."

We got what 51% of the voters requested--the most pro-abortion politician ever in the United States. Did you help?

Still blogging about the Holy Land

At my regular blog I'm up to about Thursday, March 12, on our Holy Land Cruise. I did such a poor job of completing our Italy trip of 2008 account, I swore I'd do a better job with this one, but the further away we get, the harder it is to remember what we were doing. We have all our photos, but after awhile the stones and churches and mosaics start to look alike.

With Rod and Judi on the MV Cristal. We're in a couples group together at UALC.

We’re praying for Fargo

Our youngest associate pastor, Eric Waters, announced at Thursday night Bible Study that he’d appreciate our prayers for Fargo, where he formerly was the pastor of the First Lutheran church. He and his wife just had their 5th child, Jonathon, so he was a bit sleep deprived, but smiling. According to the AP report, the people of Fargo went to church today and then went back to creating sandbags for dikes.

Weary residents of this sandbagged city came together in churches Sunday, counting their blessings that the Red River finally stopped rising and praying the levees would hold back its wrath. A brief levee break that swamped a school provided a warning of the kind of threat that still hangs over them in the days ahead.

Church services that are a staple of life on Sunday mornings in Fargo took on greater significance as people gathered after a week of round-the clock sandbagging. They sang hymns and held hands, asking together for divine help in avoiding disaster.

"Pastor Eric Waters was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. After coming to faith at Dartmouth College, he attended Yale Divinity School and graduated in 1999. Waters has served parishes in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, and Fargo, North Dakota, and is currently Associate Pastor at Upper Arlington Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio. He received his Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Preaching from Luther Seminary in 2008." from WorkingPreacher.org

Lutherans baffled by God's plans for sex?

I've read through the press release of the Task Force and am clueless. But if this is any evidence, it's time for all believing Lutheran churches to leave ELCA when approving gay sex becomes a matter of loving and respecting your neighbor as God commands. We don't get to vote on the sanctity, purpose or mission of marriage--that was settled a few thousands years ago.

ELCA NEWS SERVICE, March 20, 2009

Lutheran Theologians Respond to ELCA Task Force Documents 09-069-MRC

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Three theologians of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) responded unfavorably to content in two documents released by the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality.

The task force released Feb. 19 a proposed social statement on human sexuality and a report recommending a process to consider changes to ministry policies that could make it possible for Lutherans in committed same-gender relationships to serve as
ELCA associates in ministry, deaconesses, diaconal ministers and ordained ministers. Recommendations for both documents will be considered at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the church's chief legislative body, Aug. 17-23 in Minneapolis.

According to the Rev. Carl E. Braaten, the ELCA is at a crossroads. Braaten, Sun City West, Ariz., is co-founder and director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He's also professor emeritus of systematic theology, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, one of eight ELCA seminaries.

The social statement "professes not to know the difference between right and wrong on crucial matters of human sexuality," he said. The task force has made "a proposal to the church that takes one side of a controversial issue on which it does not expect that a consensus will emerge soon or ever."

If the ELCA assembly is to adopt the social statement and approve the task force's recommendation, Braaten said, "That would constitute a radical departure from the overwhelming consensus that has prevailed in historic Christianity through 20 centuries." He said many pastors and congregations will choose not to leave the ELCA but "remain and protest as a confessing movement."

According to Dr. Robert D. Benne, the social statement avoids making "normative judgments about homosexual conduct by neglecting the testimony of the Bible and the Christian moral tradition on that issue." Benne is professor emeritus and director of the Center for Religion and Society, Roanoke College, Salem, Va. Roanoke is one of 28 colleges and universities of the ELCA.

"I believe it is incontestable that the Scriptures and the moral teaching of the Christian church throughout the ages -- and presently that of the ecumenical church -- proscribe homosexual relations of any sort," Benne said.

"I am not satisfied with appeals to sincerity and tolerance, especially since I think Christian teaching is clear. And I am certainly not satisfied with those appeals when the recommendations of the task force lead to no teachings at all on the subject, but yet lead to sharp changes in practice," he said.

"There definitely is a sense in which we can live with our differences when it comes to public policy," Benne said. "But the sexuality issues under discussion have to do with the teaching and practice of the church. They strike much closer to the core of Christian life and teaching -- what does it mean to love the neighbor in sexual matters?"

The Rev. Paul R. Hinlicky, Roanoke's Tice Professor in Lutheran Studies, said he's contemplating a "divorce." "Not from my wife of 35 years, but from my denomination." He wrote for The Lutheran Forum that the ELCA "has come up with a different plan for a new future," putting "our covenant itself to a vote in
August."

"The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman," said Hinlicky. But they appear in the proposed social statement "as memories of the way we used to be." He noted that some in the larger Christian community conclude that marriage is "also the appropriate term to use in describing similar benefits, protection, and support same-gender couples entering into lifelong monogamous relationships."

"The real voice of the people of God across the world and through the ages seems to matter not at all," said Hinlicky, "any more than Holy Scripture as parsed by the Lutheran Confessions. Surely, this church's congregations, if given an honest and secret ballot would overwhelmingly reject the manipulation of language and meaning involved in calling marriage anything other than that relation in Scripture and Confession."
- - -

The task force's report and recommendation on ministry policies and social statement are available at http://www.ELCA.org/faithfuljourney on the ELCA Web site.

Robert Benne's comments are available at
http://tinyurl.com/cjtxwu

Carl Braaten's comments are at
http://tinyurl.com/d22hg8

My criticisms included the following assertions:
1) it confused law and gospel;
2) it reversed the order of creation and redemption;
3) it wrongly represented Lutheran ethics of sex as deriving from Christology and the doctrine of justification;
4) it was antinomian;
5) it did not deal with the Law of God and the Ten Commandments;
6) it did not exegete the biblical passages that deal with sexuality, and in particular homosexuality;
7) it avoided the use of the proper name of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
8) it drew only upon Lutheran sources, displaying a sectarian attitude that ignores the teachings of the Great Tradition;
9) it disregarded the Lutheran view of homosexual acts as sinful.
10) I ended my critique by saying that the social statement of the Task Force is “not only deeply flawed from a Lutheran theological perspective, it is also so poorly written that I believe there is very little in it to salvage.”

Paul Hinlicky's comments are at
http://tinyurl.com/cz4jar
on the Internet.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog

People Magazine in Haiti

My husband recently returned from a short term mission trip in Haiti. The poverty and lack of infrastructure are astounding--no electricity, no running water, no police force, no garbage control or pick up, but because this was his third trip, it's not as shocking as the first time. Mid-week he picked up a People Magazine one of the members of the team had brought along. It's not a magazine we read--he sees it occasionally at the doctor or dentist office. He said he started to leaf through it, then in disgust put it down. What a terrible depiction of our culture--the mindless consumerism, the groveling over entertainers, the glorification of unmarried motherhood. Whose culture is poor?

To read about Haitian culture, see our Pam Mann's Creole Crusts, Lenten Devotions. At the UALC website. You can download it or pick a copy up at any of the church locations. Imagine having your personal items stolen, and then confronting the thief when you see her wearing your clothes, only to be told you should be thankful not more was taken! As a Christian, just where is your treasure?

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.