298 All Men are Liars

This is exerpted from one of Pastor Petersen's Nuggets to pastors, All Men are Liars, and this particular section is about the "children's sermon." Our church has one at the traditional service, and yours does too, probably. He provides an angle that I've never thought of--that it takes us out of the uncomfortable presence of God. I'll have to think about that.

"None of us is rational in what we want or like. We often don't even know what the real issues are. For example, consider the so-called "children's sermon." Children's sermons serve an important liturgical role in the congregations that have them: they take people out of the uncomfortable presence of God. The ceremony of the children's sermon is key thing, that is: the parade. It is about watching all the children march up to the front. It is a chance to relax and laugh and enjoy a little show. But they'll never tell you that. They'll tell you that it is about teaching the faith or involving the children. It is a waste of time to argue about whether or not children's sermons teach the faith or involve the children. Those are not the real points. The people that advocate these things don't care about Doctrine and Practice. They'll say they know what they like but they won't admit that what they really like is the parade. And if you don't like the ceremony, then they will take that to mean that you are against children. Emotionalism rules at every corner. One woman crying at the microphone is all it takes to turn a synodical vote. Wading through all of this and guiding them to the higher ground takes wisdom only God can provide. That wisdom always looks like utter foolishness to men. And through it all is the fundamental reality that you are really no different than them. You just have different issues."

Pastor David Petersen is at Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Fort Wayne, IN.

297 The Pope's first encyclical

At a Catholic blog I read that the first encyclical of the new Pope will be presented on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and will evolve around the theme of the Centrality of Jesus Christ for the life and mission of the Church.

I think that's very smart. Put down some basics. Let the folks know what doing church is all about. There are a few Protestant churches who ought to get on board with that idea. Yesterday I received a plan of organization from a church I used to belong to. I'm not sure why since I haven't received any polity notices from them for years, but perhaps they got the newsletter labels (which I still receive) instead of members' labels. Anyway, it said its mission is to nurture its members, seeking ever to bring them more and more to the stature of maturity in Christ, and to be related, as God's instrument, to the problems and the needs of the world. That was sort of the explanation of the "Great Commission."

I don't know about you, but that would have never brought me to faith. Come to think of it, I didn't have any faith in Jesus Christ when I was a member there.

296 Christian Film makers of the Future

Check out Rebelution, a blog site by twin teens interested in film for a very exciting look at film making.

295 A Prayer for The President of the United States, and all in Civil Authority

Sometimes, whether you are a red stater or blue stater, you've got a problem with President Bush. Here's a nice neutral prayer from the Daily Office According to the Book of Common Prayer, 1928.

O Lord, our heavenly Father, the high and mighty Ruler of the universe, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee, with thy favour to behold and bless thy servant THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and all others in authority; and so replenish them with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that they may always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. Endue them plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant them in health and prosperity long to live; and finally, after this life, to attain everlasting joy and felicity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

294 Somebody tell this guy about Jesus!

There's a musician here in Columbus who calls himself "crl + alt + del." He was interviewed for a local paper and said his music is about his "sacred journey". . ."dig deep within my soul, an attempt to exorcise myself of my demons and to find a center and bring back the key that I need to solve the mystery that had become my life."

So what do you find if you reach deep down inside yourself? The BIG YOU!

293 Schedule of Services, UALC, Columbus, Ohio

This is difficult information to find, I think. So if you live in the Columbus area and are looking for a place to worship, or are visiting from out of town, you might try one of the eleven, yes eleven, worship services at Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, six of which are not in Upper Arlington, because we are a multi-campus congregation. All services are in the sanctuary except those listed as Fellowship Hall--this is important, because some are held at the same time. If you're looking for hymns, you probably don't want to wander into the rock-n-roll service, although it could bless you, too. The sermons in the sanctuary of each location are all preached by the same pastor that day, but the pastors rotate. We have four full time ELCA pastors, and several part-time pastors.

