I have to go to the dentist. Well, I don’t “have to” but I should. And I finally made an appointment. Insurance checks out. All of that. And I’m going to be vulnerable with you all and tell you, it’s been a while. Like, a long while. I have visions of being yelled at by…
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Church Blog (Page 25)
Just the other day, my wife, Liz, made a cross-like structure out of some robot-shaped building blocks while playing with my girls. Tempest, my two-year old theologian, responded to Liz’s cross with these words: “You made a cross, Momma! Good job! Now somebody can die.” Liz posted a picture of the cross and Tempest’s words…
Hearts, hands with thumbs up, stars…it’s a “magically delicious” mix of dopamine inducing social media “Lucky Charms“. However, we’re finding that all of those arbitrary likes and loves and follows that we get on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc are maybe about as good for us as Lucky Charms cereal are for diabetics.…
Recently I have been having a lot of conversations about guilt – my own and other peoples’. Much of the time, I find that we wrap guilt and shame up in the same basket. The dictionary definition of guilt is “the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime.” Guilt is a…
I campus ministry for Kyle and Adam, two of our students who became pastors after (perhaps despite) their time here at University Lutheran. I campus ministry for Sherri and Andrew, who are working in the crazy fields of art and entrepreneurship in New York City while being integral part of their local church. I campus…
After last week’s “Question of the Week” about remembering the readings from Sunday, Liz and I got into a conversation. Liz is often a great asset to me in “church cultural” issues since she didn’t grow up in the Lutheran tribe. Her views are generally valid and helpful by themselves, but often even more so…
One of the things that we used to do here at University Lutheran is produce a resource called “Living the Lectionary”. The idea was that it was to be a devotional/discipleship guide that members could bring home with them and use throughout the week as they considered the readings from that Sunday. After a while…
Every Sunday morning here at University Lutheran, we use four readings. One from the Old Testament (but not the Psalms), one from the Psalms, one from a New Testament letter, and one from a Gospel. All of those readings should usually form a cohesive theme, for example, last Sunday’s readings were mostly about talking to…
This week PJ is off at the LCMS National Convention. Which begs the question, what on earth is a convention? Convention is a triennial business meeting of delegates from the different circuits of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. These delegates attend to examine, discuss, and vote on both the elected officials of the Synod as…
We’re starting a new newsletter series that we will call “Connecting the Dots,” all about the readings that we experience on a Sunday morning. Normally speaking here at University Lutheran we hear 4 specific readings every Sunday: The First Reading – Normally the Old Testament, although in Easter this reading comes from the Book of…