At our original location, 2300 Lytham Road, Upper Arlington, Ohio 43220 we have five services:

Sunday morning
8:30 Traditional (there will be some liturgy and hymns you recognize plus a choir)
9:45 Celebration (I call this happy-clappy, or boomer praise service; you may or may not recognize the music, but it has a beat)
11:00 Traditional
11:15 Xalt in Fellowship Hall (casual, rock-n-roll music, gen-x and grannies both like it)
Sunday evening
5:00 p.m. dinner, worship 5:30 Xalt in Fellowship Hall

Sunday School for adults: 9:45
For children: 9:45 and 11:00 (see signage for age group)

At our worship center that opened in 2000 in the Mill Run Shopping Center area, 3500 Mill Run Drive, Hilliard, Ohio 43026 there are five Sunday morning services:

Sunday morning
8:45 Contemporary (happy, clappy, boomer, etc.)
10:00 Contemporary (deaf interpreter available)
11:00 Xalt in Fellowship Hall (casual, rock-n-roll, etc.)
11:15 Contemporary
11:15 Xalt in Fellowship Hall

Sunday school for adults, 10:00 and 11:15 (these are not classes, but large group lecture/discussions)
For children: 10:00 and 11:15 (see signage for age group)

At our Hilltop location--this is an urban church on the west side of Columbus, 12 South Terrace Avenue, Columbus, 43204

Neighborhood breakfast at the church 8:30
Worship 10:00 (blended)
Sunday school for adults and children at 9:15

All the locations have welcome centers where volunteers should be able to direct you to the right room or service. Don't ask me if you see me--if I didn't have the newsletter in front of me, I probably could only direct you to the church libraries, the rest rooms, or the sanctuaries.

ELCA
Columbus, OH
Lutheran
Upper Arlington Lutheran Church
UALC

292 Google's new blog finder

Google has a new feature whereby you can find blogs by the bloggers name, or topic. I tried it with my name and then my name + a topic and found it very easy to use. http://blogsearch.google.com. However, it also makes it easier for the blog spammers to be target specific. These are the "Hi, great blog. Come and visit mine on [your topic]. So I'll have to add the stronger filters to the comments. My topical blogs are all getting hit.

291 New Beth Moore Study

Today I attended my first class in Beth Moore's new study, The Patriarchs; encountering the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'm sorry I'll miss about 4 of the 10 studies because of travel this Fall, but our church library should have discs to check out. I think I've already learned more in one morning than I picked up from 60+ years of Sunday School and sermons.



If you are a member of a church that can't, doesn't or won't hire women pastors, I hope your male leadership continues to stay uninformed about what great female PASTORS we women have via video who go by other names--leader, teacher, speaker--the guys really don't care what they call themselves as long as it isn't "ordained." Never mind that Beth Moore who uses a call and response style plus a lot of humor and emotion could preach most pastors under the pew. And there are others, she's the one on my mind right now because I had class this morning.

In my church, women's aerobic classes taught by women volunteers and VBS organized and taught almost 90% by women volunteers have probably brought more families into church than anything the pastors have done. After the women bring them in, the men have to show a little muscle in order to keep them, but let's keep it a secret. God has been using women for centuries regardless of how the men mess it up. They seem to loose all their drive and faith when they actually get the title and preach from a "real" pulpit.

290 A Modern Lamentation

Jerusalem was under seige by the Babylonians for 18 months. Someone, probably Jeremiah, wrote a Lament in the form of an acrostic poem. Although distraught, the poet still trusts God. Elisson in Atlanta has written a Lamentation for New Orleans at Blog d'Elisson.

The original:
How deserted lies the city, once so full of poeple!
How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.

The rewrite:
O how has the city that was once so populous remained lonely! She has become like a widow! She that was great among the States, a princess among the provinces, has become tributary.

Read the entire selection here.

289 Gender neutral Trinity

ELCA (our synod) is really struggling with what it means to be a human being (male and female He made them) and what it means to be God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Cleveland Plain Dealer today reported on the "progress" of the new hymnal. What these committees really want (all main line churches from Church of the Brethren to Presbyterian Church USA to United Methodist and American Baptist have these diversity committees who are running amuck with the blessings of their liberal leadership) is to blur the line between believer and God. The western version of the eastern religions. It's eastern mysticism all dressed up in "Sunday go to meeting" clothes without the claptrap of reaching down within through meditation--skip Go--and God.

I'm guessing that 95% of Lutherans really don't want gender neutral language--but our "faithful radicals" whose own spiritual lives are moldly and barren, decide these things because the rest of us are too satisfied or complacent and we've let them run off with our churches.

Now God is referred to by a job description, by functionality. How intimate is that? Sort of like Higher Power in the 12-step programs, or "ground of being."

"Holy Eternal Majesty, Holy Incarnate Word, Holy Obiding Spirit" is quite a mouthful if subbing for "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." And don't even THINK about King!

If a woman was abused by her father or boss or husband, she should get counseling, and stop messing up my hymns with a stringful of diversity gibberish. Better yet, she should go to the Father through Jesus the Son and ask for mercy and forgiveness for the men in her life, and for herself for all her bitterness and anger. God doesn't grade on a curve.

Turning up the heat on the frog.

288 'Tis so sweet

My son called on Tuesday to tell me he'd attended a small pentecostal church in his neighborhood. Since leaving the nest in 1987, he's not exactly been a church regular. We call our kids Chreasters--Christmas and Easter Christians. He was on his way to a different church in his area, but saw this one started earlier, so he pulled in the parking lot. He didn't know any of the songs, so he felt awkward, but he apparently did listen carefully to the sermon. He hears and observes better than I do, but isn't much of a reader.

He was a bit discouraged. He wants that "honeymoon with Jesus" feeling back, but heard about all he needed to be doing as a Christian. I was busy getting ready to return to the Lake, and now I wish I'd reminded him that Christianity is not a "do, do, do" faith, but a "done, done, done."

"'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take him at His word,
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know "Thus saith the Lord." "

Update: The pastor sent him a note, so he returned for services today. Still doesn't care much for the music or hand raising, but was able to tell me the sermon. Sounds like the pastor is a live one. He's thinking they really need a bass player (his instrument).

Just checking

Trying out Firefox, so I'm testing the post.

287 Times I enjoy praise songs at worship

Yesterday Tony Gonzaga sang Psalm 27 at our traditional services (8:30 and 11 a.m.). It's times like that I think those attending the "informal" services (the other 8) are really missing out. But I enjoy the informal setting for worship along the lakefront at Lakeside with praise music and the little kids banging on the tambourines. It seems entirely appropriate with the gulls stopping by and the flag blowing in the breeze at the end of the dock.

Another place would be at the Grove City Church of the Nazarene when the bikers are in town. Check out the Road Rules page and scroll down and load some praise music by the GCCN praise musicians--nice. The bikers were in town this week-end--we met a few on 70E, some going a little too fast, on their way to church.

286 Christians in the Creationist Closet

We met in the coffee shop at Lakeside and began chatting because he was reading the book of Romans for a Bible study group. As a retired librarian, I'm always interested in what people are reading, and when he rattled off his current list of titles, fiction and non-fiction, I was very impressed.

Although his core beliefs probably don't surface in his job, he whispered to me that he too was a creationist when it came up during our conversation about books. The evol-bio-fundies would just go bonkers if they knew how many well educated, urban, deep thinkers don't buy into their religion. He's got 30 years in the teachers' retirement system, is part of a main-line denomination, is highly respected in his community and has at least an MS and maybe a PHD (I didn't ask). And like me, he thinks it just doesn't matter on the job except to pass sophomore biology. We confessed to each other that even as young children being taught this in school (and he is a good 15 years younger), we didn't buy it. All we had to do was look around and see the evidence. But even in our childhoods, one wasn't allowed to think outside the evolution box.

Evolutionists are safe from us, however. Creationists can't even agree with each other (as coherent groups) and waste a lot of energy squabbling. I personally believe biology instruction belongs in the church--evolution/creation, sex/abortion, contraception/abstinence, gender and marriage, stem cell research, and end of life issues because these are also theological and moral ideas. We can't entrust these important issues to the education system which seems to have its plate full with reading, writing and arithmetic and bringing poor and disadvantaged children up to the standards all middle-class children are expected to know.

[Most of this entry also appears on my regular blog, Collecting My Thoughts.]

285 Why is Luther Winking?

The Chaplain this week at Lakeside Ohio's Lutheran Chautauqua is Dr. Fred Meuser, formerly the President of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus. I heard him preach on Sunday for church, and twice on Tuesday for Chapel and Vespers. He is really outstanding, and so very personable.

I stopped at the Augsburg table in the back of Hoover Auditorium on Tuesday and purchased a t-shirt with Luther's face on it--winking. I also bought a book I hadn't seen before, "The Lutheran Handbook." (Augsburg-Fortress, 2005)

It tells me "Martin Luther's theology is grounded in paradoxes--sinner/saint, law/gospel, hidden/revealed--and illuminated by a down-to-earth, everyday sense of humor. Thus the winking Luther--our theology doesn't save us, Jesus Christ does.

284 Dying for a verb in Cleveland

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is what I'm reading while we're at Lakeside, rather than the Columbus Dispatch. The names in the obituaries are different--lots of East European and Italian. Either lots of consonants or lots of vowels. Also, I've noticed that no one is taken from the community with a decent verb around here. They either have no verb, or they "pass away." About half are "beloved" husband or wife, or "loving" daughter or mother. Nuns are beloved aunts.

I wrote a poem about verbs used in obituaries.

I read the paper's policy on obituaries and death notices. I see no small print about "arms of Jesus" or "at home with the Lord." You must have to call to find out why in Cleveland you can pass go, but it's tough getting into heaven.

283 Visualcy

"Many centuries after the shift from oral to written culture, we are now well along in the transition to visual culture—where the predominant mode of communication is images rather than words. Just as the shift to writing required the skills we call literacy, so visual culture requires its own skills—for lack of a better word, visualcy."

Our church is UALC, and we have a Visual Arts Ministry, called in short hand, VAM. Now, thanks to Andy Crouch's article on VISUALCY, maybe we can just combine the whole thing.

His article here.

282 "This makes it all worth it"

That was my husband's comment as he came in the door, and handed me this piece of paper, completing his week as a fourth grade Bible School teacher. He said virtually every one of his 16 students came up to thank the teachers today. Yesterday they were chosen to lead the Lord's Prayer in American Sign Language for the entire VBS (his co-teacher interprets for the deaf). Every year he tells me it was his best class. Same for this year.

Thank you note from a fourth grader

Cross posted at Collecting my thoughts.

281 First Day of Vacation Bible School

This is the 12th year my husband has taught Bible School, and he was uncharacteristically frantic this week-end. The meeting for the teachers wasn't until the 18th when they received their teaching material, room assignments and found out who their co-teachers were. His room is one of those with a movable wall, so he had to go back on Sunday, remove all the chairs, and put his wall in place to put up displays. He's got 17 kids in his class, more girls than boys, which will make it easier.

But what drove him wacko was the material. I won't tell you the publisher, just in case you're using the same company. Usually our church writes and publishes its own stuff because we have about 3,000 kids enrolled, and purchasing that is just too overwhelming. But this year they found a company doing the same African theme UALC was going to offer. After listening to him moan about this several times (he is the world's most patient person), I finally took a look. I started with the title page, inspected the publication information, read the table of contents, and skipped all the introductory stuff. Each lesson was divided into four sections, but section one had two options, and then it seemed to be organized like spilled beans on a slippery floor. After reading through two pages, I handed it back, apologized, and admitted I was clueless. Truly, it appeared to have been developed by someone with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. After his third try of barricading himself in his office and outlining the lesson, he announced victory: lesson one completed. His co-teacher will do Tuesday.

On a happier note (or maybe not), this morning I was playing the DVD of George Barna lecturing on the importance of Children's Ministry. It is part of Church Communication Network, February 2005 CCN Broadcasts. This is from our church library which has a subscription. The title of the disk is "Becoming a church that transforms children into spiritual champions." He's convinced me that ministry to children needs to be the church's first priority. He says, moral foundations are set by age 9, and by age 12 children have made their faith choices. "Ministry to adults is essentially a maintenance ministry." The real changes happen to children.

VBS Photo Gallery, 2004

280 Today she would use Google

Julie has an interesting 5 part faith story at her Blog, sotto sotto.

"One statement stopped me in my tracks though -- the assertion that Catholics believe that the Sacraments are necessary for salvation. I stopped and thought, "Crap. Do I believe that?" I wasn't sure what the answer was, and it scared me a little. But I headed to the library.

Miraculously, I found a book to start with -- an examination of the documents of the Council of Trent. (The fact that the book still felt and smelled new after decades in the library was amusing but not surprising.) I was afraid of reading something that I didn't agree with, but in faith I started to dig in. And I am so glad that I did, because the study I did that day gave me a new measure of confidence in my call to the Church. I didn't just accept the teaching....I embraced it. And I could defend it too."

This part (about the value of a library and a good book when you have questions of faith) is found in the 5th part of total story.

Gerald didn't use the library, but did go to the movies to see The Passion:

"First I found a home and patriotism in this blessed land, then I found a home and patriotism in the Kingdom of God. I think that the Holy Spirit, God’s amazing grace (always a song in my mind, from early on in my life) moved me to move here. I don’t think I would have found God in Europe. Of course God was never lost, I was, so actually He found me, just in the nick of time." The Cafeteria is Closed